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can anyone tell me where those small screws for retaining tuning pegs go?do they have a meeting place,say like loose screw nation?are they at your place visiting your machinehead retaining screws?if they are could you send them home?at least 3 of the goldy looking ones anyway,thx
Hello Sadness Better sounding recording than I usually have. It's 3 tracks of 3 string acoustic blues.
Has anybody out there ever used flats strings on a cbg? if so.. how does it sound and would you play them more than normal conventional strings..anybody??? :)
Mr.Melo
Sad Bastard Music Did This Album on an acoustic guitar strung up as a 3 stringer
Hey all,
Its been a long journey, but I recently finished my first CBG Build (Name: BOOMSTICK) Sorry about pic quality, taken with phone.
Went with a partial neck-through design on a 20th anniversary Perdomo Cigar Box.
Neck is built with dark walnut. Decorative piece of cedar in the head stock. Tru-oil finish
Heel is ply'd walnut and poplar.
Fretboard is black palm. Decorative piece of poplar on box-side. Rubbed with lemon oil, otherwise no finish.
Top of the original box was smashed with a hammer, build a new top with walnut borders and lauan 5mm ply. Box/top finished with rub-on poly.
Cover art: Ash (played by the amazing Bruce Campbell) from the movie Army of Darkness (if you have not seen, go see now)
Has the Disc-O-Tone Pickup with Volume pot sold by CB Gitty - placed it just under the bass side of bridge with doublesided foam tape it comes with. Incredible sound and volume control when plugged into amp. If you are new to building and new to pickups with no soldering experience, buy it, install it, love it.
Bridge is the pre-made zebrawood one sold by CB Gitty - a christmas indulgence, very happy with the product, nice look when finished. Bone Nut also from CB Gitty.
Used the Shane Speal signature tuners which I am very happy with, these are another excellent deal from CB Gitty - no-brainer for my future builds. Although if you order, know that this arrangement is 2 left 1 right (I thought was opposite).
Had a whole bunch of hiccups in building this things. Literally smashed the original box top with hammer trying to force the sound hole grommets. My first neck warped after bringing it in from my cold garage - planed this down with my jointer and currently going into my 2nd build (fretless).
All the decorative hardware, grommets, ferrules and corner pieces were bought from CB Gitty.
Hinges and pull-latches bought at Home depot.
Thanks for all the comments on the pics I posted last week.
Thanks to CB Gitty, these guys are great, spend your money here. Very good products, reasonably priced stuff, come quickly.
A special thanks to the members of Cigar Box Nation without whom I never would have been able to build this thing. Special shout-out to Ron "Oily" Sprague, Chickenbone John for their prompt and helpful responses and to Dan Sleep for his videos.
Been playing it constantly and am amazed at how great this thing sounds acoustically. Seriously growls through the amplifier. I simply can not put it down. Of all the things I've ever built, I am the most proud of this. All of my six strings are now collecting dust.
Last thing to do is find a cool Volume Pot Knob to fit the theme, any ideas for this are welcome.
Thanks again all,
BC
My second build - "Wicker Man"
So this is my 2nd build, but neck is a fixed mistake from my first build. Glued up the fret board to the neck and brought from cold garage to my warm (more humid) basement to finish and it really bowed. Thanks to some advice from Chicken Bone John I planed it down and made it fretless. Partial through neck design, all screwed, not glued. 24.5 inch scale length.
Fretboard: Purpleheart with wood inlays for fret markers. The wood for the fret markers I used was from the liner I pulled out of the cigar box. Not sure of the wood species, perhaps an expert can identify? Spanish cedar, I'm thinking. The part of the fret board closest to the box is a decorative piece of poplar with dark wood filler for the fret markers. The reason for this "signature" to both of my builds is because I am able to buy these perfect exotic wood blanks 1/4"x1.5" at the local Woodcraft store for like $3-4, but they are only 16 inches.
Neck: Dark Walnut with decorative piece of pine in the headstock. Bamboo inlays for fret markers on the side. Bone Nut Blank and Shane Speal Signature Tuners from CB Gitty. Again, I am blown away by the quality of this tuner for the price.
Heel: Shaped from a left over scrap of Alder.
Box: PG Symphony Cigar Box. Still with original clasps and hinges. Sanded off the label/writing from the lid. Artwork on the lid is...
(A) Random doodling and the covering up of mistakes by a first time wood burning pen user
(B) The dark inner workings of a warped and twisted subconscious.
(C) All of the above.
In the end, the design made me think of a pagan symbol you might see in that old cult horror movie "The Wicker Man", hence the name of the guitar.
