A future build/Soldering & Wiring practice.

As i am in the process of planning out what I am going to do with the Strat ( exposed cavities in the style of Eddie Van Halen or a Pop Punk inspired single Humbucker Scratchplate investment) i thought I would need to brush up on my soldering skills. So I purchased this cheapo Humbucker from a local Music shop.
I'm thinking a 4 stringer as a complete build.Possibly.

A build for a friend.

I'm making this for a member of the band that I am in .

As with the other build that I have just completed it will be Acoustic.

The Bridge is a old Allen Key I found in my tool Box ( Don't know what its original purpose was, probably something important.never mind)

I fretting up shortly and letting it glue over night (Tooth Pick Frets,Thumb Tack Markers ) then a good sanding in the morning ...tune up etc and then the big handover! this is my 2nd build to find a new home.I hope that they like it :)

A new 3 String!

The Tobbaconists I get my Cigar Boxes from had this lovely Romeo Y Julietta Box way in the back of the stockroom

The Bridge is a Old key found in amongst the ''stock'' of a junk stall in the local market, i bought it for 10 pence :) Bargain! the Soundhole covers are something i found in amongst my Dads Plumbing supplies.I've tried to stop the Strings biting into the wood by filing down a broken Dremmel bit and then gluing it between the Key and the Hinge I am using to hold the Strings in place.

3 Cheap tuning pegs i had laying around and a peice of bolt complete the headstock.

(I had to use a String tree to keep the D string in place.)

Another week...another build.

So as I am waiting for the parts to arrive for the Strat rebuild/customising job , was getting quite bored to be honest  then a realitive brought around this lovely green Marks & Spencer Buiscuit  Tin  had a few bits laying around (A Key for the Bridge, 3 Tuning Pegs, a small metal bar for the nut and a length of 2x1 that my dad found whilst taking apart a Shed for the Neck)
As closer to a ''Found Objects'' build as I have got so far.
Tuned D a d using strings E b e  .
Also in this pic there is a MojoBow Diddley Bow I picked up at a guitar fair earlier this year and a 3 String electric i made from a macunda Box, cheap single coil assembly bought from ebay and assorted bits and pieces I have found from stalls on the local Market.

Another Website to check out!

http://smojo-cigar-box-guitars.blogspot.com/
Great ideas and really nice chap as well.

Diddley Bow CBG with Altoids Tin Resonator

Another one of my CBG builds. This one is D-Bow . Fretted same way as the 3 Stringer and also Acoustic.

Another link that may interest you...

http://handmademusic.ning.com/

Run by Ted Crocker. Lots of useful things on here an d the folks on there are top notch people!! :)

Heavily Modded Strat (Part 1)

Old Strat Copy body. 2 piece Alder by the looks of things. . Sanded the Sunburst paint job off  resprayed with White primer and blocked the Tremolo cavity up with hardwood and strong wood glue. I hate Tremolos with a passion.
Hard tail all the way
Will be a weekly progress report on this build.
Watch this space!!!!

The Briefcase of Misery

Found this tiny briefcase thing at a Car Boot Sale a few weeks ago.

It had a Chess Set in it.

Now it has Old Rags and Piezo.

Scrape your foot along its faux leather exterior sounds almost exactly the same way a Washboard does not.

Awesome. 

The North Valley Boom Box

Based ever so losely  on Seasick Steves ''Mississippi Drum Machine'' This basically an old Wine Crate with a strengthened interior and a peice of old Carpet Glued and nailed to the top.
Sounds Holes added to the side for Microphone experimentation at later stage.

Right Handed £30 Acoustic into a lefty Lap Slide. Oh Yes.

The lapslide according to research upon the interwebz it is a regular Guitar that has been modified by raising the Nut and Bridge so as to be played by a bar or Slide.

I purchased the ''Volunteer'' from a ''Cash for your crap'' kind of shop for £30. The best of a bad bunch.  As a side note the brand name ''Chantry'' is also a term for money given to a Priest.Go Figure.

I got the Guitar home and wondered what I could do with it. I knew the first task was to 'Hendrix' her, but wasnt to sure as to what the join between Nut and neck was like. After a close inspection i realised it was to risky trying to remove so I once again returned to the Interwebz.After a short while of researching,raiding forums and lurking in the nether reguions of the WWW. I came across ''The Nut Raiser'' a bit of controversial name and subject. If i could of removed the nut safely , then I could have just used shims, but as i didnt want to risk damaging the fretboard or neck i decided to purchase the Nut Raiser.

On ebay they range from the expensive drasticly over engineered looking polished brass and steel items to the peice of Iron bent at a angle and fret spacing filed into the bend and then sold for a pitance on the web. I went for the later,and was after raising the bridge slightly with shims made from toothpicks , pleasently surprised with the tone and sound . 

Another one of those cool pickups was added aswell .

Cheap and cheerful. Its how I like it. :)

Stagg Acoustic 6 pole Pickup mod

Since way  back in my teens when I first watched Nirvana Unplugged on MTV I have been fascinated with the idea of putting a pole piece pickup (or maybe even as in the original a Humbucker or 2) into a Acoustic but up until recently never had the chance  when I found these nifty pre soldered to input , tone and volume pickups on ebay for a few quid and a Stagg for £60. 

I shall be using it in the coming weeks to make wonderful noise as after adjusting the pickup height I have found it to have a bright , crisp sound that I in all honesty , really like.

Cigar Box Guitar

Ever since I saw Seasick Steve on TV I have wanted to get into the whole D.I.Y ethos and so began my intrepid journey through Google where I stumbled upon Cigar Box Nation. A fascinating site that has lots of info and other builders uploading photographs of their  builds .
Heres the link for those that are interested : http://www.cigarboxnation.com/

The photographs in this post  are of my own self built , my favourite of my builds so far, CBG .

Its a 3 string Acoustic  , the box is a Montechristo Havana, both Bridge and Nut are old Keys of some description (not quite sure of their original purpose I bought them from a guy in the local market whos stock mostly consists of 'random' for the princely sum of 30p for the 2. The String anchor mechanism is a reversed cabinet hinge that i bought from a small hardware shop in town for 40p. The neck runs through the entire length of the box and has a scale length of 27.5'' . I fretted the instrument using a wood file, a small pocket knife sandpaper and toothpicks using this fret calculator :
http://www.stewmac.com/FretCalculator
A really useful tool !!!!
Making sure the frets did not 'pop out' I glued and clamped them into place over night. The final additions to my Guitar were a soundhole and fret markers. I found from previous builds its best to wait until you have the neck in place before you do these tasks. the soundhole  is simply a Sink drain hole cover cut into the box and then glued into place, the fret markers are drawing pins that are glued into place.
If you would like to build your own heres a link to a 'How to':
http://cigarboxguitars.com/resources/how-to-build-a-cigar-box-guitar

First Blog

Hello, I am going to use this blog page as a way of displaying my customised Guitars , Cigar Box Instruments and other things that I think you will find interesting. Hope you like them :)