| One Way To Build A Cigar Box Guitar | ||||
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Page 2 of 18 Specifying the specificationAs I said earlier, there are a number of people making and selling CBGs these days, even in the UK. The nice thing about them, of course, is that there is no Fender or Gibson setting a standard for everybody to copy, which means that anybody making one can literally do as they wish without fear of people pointing their finger and saying sentences that start with 'You call that a...'.From what I've seen, there is a split between those that are trying to make something ‘plantation-authentic’, with as much of the guitar being built from scraps and throwaways as possible, and those builders that are trying to make something that is stylistically a CBG but in fact, has more of a modern guitar feel. In the USA there are so many builders that it is practically impossible to get a grip on who is doing what and more to the point whether they are any good at it. There are names such as Shane Speal the 'King' of the CBG, who has done an amazing job and much of the legwork in publicising the whole DIY/CBG scene, and then there are people (who really interest me most, I have to say) who are stretching things to the limits. People like Ted Crocker who not only build fine and interesting instruments, but also follow this up with parts for other builders. Things like bridges and piezo pickups and hand-wound magnetic pickups that are specifically built for three or four string instruments. All made by hand with not a factory robot in sight. In the UK, it is all a lot newer and so far at a smaller scale, but again there are some really interesting players around and some excellent builders of CBGs, showing just as much imagination and craft as our cousins over the water. Two builders that epitomise this for me are 'Smojo', who makes some brilliant CBGs from bits and pieces, and JuJu who is in my opinion a 'proper' luthier, and the man most likely to take CBGs into the mainstream as his builds so far are stylistically inspired and yet truly excellent instruments. To put it into context, Smojo is the man that inspired me to build a CBG in the first place after I happened to come across his blog in which he details his builds and gives some fine advice on all things CBG, while Juju is somebody who's work I've only recently seen, but that I would buy a guitar from given the money or his inclination to sell me one. There are lots of other builders, don't get me wrong, but in different ways both of these have taken the principles on board and moved in their own direction and that ethic is what appeals to me most in the whole CBG world and why I fancy having a go for myself. But given my own limitations, of which there are many, I have reminded myself that we all have to start somewhere, and back on Planet Erik, things are going to be a lot simpler than some of the things other builders are coming up with. What I meant by the distinction though, is that at the authentic end of the scale, a CBG can be as simple as a box with a plank nailed to it, and a couple of strings attached and tightened to some semblance of tuning. At the other we're seeing people adding pre-made guitar necks with truss rods and locking tuners and nuts, and amplifying it via humbucker pickups etc. As to which approach is 'right', well there is no right or wrong, just a matter of taste and I guess you choose where you want to stand between the two poles. Personally, I like the idea of something more lo-tec and something that I will only want to play as a slide guitar, and so my specification is biased toward the traditional though maybe not in an aesthetic way. Getting specific, for the neck, I'm going to go for a piece of mahogany (well, sapiele as it happens, which is from the same family, but easier to get hold of locally.) This will be about three foot long, two inches wide and one inch thick. Obviously, this would be too narrow for a normal six stringer, but I'm only planning to put three strings on, as that is all you really need to play slide, and I'm hoping that this will mean that a lack of a truss rod won't prove to be a problem. Talking about truss rods, without one I'm told the neck will bend, but that for slide it really doesn't matter that much. Given how shonky my slide skills are, I can well believe it. As for how to get the wood for the neck, if I was being a bit more Smojo-authentic, I would probably have looked around for an old shelf or door or something, and sliced it up into a number of neck-sized pieces of wood, but to be honest I ended-up getting 5 pieces of wood from a timber merchant down the road for a fiver. I don't own a buzz saw and am pretty lazy it has to be said, and there is no way in the world I would be able to cut wood into the correct sizes with a handsaw without throwing most of the plank away, so it seemed like a bargain to me. They even planed it for me so that it is relatively smooth. The next thing to decide on is the box, and for this first attempt I've gone a bit traditional. More than very traditional, in fact. My initial thought was that I would struggle to get a cigar box, and so instead I would use a biscuit tin or chocolate box or something. If I do this again I might well, but I happened to come across a cigar box on eBay for three quid that is (apparently) from the 1880s. Now, it hasn't shown up yet, so time will tell, but it looked quite decent and old in the photo so worth a try. If that is no good, I'll go into Bristol and find a tobacconist and see if any are going cheap there. I would like to do more than one of these (until I get a good one) so will no doubt need more than one box sooner or later. (Update: The box never showed up, and instead I bought another couple from eBay. There is only one proper tobacconist in Bristol, and having spoken to him, he seems inundated by people wanting boxes to make guitars - but has got two with my name on that I'll pick up soon. I'm guessing that this lack of traditional tobacco shops is going to be much the same across the UK - London apart - so maybe eBay and car boot sales are the best bet. Just thought I'd mention it.) Anyway, I've got a box. The next consideration is how to fix the strings and then tighten them to pitch. Again, I'm going more traditional than not, but hopefully a bit pragmatic around the edges. My plan is that the neck will run through the box, with enough sticking out of the bottom to fix the strings to. To do that I'll need to drill some holes and have some kind of washer or bush or something to stop them trashing the wood. At the top of the neck I have been thinking about weird nut and bolt arrangements, and maybe next time I'll try that, but to start with using a couple of cheap tuners makes the most sense. When I was doing my guitar kit I was missing a couple of tuners and ended-up buying a new set, so I have three handy. Recycling in action; can't be bad. As for the nut, I'm not sure. I've seen people use proper guitar ones, and others use bolts or keys, so I think I'll have an experiment and see what works best. Similarly, for the bridge, I have seen plenty of CBGs with acoustic guitar ones, but I'd rather not go that far. The tuners were a practical thing, but nuts and bridges I think I'd like to use something more interesting and back-porch. And other than glues and varnish and nails, I don't think there is much else. I do need to make some soundholes to let the tunes out, but they can be cut and maybe a tea strainer or bath plughole or something will handle the aesthetics, if I bother to cover the holes up at all. We'll see. Oh, the other thing that is more modern I was going to try was to electrify it, so it can be played through an amplifier - which'll cheer the neighbourhood moggies up. I've heard that this is really easy and so I've invested heavily in a piezo disk (59p from Maplins,) a jack socket to plug a lead into (£1.29p from Maplins) and a bit of wire that was in a drawer to join them together (free). I don't know how well it will work (I read somewhere that they are OK, but a bit bass-heavy) but it seems a nice idea. I might get brave and put a volume knob on there too, but time will tell. And that is that. Just a case of doing it now, I guess.
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 30 December 2009 14:02 ) |