String Ferrules and decorative corner hardware from CB Gitty.
Bridge: Shaped from scrap piece of walnut, inset with some fret wire, grooved out.
Electronics: Tried my hand at wiring up my own pickup, so I wired/Soldered 2 piezo disks in a parallel circuit. Built a pair of small hallowed out hardwood "baths" about 1/4 inch deep and glued them inside the box, one under each end of the bridge area. Filled them with hot glue and put in the disks. Thanks to Bill Ludeman and one of the best written guides I've ever seen on the internet:
http://www.cigarboxnation.com/profiles/blogs/how-i-do-a-simple-piez...
I put the CB Gitty pre-wired Disco-O-Tone piezo pickup in my first build, and I have to say that I like the sound on technique more. Much cleaner, crisper, louder with great bass. This likely has to do with the fact that mine has two disks, but who knows. Also, I do note a very low-volume hum (brought to my attention by a reply on a previous post) with the disc-o-tone. There is zero hum or buzz with this build. Conclusion, will definitely be wiring up my own pickups from here on out.
My personal review of instrument: Great sound, fun to play. Set the action fairly high since is fretless. As a relatively new slide player, I find this much easier to play than my first build. Sound is very clean with a nice amount of bass playing through the amp. Not as strong acoustically as my first build likely due to the smaller box and the fact that I made the lid/soundboard on the first. My fret marker inlays are probably too wide for the discerning player, but for someone new to slide playing I don't mind the larger target.
Cut a 2"x2" strip of Maple. Rough cut shape of neck on bandsaw and fine tune with rasp, file and sand paper.
Have Flat Rats check it for quality control.
Cut hole on box top and then glue top on cigar box using books and magazines to clamp.
After glue dries plane top flush with box sides.
Glue on neck, fret board, bridge, nut and fairies.
Finish with Polymerized Tung oil, string and tune.
Fairies provided their own dust.
Flat Rats settling in.
WARNING: Choose your Flat Rats carefully. The ones found on the road side are gross and may not be the correct thickness.
Materials
Cigar box
Large slab of maple
Fretboard, bridge, nut, tuning keys, fairies and strings from www.cbgitty.com.
Two Flat Rats
The bottom was damaged so I removed it and planed the edges flat.
Checked the thickness and found it takes the two flat rats to make the top.
Adjusted the band saw fence.
Cut two pieces of Maple for book matched Uke top.
Planed edges with a hand plane and glued top using masking tape for clamps.
Hi guys,
Here is a blog post from today about my license plate guitar: http://sincerelyiris.blogspot.com/
Many of the other posts are about songwriting, homemade pedals, alternate album covers, etc, but there will be more posts about my guitar this week.
World premiere ALL DAY tomorrow on FatCat Radio
What size strings should I use on a 3 stringer, trying to go g-d-g
Hi All,
Just in time for Chinese New Years, a popular Chinese tune called "Mo Li Hua" ("Jasmine Flower"). This song is presented in ABC music format and it should be cut-and-pasted into an ABC converter program like the "abcConverter" on Mandolintab.net. Once you submit your ABC file, the converter will produce a quick and dirty image of your musical score which is then displayed on screen. Above the music, in the center of the screen, you should be able to see these three links:
[MIDI music file] [PDF Sheet Music] [ABC source]
The first link will allow you to hear your music as played on a midi player, which is great for learning what a new song is supposed to (kind of) sound like. It's great if you are not sure of the timing of the music. The second link converts the ABC source into a .pdf image of your music which you can then save and/or print to yield prettier sheet music. Then, if you want to view the ABC source again, you can click on the third link. However, to edit your ABC source, you best click on your browser's back arrow to take you back to the original text box holding your ABC source.
