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New guy in Kentucky

Hey ya'll, just finished my first CBG build (after a slight diversion into a diddley bow). The neighbor kid showed up with a CBG his grandparents bought him for his b-day so I tuned it for him & set him down on youtube to watch some playing tutorials. After watching a Justin Johnson video with him I was in the garage the next night working up plans for a cigar box I had propping up bourbon bottles in my cave. I didn't find this place until after, but in the last week I've acquired 6 more boxes & a delivery of tuners from C.B.Gitty and CBN has already given me a ton of ideas & lots of advice I could've used last week. I've had a thing for strings for a long time and am excited combine it with my penchant for crafting things with my own hands and start adding my own builds to my ever growing collection of guitars, ukes, mandolins, dulcimers etc.

CBGitty disk-o-tone piezo pickup

bottle opener tailpiece

machineheads I scored in a junk store turned out to have different length posts, so I adjusted fire with eyebolt tuners

finishing nail frets (once I'd gone with eyebolts I figured why not) & bourbon barrel stave neck brace

like I said, I had a mid-build diversion into diddley bows

But, next up is a lunchbox guitar project with my 3yo.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dave Lynas on May 27, 2014 at 2:41pm

Nice work and happy thoughts. Love this last photo. The beer opener is a great tailpiece.

Permalink Reply by Rob Bennett on May 27, 2014 at 7:23pm

Hi Good ideas there, I like the bottle opener tail piece ...nice nail for the nut too!!...a lunch box guitar is boss...keep your sandwiches in and strum through yer lunch break!!!!

Permalink Reply by ReturnToSender on July 31, 2014 at 1:36am

Hope all is well. How have the finishing nail frets worked out? Did you level them? What did you use to glue them in with?

Permalink Reply by BustdKnuklz on August 5, 2014 at 3:08am

The nails for frets worked out great, and I didn't do any leveling. Though if the string height was lower it might be more apparent that it's necessary. The nails themselves are fairly high compared to regular frets, so that high action combined w/ medium strings and tall frets makes for a decent finger workout, but it sounds decent.

I just cut a slight groove with a miter box saw where I wanted the frets so they wouldn't move around. Then ran some locktite superglue gel into the channel and laid the nail into it.

Permalink Reply by Richey Kay on August 5, 2014 at 7:05pm