Nah, not really. It’s just me playing around, doing a test recording with my CBG. No editing or effects - just my home-made piezo pickup and a tube amp simulation plugin. Yeehaw!
This is the tale of how an antique wooden box became a primitive blues tone-monster…
Our story begins over one hundred and thirteen years ago, sometime around 1893, when a small 10″x8″ cedar box, laden with cigars from Jamaica, travelled 4500 miles across the Atlantic Ocean to a shop in London.
Fast forward to the present day, and that little box finds it’s way into the hands of yours truly. Little is know of the history of the box in the hundred or so years in between these 2 points in time. Our only clues can be found in the scars, scorch marks and dirt that now adorn it.
Now, since I’ve started playing slide guitar and listening to early blues recordings, my interest has included the instruments that shaped music history, including primitive instruments such as the cigar box guitar (cbg).
There’s been quite a resurgence in what they’re calling Prim-Rock (primitive rock) and Hobo Blues in recent years. Simple home-made instruments are seen to be pivotal to the movement, harking back to a simpler, more innocent time… I guess, because all the great blues-men of a certain period started out on such instruments, to wield a CBG is to conjure the spirit of the Mississippi delta?
Anyway, I was quite taken with the idea of building a simple guitar, with the intention of playing delta blues or other such Americana style.
Finding a suitable Cigar box wasn’t that simple - it’s not like you can pop along to your local tobacconist and get one from the store cupboard (maybe some lucky folk can?). As I don’t know of a Cigar shop local to me, my first port of call was the trusty Ebay.
The choice was limited - most new boxes still had Cigars in, and were thus very expensive. I did manage to find a chap selling vintage collectables and tobacciana, and got a couple of boxes very cheaply - including the Clarendon from 1893.
There are plenty of places on the interweb to find like-minded people, inspiration and plans for would be CBG makers. The first one that I found was Scotty’s CBGs. Here you will find a fair bit of info on the history of CBGs, as well as nice illustrated guides on building techniques and design ideas. Also, he has a links page, which among other things, will whisk you away to the web site of the self proclaimed “King of the CBG”, Shane Speal. It’s worth checking out.
I gathered the raw materials (found an length of mahogany in the shed suitable for the neck - probably came from a dismantled piece of furniture), and hardware needed, and devised my own set of plans…
I thought about making it a 4 stringer, but decided that 3 would be a better choice, especially for the width of the neck (I was partly restricted by the dimensions of mahogany). Oh, and it’s a 22 inch scale length, so a couple or three inches short or your standard guitars lengths.
You might think that I’ve somewhat over-engineered what should be a fairly simple beast, but you see, I want to try to get the best sound I can out it and make it durable enough for taking it out to pub sessions, gigs, etc. Thus, my plan employs a “thru-neck” design, a bit like a banjo, which lends extra strength to the box when strung and reduces the need for any internal bracing.
I couldn’t help but want to make electrified too… So I stuck a home made pick-up in the box, just like this one.
Apart for the machine heads on the 14° angled headstock, the rest of the hardware was just that - 2 bolts and a hinge (the nut, saddle and tail piece) from the hardware shop - and I fashioned a “floating” bridge, on which the saddle sits, out of a bit of Wenge left over from my Single-cut guitar project.
The action is pretty high, which is perfect for slide playing, so I left the neck fretless - I just marked the fret positions with a black marker. I can always come back to it later, drop the action and install some frets.
Tonally, it sounds great - a bit like dobro, but woodier - and surprisingly loud for it’s size.
Ok, here are some piccies…
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Check out that relicing… and it’s all genuine!
I just happened to be browsing Ebay a couple of days ago, mindlessly perusing the lists and lists of items posted by folk either offloading baggage or trying to reap what little profit can be made on the intergalactic super car-boot-sale/shopping mall that is the ‘bay, when fate intervened and directed me to view this strangely familiar guitar…
It just happens to be the very same HS Anderson Les Paul Junior copy that once belonged to the Good Doctor up until about a year ago, when she traded it in as part payment for her new Yamaha acoustic at Aylesbury Music.
This was the very guitar that sparked my interest in tinkering with and building guitars, and it’s nice to see it’s still alive and well, albeit about to be sold to a new pair of hands.
