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Troubleshooting my first electric guitar build.

Hi. New here. In a fit of apparent madness, I started building sort-of an electric cigar box guitar using the designed published in Make Magazine a few months ago. You can find it here: http://makezine.com/projects/make-37/license-plate-guitar/

It's my first guitar, so as you can imagine I've run into some troubleshooting problems. I've completed the build and soldering, but can't get sound to come through my amp. The electronics include a hand-wound pick-up, a potentiometer/dial, and a pot. Basically, when I string up the guitar and plug it into the amp, no sounds comes through regardless of how high I turn up the volume. When the dial on the guitar is turned all the way up and I tap the metal rods of the pick-up with a magnet, I can hear that sound through the amp though, so the wiring is (hopefully) correct?

I was hoping someone here could help me troubleshoot this. Am I missing something obvious (likely)?

I can dig up some pictures if that would be helpful.

Thank you.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on August 9, 2014 at 1:20pm

Both bobbins will work. Finer 42 AWG wire and lots of it will solve much of your output problem. Also get a multimeter, and measure the impedance of your coil, once you get it wound. You should get something between 2000 and 6000 ohms resistance, if you've got enough wraps. Multimeters are cheap and easy to use.

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Permalink Reply by JL on August 10, 2014 at 1:42pm

The poles of the magnets need to all be pointing the same way.

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Permalink Reply by Amanda Potter on August 12, 2014 at 3:10am

Dang. That means the magnets I have aren't going to work, unless the smaller ones will work with a more coiled pick-up.

I'm considering just purchasing the pick-up at this point. Probably this one, unless there are other options out there: http://www.cbgitty.com/cigar-box-guitar-parts/pre-wired-4-string-si...

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Permalink Reply by Richey Kay on August 12, 2014 at 3:20am

Don't let this put you off Amanda, making pickups is really good fun and the results can be very rewarding. I'm happy to share my techniques with you, just let me know if you need some help. I'm by no means an expert, but I've made at least 20 working pups now and to my ear they sound pretty nice.

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Permalink Reply by Dan Sleep on August 12, 2014 at 6:29am

Or you could get one of my ThinBucker surface mount pickups. They are only 1/4 inch thick. You screw them to the lid, and drill a small hole for the wires.

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/photo/four-string-flatpup?context=user

You can get covers in brass, aluminum, copper, and others.

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on August 12, 2014 at 8:54pm

Heh there's always someone wanting to sell the answer...

Amanda. You can do it with the little rare earth jobbies, I know how they wanna fight you on it. Stick a (bigger) magnet temporary on the other side of the screws, it'll charge the ions so those little buggers don't flip while the glue sets up.