Hi all,

Just wanted to post a couple pics of my first CBG, and say thanks. I saw some CBGs on a recent trip, then was given a copy of Maker magazine at Vancouver's Maker Faire. One of the projects in its summer fun issue was a CBG and it just caught my imagination.

For my part, I did a pretty simple CBG: box from cigar store ($3); oak neck from hardware store ($5); took a bridge from an old cheap-o guitar that was in the garage; the most money I spent was on the tuners ($25); piezo ($0.75) on the inside glued using plumbers goo. No frets, just markings as I did not want to complicate my first job. The action is thus high but I'm down with that as I want to use it for slide and this gives nice bending opportunities.

In all, it took me a couple days including research and tracking down parts. Most labour was in getting the neck cuts. Also had to solder for the first time in my life. All very stimulating and had made me appreciate the underlying mechanics and engineering of guitars.

It sounds great acoustic and electric, and I think I am really going to enjoy playing it as much as I did making it.

One important tip for newbies is that the neck piece under the box needs to be extra cut-away so the whole box lid can vibrate -- there is a good diagram on the site somewhere that shows this, whereas the basic instructions seem to imply having the neck piece flush against the box lid.

Anyway, I have been reading many, many posts on this forum and so want to give a really big thanks to the many enthusiasts who have shared tricks of the trade.