Well, I like this song, and I hope you do as well. Enjoy:
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
T:Mo Li Hua (Jasmine Flower)
M:4/4
L:1/8
K:Gmaj
B2 Bd (eg)ge | d2 (de) d4 |
w:Hao3 yi1 duo3 mei3_ li4 de mo4 li4_ hua1
w:5 5 7 8 10 10 8 7 7 8 7
w:
B2 Bd (eg)ge | d2 (de) d4 |
w:Hao3 yi1 duo3 mei3_ li4 de mo4 li4_ hua1
w:5 5 7 8 10 10 8 7 7 8 7
w:
d2 d2 d2 (cd) | e2 e2 d4 |
w:Fen1 fang1 mei3 li4_ man3 zhi1 ya1
w:7 7 7 5 7 8 8 7
w:
B2 (AB) d2 (BA) | G2 (GA) G4 |
w:You4 xiang1_ you bai2_ ren2 ren2_ kua1
w:5 4 5 7 5 4 3 3 4 3
w:
(BA)(GB) A3/2 B | d (e g) d4 |
w:Rang4_ wo3_ lai2 jiang1 ni3 zhai3_ xia4
w:5 4 3 5 4 5 7 8 10 7
w:
A (Bd) (AB)(GE) | D8 |
w:Song4 gei3_ bie3_ ren2_ jia1
w:4 5 7 4 5 3 1 0
w:
E2 (EG) A3/2 B | (GA)(GE) D4 ||
w:Mo4 li4_ hua1 ya1 mo4_ li4_ hua1
w:1 1 3 4 5 3 4 3 1 0
w:
W:( Repeat the whole song a time or two... )
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
I have also pasted a couple .MP3 files so you can listen to the tune played
(and sung) by Chinese performers to ease your learning curve.
havent built one befor, the instructions where better than other download. did make a pie pan bango as a scout project.
scroushled an old guitar from a trash pile, and resected enuff too play it, when i was in high school. iv'e been studying the ukelie the past eight years,strum my guitars as long as arther will let me.
We play traditional 1950's blues: John Lee Hooker, T Bone Walker, Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf etc. I'm excited to be selected for IBC for the third time representing the Arkansas River Blues Society.
http://www.jagshouse.com/music/music.html
Hope to see you there!
Bluesboy Jag
Welcome back...
As we begin the New Year (2014), I've been reflecting back upon the experiences and lessons I have learned on this new life adventure that I "Officially" began in May of 2012. I call that my beginning as it is the date I built my very first stringed instrument. A Kinnor Lyre Harp...
I still have this instrument, and I'm still trying to make it playable after almost 20 months of trying. I has been re-built and modified repeatedly. It has been a real challenge, but it is also a great illustration of a lesson...
IMPORTANT NOTE:
"Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to RUN!" - The Gambler
There is a point on the horizon known as "diminishing returns", learn where that point is and try hard not to cross it.
You can easily spend more time and resources on a project than you will ever be able to recover. The instruments that are found in the "Homemade Folk Instrument" genre are inherently UNPROFITABLE. There is no need to be throwing good money into a money pit. Success in business depends upon your ability to squeeze out a very small profit from products that literally have no profit margin. Think about this.... if there was any actual money to be made in this industry, it would be mass produced from China and sold at Walmart. ( Reality Check ).
I'm having my doubts that I'll be doing any work on my Lyre anytime soon.
"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." - Dante's Inferno
I'm sorry to inform you that your hopes for making it rich building folk instruments are sadly misguided...
I was told that from many different sources over the last year, and for the most part they are correct.
I'm not what I would consider successful in any stretch of the imagination. Granted, I'm still around, I survived 2013 intact, but that has honestly been it. I have managed to maintain an activity that at best can be described as a "cottage industry" that has not lost money. The total sales from a full years worth of effort has paid for parts & materials, and provided me a net income (profit) of less than $1,700 about 64 cents an hour before taxes for the year.
If it wasn't for living with relatives I would be homeless and sitting on a street corner with a "will work for food" sign, no doubt making far more money...
Now it's "Show Me The Money" time...
I managed to make these profits, and hopefully more in the coming year by being aware of my customer needs and watching the market for indicators of "What's Hot". Now, if you take a casual glance at the market, you could easily come to the conclusion that 6 string Electric Solid Body Guitars is where it is at.... if you look deeper you will find that the market is over saturated and most of the Guitar sales are done at a loss for the most part. There are literally thousands of guitars hanging on store walls across the country. Walmart sells them for less than $200. There is no way on earth that you can compete in that market. True, there is the custom build market, but those customers go to Known Reputable Luthiers. I'm still a nobody...
IMPORTANT NOTE:
Only build and sell instruments worthy of putting your name on.
Seriously, this is a double edged sword.... if you don't place your name, brand or mark upon your work, then when your customers show their friends their new toy, their friends will have no idea where they can go to get one for themselves. Anonymity does not build business. Likewise.... I happen to build a rather nice sounding guitar...
