Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by the anonymous pick on August 29, 2015 at 8:10am

i'd do  a 3  stringer  ,   with a   mag  pickup  .( preferably a  humbucker    or  2 ) .

   piezos  dont like   distortion    much. 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Tom T on August 29, 2015 at 8:50am

I think a 3-stringer would be a good place to start. Check out Shane Speal on YouTube. He and his band have some good distortion/rock stuff to demo what can be accomplished with a 3-stringer.

As for pickups, piezo would work with a good tone pot, but your grandson would still be fighting some box noise until he learned to deal with the unique properties of a piezo. A mag pickup might be a better choice for him since it would (for the most part) only puck up sting vibration. Humbuckers are nice, but single wound coils also have advantages such as a warm tone. I think either would be fine. For a young rocker, you may want to work up a design that fits the image. Check out the photo below. It is a three-stringer with a hollow body and a four pole humbucker. Scale is 24" which makes stretching out for those chords a little easier than with a 25 or 25.5" scale.

Good luck with your project. Keep us all posted with photos.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Richey Kay on August 29, 2015 at 8:20pm

Hi Matt, my $0.02 would be that you want to go with a magnetic pickup if he wants to play rock music on it, and preferably a humbucker at that.

I did make a solid body 3 string with a 'bucker and it came out like this:

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/photo/albums/31-pine-body-electric-3-...

I found making a solid body much more of a challenge than making a CBG, but it was a lot of fun. A cigar box with a magnetic pickup would probably be fine too.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Michael Fred Johnson on August 29, 2015 at 11:19pm

Look up Loog guitars for kids

• ▶ Reply