The doc sent a short message to the seller to enlighten him further on the renovations we had made;
“As the previous owner of this guitar I should tell you the real extent of the tampering. My partner replaced the scratchboard which covers a deeply filled hole that the previous owner had dug out, we guess with the intention of adding an additional pickup. He made a right pigs ear of what was a lovely guitar. The original pickup had been replaced by a humbucker - we replaced that with the soapbar as a means to retify the previous tampering, and also overhauled the electrics with new parts. We sanded and re-varnished the body and I did my best to fill in the little holes for the screws where the previous (not original) board had been. You have omitted that these filled in holes are still visible. I think you should include that point…”
To which the seller replied;
” This is an interesting point; major coincidence! and before now to tell you the truth I had not noticed these holes.”
Good luck to the old girl (the guitar, not the seller), and I hope she goes for a little more than the criminal £42.00 it currently stands at.
This, my friends is my latest creation - an effects pedal, provisionally entitled “The Grizzly”. It’s a Big Muff clone (aptly renamed “Large beaver”) from B.Y.O.C. and distributed in the UK by Vibe-O-Tronic.
Blurb from the BYOC web site…
“The Large Beaver is a clone of the
“triangle era” muff. This is one of the
earliest versions of the muff and is pretty
much unanimously considered by those
who know to sound much better than the
NYC reissue or any of the other versions. “
Anyway, the main reason I was drawn to this effect pedal was the fact that, as the manufacturers name suggest, you build it yourself!
Everything you need to build the pedal is included in the kit - all you are required to supply are your soldering skills and a bit of patience.
The innards in all their gory glory.
And, you’ll have noticed that I have covered the pedal in fur (no soft toys were harmed). I just fancied something different really, but it’s also sparked a few more ideas for other pedals… I think their digital delay might be next…
Here’s an interesting equation I’ve been pondering lately:
Does…
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Now, obviously your first reaction would be a downright no, due in part to the absence of this chap…
I’m not ready to do the trade with old Nick just yet, so I thought a nice new Epiphone EL-00 might add a little mojo to the mix, and help me further my slide playing and fingerpicking.
I have to say it has opened up a whole new angle on playing for me; not only by exploring early acoustic blues music, but also learning to play in open tunings, which I’m enjoying immensely.
Last weekend saw the past 6 months or so of hard toil finally come to fruition. The last drop of solder was applied, and the final screw tightened. Here’s a recap on what’s been going on…
After applying the coats of oil and varnish, it was time to get on to wiring in the electrics. Over the last couple of months I’ve collected all the required parts including the control cavity parts (pre-wired to save a bit of time), the jack socket, knobs, and of course pickups.
First, shield all cavities! I used self adhesive aluminium foil for this, as seen in the previous post. I’ve used aluminium on my other guitars and it does an excellent job. Just make sure it’s earthed properly.
Next was to install the pots and switch assembly, followed by the pickups.
I had a few choices of humbucker in mind for this guitar. Initially I was interested in a pair of pickups from Bare Knuckle Pickups, but was put off by their high price tag. Then, whilst looking for a more reasonably priced pair, I stumbled upon Wizard Pickups, which looked promising. Then, a bit further into the build, I tripped up on another UK based company, Swineshead pickups. This looked the most promising, especially given their lost cost. But then I changed my mind again…
Splashing out on some bespoke handmade pickups on a guitar that I wasn’t even sure would work, let alone sound any good, didn’t seem like a wise idea to me. So why not get a cheaper alternative to start me off, with the option of upgrading at a later stage, I thought?
After trawling through ebay one day I came across a pair of second hand GFS p’ups going cheap. GFS? I hear you squawk. Who they? Well, I came across GFS from Guitar Fetish last year when building my Tele, which has a couple of their vintage style p’ups installed. Guitar Fetish is an American outfit who produce a huge amount of different pickup models, both modern and vintage spec’ed. Check them out for yourselves. What struck me was their budget price tag - they are incredibly cheap, especially for something that appears to be very well made. Maybe they’re made in a third world Asian country? I dunno. What I do know is that they sound very good, and I’m not the only one who thinks so.
Anyway, so I’ve got GFS Fat PAF’s installed. Everything’s been wired up, including the coil tap switch. Strings on and tested. Twice. Found a problem with the bridge pickup not wired the right way round. Tested again. Still a problem with the bridge p’up - only registering half a coils worth of output… Un-soldered and wires checked. Soldered back in, and tested yet again. This time it’s all good.
Incidentally, the Fat PAF’s output is medium to hot, registering around 13K Ohms each, the bridge p’up being slightly stronger.
Anyway, enough waffling on about pickups and stuff. Here’s what you really really want…
Click on the images to view them full size.
