3 string solid body cigar box guitar

hi uncle john!

jeez.. it was a ancient humbucker at the bottom of my parts drawer that had just enough tape around it to keep the thin copper wire from breaking. soldered a couple of wires to em, installed it without the housing (no height adjustment possible, just the pins in the slots unpotted with electrical tape over the part where the thin copper was soldered to the thicker red and black wires. and melted it a bit with a lighter to get it to follow the round edge of the plastic, stuck the magnet on the bottom, 2 times around with tape to keep the thing together, used a contour gauge to get the exact shape of this ugly mess and carved that exact shape into the poplar that fills the box, put a 1mm s-grove where the taped wire was gonna be, stuck a rectangle shaped bit of metal scrap to one of the cedar box liners, got a $3 pickup cover at guitar center and cut the metal/cedar to fit the space hooked the wires directly to the 11/4 output jack and everything fit nice and snug. i didnt want to have the strings in between the pins so i put the metal across all of them hoping that this might create a magnetic field that would suite a poor player like myself who rarely utilizes any other playing style than open tuning... hell i want all of those strings being picked up by a wider (read: more forgiving) field that will lessen the chance of my off notes "standing out" as much as they would if they each had their own bit of pickup rod to hang out over... lol

oh, had to put the thin metal in a vise and bend it back and forth so that i didn't cancel the humbucking effect by laying a solid strip over 12 pins , realized that would be a potential problem after gluing it to the wood so i had to redo that part. who knows if any of my concerns were valid, im not really an electronics guy.. all i know is that this thing is solid enough to fend off an attacker (the .25 thick shellac that covers the guitar doesnt even show a scratch after my abuse... i'll find out the brand to share with folks if they want a thick glass like layer that will kill anyone who inhales it for more than 45 seconds when its drying. ...

... never likeed that dog anyway.

total length of guitar is 29 inches but with 3 adjustable bridge screws fastened into the bit of wood by the tail piece i was able to get a 25.5 inch vibrating string length.

... boy my fingers are tired, thanks for the comment and hopefully my answer didnt put you to sleep.

have a great day!

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Comments

Uncle John December 16, 2013 at 9:37am

Huh. Cool git AND pickup. Thanks for all the good info.
Patrick e ward December 16, 2013 at 9:34am

hi uncle john!

jeez.. it was a ancient humbucker at the bottom of my parts drawer that had just enough tape around it to keep the thin copper wire from breaking. soldered a couple of wires to em, installed it without the housing (no height adjustment possible, just the pins in the slots unpotted with electrical tape over the part where the thin copper was soldered to the thicker red and black wires. and melted it a bit with a lighter to get it to follow the round edge of the plastic, stuck the magnet on the bottom, 2 times around with tape to keep the thing together, used a contour gauge to get the exact shape of this ugly mess and carved that exact shape into the poplar that fills the box, put a 1mm s-grove where the taped wire was gonna be, stuck a rectangle shaped bit of metal scrap to one of the cedar box liners, got a $3 pickup cover at guitar center and cut the metal/cedar to fit the space hooked the wires directly to the 11/4 output jack and everything fit nice and snug. i didnt want to have the strings in between the pins so i put the metal across all of them hoping that this might create a magnetic field that would suite a poor player like myself who rarely utilizes any other playing style than open tuning... hell i want all of those strings being picked up by a wider (read: more forgiving) field that will lessen the chance of my off notes "standing out" as much as they would if they each had their own bit of pickup rod to hang out over... lol

oh, had to put the thin metal in a vise and bend it back and forth so that i didn't cancel the humbucking effect by laying a solid strip over 12 pins , realized that would be a potential problem after gluing it to the wood so i had to redo that part. who knows if any of my concerns were valid, im not really an electronics guy.. all i know is that this thing is solid enough to fend off an attacker (the .25 thick shellac that covers the guitar doesnt even show a scratch after my abuse... i'll find out the brand to share with folks if they want a thick glass like layer that will kill anyone who inhales it for more than 45 seconds when its drying. ...

... never likeed that dog anyway.

total length of guitar is 29 inches but with 3 adjustable bridge screws fastened into the bit of wood by the tail piece i was able to get a 25.5 inch vibrating string length.

... boy my fingers are tired, thanks for the comment and hopefully my answer didnt put you to sleep.

have a great day!
Uncle John December 16, 2013 at 8:18am

Col git in a rough way - which is part of what makes it cool. Sounds good. I like the pickups further up from the bridge, but is sounds good as is. Who made the pickup?
Patrick e ward December 15, 2013 at 10:24pm

:)
Clock The Wolf December 15, 2013 at 10:20pm

Groo-Vee!

This reply was deleted.

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3 string solid body cigar box guitar

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