Cypress LP Hollow Body Electric
I have on two different occasions, been offered the "Opportunity" to build a "Signature Series" guitar based on this design. I pursued both of them, and both ended as business setbacks. Lesson learned... only put YOUR NAME on any of your builds... You do not need a customer who has enough Ego to want a "Signature Series" guitar with their name on it, but are incapable of building it for themselves. Trust me, it's a bad move regardless of how many guitars they want to order from you. They will inevitably complain about price, quality, etc... because they want to buy your work and re-sell it for a 100% markup. Now a $500 guitar is a $500 guitar... it is what it is.... anyone who has spent 120 hours hand crafting a guitar knows what it takes to build. If you can only get $500 for a guitar it takes 120 hrs worth of skilled labor + expenses to build, you will have to think long and hard about servicing a customer who demands you sell it to him for $250 (before expenses) so he can put his name on it, and make $250 for a few hours on the phone.
Times running out, so I'll add a part 3 later...
If you haven't read the last instalment:
http://www.cigarboxnation.com/profiles/blogs/my-first-2-weeks-of-pickup-building
...so, the problem I was left with was that I hadn't grounded the strings and both my tailpiece and bridge are made of wood (and bone, neither great conductors!)
I decided to go for a pretty drastic solution. Here is the problem:
I took the strings off and took a saw to to the tailpiece... Here is my solution:
This is part of a hanging fixture ( one of the advantages of working in a department store, few though they are), I used a Dremel to cut it to the right size and drilled a few holes to mount it to the back of the guitar and 3 to hold the string ferrules. I have used bike spoke nipples for these. At 20p each at my local bike shop they're a lot cheaper than real string ferrules!
The idea was to solder a wire to the inside of the tailpiece and connect it to the ground on the back of the volume pot. What I hadn't considered is that it's bloody difficult to solder to stainless steel. I didn't have any flux to hand so I cheekily superglued a strip of copper foil tape to the tailpiece and soldered the wire to that... hopefully this will work!
So here's the new tailpiece. I actually never liked the original so wasn't too sad to see it go. The sound still seems to be just as nice so I'll take that as a success...
I soldered the wire onto the back of the pot and checked all the connections. I plugged it in and the loud continuous buzzing had all but gone! I now had a slight buzzing which went away when I touched the strings... after sending myself mad Googling this for a couple of hours I found a lot of conflicting advice, mainly:
- The guitar is not grounded properly
- The guitar is grounded properly, and it is your body causing the interference. The hum goes away when you touch the strings because you complete the ground loop
- The guitar is wired correctly, but the soldering job is bad
Now I'm perfectly ready to accept that I'm not very good at soldering, as I have no previous experience with it. However I figure that if everything works, the soldering should be fine, right?
I eventually decided to believe number 2. I noticed that there was very little hum when I left the guitar in the middle of the room, and stood away from it. I also noticed that not having my amp plugged into a socket with a PC, Laptop and a baby monitor made a big difference. If anyone reading this has any other ideas I'd love to hear them!
So, I still had one last trick up my sleeve - my copper foil tape. I thought I'd give it a try on one of the new pickups I made following (I thought) Bob Harrison's suggestion.
So I have potted the coil, wrapped it in a few layers of plumbers' tape, and then wrapped in a layer of copper foil. I then ran a jumper lead from the ground connection (start of the coil) and connected it to the foil. I also used a little lump of solder to seal the foil shut in case the glue deteriorates over time.
Somewhat foolishly, I whacked the pickup in the guitar without checking it first... when I plugged it in, it didn't work. No signal, some buzz, but definitely no sound coming from the strings. Without really bothering to figure out why, I took it out and removed the copper foil (trying to grasp electronics by this point was making my head hurt). After ruminating on this over the last couple of days, I think that maybe I shouldn't have connected the ground wire to the foil and the start of the coil. If the ground is the path of least resistance, maybe I have just forced the current directly to ground... again, any feedback on this would be appreciated!
Sure enough, after removing the foil and the jumper lead, the pickup worked again. I strung it up, closed the access panels and called it a day. Some noise, perhaps, but hardly too offputting for a first attempt!
So there it is! Reasonably happy with it - will post some vids soon. Next step is to start messing around with tone pots and capacitors!
...and here's a video - let me know what you think!
its like a glue..apply it on the wood surface to use..apply lightly all over surface area of image ...then use a image without text...(cause it will be backwards) FACEdown....press it until very flat..let dry for 1 hr...then place a very damp wood on the paper for 10 minutes..then gently rub with the clothe on the paper that's wet (lightly) it should remove the pulp off leaving the ink directly on the wood..like those tattoos when we use to lick them on..lol...........great for a vineyard design going down the neck...or in the back..very similar to shanes speals cbg..his pics on the back...enjoy goodluck and I would love to see and hear how it turns out...oh before I forget..lightly durethane a gloss spray once its done and let dry..enjoy
