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Permalink Reply by Roger Martin on February 22, 2009 at 6:53pm

The other day I finished a Cigarbox guitar/Didley Bow, and found when it was done that I had built a LEFT hander.,Well it wasnt supposed to be a left hander but it is now.

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Permalink Reply by Gary Krepak- Sole Food Diddley Works on February 23, 2009 at 4:35am

My latest mistake, was routing the pickup oles on a Stogiecaster a little too wide, the widest part of the pocket shows about 1/32" on the outside of the humbucker ring. OOPS. I need to get some plexiglas PU and neck joint templates made ASAP.

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Permalink Reply by paul @ huckleberry guitar on March 4, 2009 at 1:04pm

Hmmm. I got excited and instead of measuring eyeballed a tailpiece and got it off center by 3/4 of an inch. Moved it and broke a screw head off while attaching it to the end of the neck. Still trying to figure out how to cover that one up. My most popular screw up usually involves working on a bone bridge and taking too much off it.

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Permalink Reply by Roosterman on March 11, 2009 at 10:23pm

Mr Steve Vargo, Iv just done exactly the same thing! Im using an old acoustic neck I sliced in half, but totally forgot scale length until I offered my box up - my bridge needs to be a not-ignorable 5 inches beyond the end of the box!! Iv messed around with it but have had to admit defeat and use a bigger box.... the bridge only needs to overhang the new box by be inch an a half!!

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Permalink Reply by Roosterman on March 20, 2009 at 11:22pm

Build #2, 2nd major error. Neck done, frets marked, tuners installed, nut done etc etc... measured scale to where the strings come through the body, NOT to where the bridge will be....

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Permalink Reply by Doc Oakroot on March 21, 2009 at 3:03am

I've done that with the scale longer than the box. Just retune in 7ET, lol. It's actually a pretty good scale. 10ET is interesting too.

Here's another build mistake I made: Hard Lessons about Soft Glue. The guitar in that post is back together and doing fine - in fact it's the only guitar on my new (old) song "Cluck Old Hen".

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Permalink Reply by Roger Martin on April 13, 2009 at 4:22am

LAst week while making a run of Didely's to sell during Easter Holidays, I needed about 8 or 9 to make sure I had enough.I was pressured by time constraints and was pushing myself to get them done in time. They HAD to be ready to go by Friday Afternoon.
So I had the necks all ready for the tuner install, got that done.
I do all the neck work at one time , then switch to box work ( reinforcement,etc.
So there I am,putting 1 together , getting it finished, reaching for the next, over and over,,,
Just as I saw I was almost ready to do the last one, I glanced over at the finished stack.
And noticed that 3 had the tuners installed backwards,,,,,,,, 2 had wound up as lefties, AGAIN,so I wasnt as close to done as I thought.
The lefties were taken apart and redone quickly,and the necks were simply flipped over and re installed.
Most of those sold over the weekend, I think theres about 3 or 4 left as I write this.
So here I am at 1 Am in the morning last nite after work shaping 8 more necks to have enough on the shelf NEXT weekend.
Now if I can find enough cheaper Cardboard Cigar Boxes for the little Didleys, I'm all set,,,,,I think,,,,,,

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Permalink Reply by Mark Werner on April 13, 2009 at 4:40am

I've broken a couple of those skinny little tuner screws too. Now, I use a bigger drill... There's hardly any tension on these screws, they don't really need to be "tight". Just enough to hold the tuner in place. Once it's strung up, it's not going anywhere.

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Permalink Reply by Roger Martin on April 14, 2009 at 3:43am

To speed up work when I'm installing tuners I lay them out on the neck,drill ONE hole for each one and install that one screw. I do this for each tuner. Then I go back after one screw is installed on each one and drill and install the rest of the screws.
If I start a screw that feels too tight, I go back and over drill that hole just a bit, and when installing the screw I'll put a dab of glue on it as I install it.
I found I spend way too much time installing tuners because of that 1 or 2 screws that give me trouble.
What I mentioned above may help speed other guys up when their installing tuners.
I mention this here because of all the time I have spent wrestling with this problem before I figured out faster easier ways to get it done.

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Permalink Reply by Ben on April 14, 2009 at 6:45am

So I just finished my first build and it went pretty good considering that everything works, the action is better than some of my 6-stringers, and the intonation is great. One mistake I made was eyeballing the drilled holes coming through the tail. I left enough room and just redrilled farther in (after measuring). The other mistake I made that I plan to fix on my next build was measuring the spacing of the tuning pegs from the center of the peg rather than the side I want the string to come off of. Its not a huge deal because the strings are spaced evenly, they are just a little too far to one side. I just thought of something else, the pickup I put in is 3 ceramic button magnets sandwiched between two pieces of plastic (you know the packaging for stuff now that you need a blowtorch to get into). It seemed ridged enough at first but as I wound, I found that the plastic was warping from the outward pressure of the wire. I plan to build my next one with thin basswood for the bobbins and screws going through to the magnets.

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Permalink Reply by John W on April 21, 2009 at 1:08pm

I'm still working on my first CBG, I've already made several mistakes, worst one is that I scooped too much out of the neck where the lid is supposed to fit; now I have to glue a few wood scraps down where the bridge is going to sit.

Vast majority of my mistakes are related to watching a toddler while trying to woodwoork. (Hand tools only! No toddlers around power tools I'm not that stupid.) My wife sometimes lets me get away with clamping a vice on to the coffee table so the child can play in the living room while I measure and work with the wood file. But I can only take so many requests for juice in stride before I start forgetting whether that measurement I just took was 3/8ths or 3/16ths.

If I wait until toddler free time to do anything I'd never get anything done.

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Permalink Reply by Zeb on April 27, 2009 at 5:02am

I built a resonator guitar and put the sound well 1/4 inch short. The result was an instrument that sounded incredible played open and flat or sharp on the higher # frets. With a biscuit bridge there's not much room for error. If I do it again and I probably will ,I will set the intonation then cut the hole. Fret calculators are not always exact. Chuck

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