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Here’s me with the guitar, looking all colour co-ordinated…!
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And to top it off, here’s the good Doctor doing her best Slash/Jimmy Page/Brian May impression in the back garden…
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I’ll post up some audio clips in due time… Stay tuned.
It’s been a couple of weeks since my last post, and in that time I’ve been working on the body and neck, getting them to a finished standard.
There was still a bit of work to do around the neck joint - tidying up the inside of the cutaway, scraping the joint edges, and reshaping the neck heel to follow the contour of the body. I also took some time to reduce the thickness of the neck contour a little more.
It was then on to the boring and laborious task of sanding the wood to a suitable level before applying the oil/varnish…
Needless to say, there’s no pics of that!
For the finish, I’ve chosen danish oil for the body, and a wipe on varnish for the neck. I want a satin/matt finish and I’m not going to fill the grain, so danish oil seemed appropriate for this and would give a decent amount of protection. Wenge is a bit like rosewood and can be used unfinished, but after handling the neck and noticing grease from my hands being left behind, I opted to wipe on a couple of thin coats of Behlen Master-gel varnish (which I used on my telecaster body) for a touch of protection. I then wire-wooled everything it to a satin finish. I also used danish oil on the fingerboard.
The oil has both brought out the grain and added a golden colour to the zebrano.
You can see I’ve started to apply the cavity shielding…!
Here’s a full body shot. Click it to enlarge.
Now we’re on the home straight. Next; installing the electronics.
So, the strings came off and I got back to work…
After um-ing and arr-ing over where to place the pots and switch, I settled on this…
The layout is a cross between a PRS Custom and the PRS Santana. I wanted the controls fairly close together (like the Santana), and at a comfortable distance from the strings (like the Custom).
Controls will consist of Volume and Tone, and 3-way toggle switch for pickup selection. The Tone pot will have a push/pull switch for coil splitting.
Rather than the knobs sitting on top of guitar, I wanted to recess them into the carved top. This has a couple of advantages; Firstly the knobs will sit level, not at the angle of the sloping top. Secondly, recessing the knobs to the level of the body edge will mean that there is less wood to route out for the rear cavity, and the cavity can have a flat bottom.
I like the way PRS do this on their guitars, but the way I ended doing it was slightly different. Here’s a photo:
Here’s a couple of shots of the rear cavity. I made the cover from a zebrano headstock veneer I had left over.
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And here’s a couple of photos of the top, taken during a test fitting…
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The main drive for my second project was to see how cheaply I could build a decent guitar. After all, the Chinese are capable of creating extremely cheap guitars…
I was very fortunate to find a couple of bargains on ebay: the body is what would appear to be 2 or 3 piece alder (no ply-wood here!) finished in a nice translucent blue, and was taken form a brand new guitar. It has a large pool type pick-up route, and was a little untidy inside, but otherwise sound. No idea of the country of origin - but probably China…
The neck is a second hand strat type, made by Dr Parts. It’s got a nice dark vintage looking finish, complete with skunk strip. Little or no fret wear, barely used I would say.
Both items cost me less than £25 each…
The bridge was second hand, again from ebay. Again, not sure of the manufacturer, but it might be a squier… Missing trem bar… £8 as I recall…
Tuners were brand new Wilkinson minis, with EZ-lok posts.
The scratch plate was bought fully loaded (brand new) with Wilkinson vintage p’ups + pots and 5-way switch. This was the most expensive part at around £50.
Other bits and bobs were acquired from various sources.
All-in-all, I think total cost was less than £120. And it’s a surprisingly good guitar.
This was the first project, from just over a year ago.
Body and neck were both from NS-Custom Guitars in Somerset.
The body is a matched 2 piece, made of cedar. It came to me routed and drilled, but otherwise unfinished. I decided to keep it natural, and gave it a wipe on varnish finish.
The neck is curly/flamed maple with a rosewood fingerboard. Originally had a strat style headstock, but I asked NS-Custom to reshape it to suit a tele. Nitro finish, I believe…
Tuners are Grover mini locking, bridge is a vintage fender type with brass saddles.
Pickups are by GFS - the neck humbucker is a vintage split pole, and the bridge p’up is a 1960’s style hot alnico single coil.
It has a 5-way super switch, which coil splits the humbucker in pos 2 and 4, although this doesn’t really work that well with the split pole p’up.
The scratchplate is of my own design - somewhere between a tele custom and a thinline.