Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by carverman on November 4, 2010 at 3:02am

How do I paste pics of my CBG build so they are inline with my posts?

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Permalink Reply by Wes "I'm Baaaaack" Yates on November 4, 2010 at 3:15am

Cave, when you start the discussion, there is a little icon that looks like a picture. That will allow you to add pics inline.

Then, is it a bolt on neck or a neck thru?

-WY

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Permalink Reply by carverman on November 4, 2010 at 3:39am

It's a neck through. I make all my guitars with the neck through design. better sustain etc. I've got a fishin' line on it now..from the unnotched nut to the cut down bridge and it seems to be reasonable action up to where the 12th fret would be..with the wedge sitting ontop. Of course the fb surface is still about 1/4 of an inch below the surface of the CB actual top surface...if you know what I mean.

Attachments:

• CBGb.jpg, 42 KB

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Permalink Reply by Wes "I'm Baaaaack" Yates on November 4, 2010 at 8:37am

ok so one way to do this is to remove the neck -- assuming you didn't glue it and cut away some of the neck top where it is inside the box:

.
You might have to add on some reinforcement on the bottom. I will see if I can find the cleaner pic

-WY

BETTER ONE:

email me and I can send it to you.

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Permalink Reply by carverman on November 4, 2010 at 9:53am

Wes Yates said:

ok so one way to do this is to remove the neck -- assuming you didn't glue it and cut away some of the neck top where it is inside the box:

.
You might have to add on some reinforcement on the bottom. I will see if I can find the cleaner pic

-WY

BETTER ONE:

email me and I can send it to you.

How do I email you Wes? is there a private mail system in here? "cave"man

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Permalink Reply by Mungo Park on November 4, 2010 at 4:31pm

Wes has got it in spades, you can raise the neck up by how much you cut out and then when you put on the FB you should be where you want. I leave a 1" "shelf" for the lid to touch the neck and the rest is cut out so the lid is free to resonate, this of course is what I have learned from Wes.

I see you have a Thomas Hinds box they work really well if you can find the big ones. They have a few stores in Canada but not many. I get mine in Winnipeg where I live. Cheers Ron.

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Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on November 4, 2010 at 5:19pm

Hi Carverman,

The bridge you are planning to use has a nice "classical" shape, but is pretty tall in my book. Why not just cut off the legs? Most of my CBG bridges I make are made of red oak and maybe 1/2 to 5/8 inches tall. The cross sectional shape is like a simple "house" made of a square and a triangle with slots cut for the strings through the "ridge of the roof" at appropriate locations. I think you'll get better (more) vibration transfer from your strings to the sound board (cigar box top) if the bridge is in full contact with the soundboard rather than standing up on legs. Any opposing arguments? It seems to me a lot simpler a solution to change the bridge than to change how the neck attaches to the box. Just my 2 cents worth.


-Rand.

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Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on November 4, 2010 at 5:41pm

Hi Again.

I just re-read your original post and you say you are planning to use a "tuna-matic" bridge. I am not sure I understand this term, but my guess is that it is a bridge cut into a number of pieces so that you have a mini-bridge for each string that sits in a track and is individually "tunable" so you can change the scale length of each string to help improve the intonation of the instrument. If you are using this kind of bridge, then forget my comments above (I saw the picture of the classically designed bridge and made an assumption - not a safe thing to do).

I once made one of these tunable bridges for a 4 stringer and found that it would require me to raise everything else (i.e. the fretboard) to maintain playable string height over the entire length of the neck. Mine was build on a little board about 1/4" thick. With the height of the mini bridges added in, it stood 7/8" off the board, which cause the string to rise off the neck at too high an angle such that beyond the 12 fret, the action was to objectionable. So, I removed the bridge and used a "standard" one as I described earlier. If I do this again, I will glue the tracks to the soundboard to save 1/4" there and try to cut the height of the mini-bridges by 1/8" to 3/16". By the way, my mini-bridges were held in only by string tension. I have a photo on my camera, but have yet to upload it. Maybe I can do that if you'd like to see it. I see more wisdom in the KISS principle when I go off on tangents like the tunable bridge.

Well, good luck with your build.

-Rand.




Rand Moore said:

Hi Carverman,

The bridge you are planning to use has a nice "classical" shape, but is pretty tall in my book. Why not just cut off the legs? Most of my CBG bridges I make are made of red oak and maybe 1/2 to 5/8 inches tall. The cross sectional shape is like a simple "house" made of a square and a triangle with slots cut for the strings through the "ridge of the roof" at appropriate locations. I think you'll get better (more) vibration transfer from your strings to the sound board (cigar box top) if the bridge is in full contact with the soundboard rather than standing up on legs. Any opposing arguments? It seems to me a lot simpler a solution to change the bridge than to change how the neck attaches to the box. Just my 2 cents worth.


-Rand.

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Permalink Reply by Mungo Park on November 4, 2010 at 6:24pm

That bridge is very much looks a banjo bridge. I think you can find no end of discussion as to what shape and what material makes the best bridge, but your idea of lowering it would make things more simple to fit together.
Me thinks Carverman has built some string things before this CBG, but it is just spec.
Cheers Ron.

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Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on November 5, 2010 at 1:45am

Hi again Mr. Carverman. What's that weird thing you're using for a tail piece in this photo?

-Rand.

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Permalink Reply by Wes "I'm Baaaaack" Yates on November 5, 2010 at 3:41am

Thanks, Mungo. I must admit tho, I too learned it from someone here, so not completely my original.

One thing to note tho too, this drawing is using a laminated neck. You don't have to do that. sometimes I build with a single piece of 1x2 and an extra length on the bottom where the neck is inside the box. I glue that on, extending the 'tail' portion, cut a 2deg angle starting from the point where the neck enters the box, and then trim the tail thickness to 1" (.75"). Makes the tail and neck look the same thickness but if you looked inside, you would see the neck inside gets thinner from the neck side of the box to the tail side.

I might be able to diagram that too.

-WY

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Permalink Reply by carverman on November 5, 2010 at 4:41pm

Yes, thanks for your reply. I haven't glued down the box yet, but installed the truss rod and glued down the anchor pin..but I can dig out that out and cut down the neck acording o the pic that Wes has shown. This will allow the edge of the FB to come over the box, but now of course, I have a new problem is that the fb will be in the way to open the lid. Something I didn't think about and not an issue on normal guitars. I suppose, I could cut the fb at the point where it comes in contact with the edge of the CB, or move the CB down a bit by extending the end of the neck tone block. This is my first and proto CBG..I will be making another from spanish cedar that will have a longer CB and incorporate some of the design features into it. I'm using some P-ups and a preamp rod piezo on it..but I'm already thinking it may be too much stuff to fit into a Thomas Hinds CB. Dan
Mungo Park said:

Wes has got it in spades, you can raise the neck up by how much you cut out and then when you put on the FB you should be where you want. I leave a 1" "shelf" for the lid to touch the neck and the rest is cut out so the lid is free to resonate, this of course is what I have learned from Wes.

I see you have a Thomas Hinds box they work really well if you can find the big ones. They have a few stores in Canada but not many. I get mine in Winnipeg where I live.
Cheers Ron.

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