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Keeping it "Old School"

I've recently had a major change of direction in my builds. I've turned away from the shiny graphics and modern electronics, and I've headed back to the roots of Cigar Box instruments. I'm talking Vintage Antique boxes. Example; my latest build, a Vintage Harvester Ukulele. Starting with a depression era, "NRA Stamp" box, and a hand carved set neck. No Electronics, just simple old fashioned acoustic sweetness.

I've just about given up on through neck builds. A through the box neck occupies too much real estate in the acoustic chamber. I seek out particular boxes, ones that from experience hold the best acoustic qualities. I then internally brace the corners, neck block, and sound board. This process almost doubles the volume of the box compared to having a neck running through the middle.

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Comment by Derek Rose on June 4, 2017 at 11:09am: Great looking uke and nice write-up. I always like your builds.

Comment by Moritz Voegeli on May 31, 2017 at 8:13am: I agree with your statement «a through the box neck occupies too much real estate in the acoustic chamber», it goes along with my experiments with five cbgs built from the same cedar plywood partagas boxes with different neck arrangements: the fullest sound I got with the neck on top of the box with a small gap between neck and soundboard.

Then I got a very flat real cedar box where the neck through the box fills about 25% of the sound chamber, and this is the best sounding cbg I've built till now...

From further experiments with my test partagas boxes I believe it's best to let the soundboard untouched and drill the sound holes on the side of the box, and in case of a magnetic pickup it's best to mount it on the neck and not on the soundboard.

Comment by Kigar on May 30, 2017 at 1:24pm: Thanks G.S., sounds especially good for those old boxes.

Comment by G.S. Monroe on May 30, 2017 at 12:28am: Kigar, the bracing, particularly in the corners are a necessity in these vintage boxes. In many cases the original glue joints are brittle with age. The bracing I do is similar to adding perfing to the inside of guitars to strengthen the joints.And, yes I do this as needed with full scale CBG's, such as the one Shane Speal has.

Comment by Kigar on May 29, 2017 at 2:59pm: Cool uke! I found you really don't need much bracing at all for a uke besides a piece of wood behind the neck. Do you do a full scale cbg the same way you describe?