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Permalink Reply by Hip Bone Bellaire on June 19, 2010 at 2:51am

Thanks, I've been wondering that myself... The old school blues guys of early 1900 didn't fret their broom sticks.. I don't have 3 weeks to try and make this look like fender.. If that's the case then I'll go buy a 50.00 guitar off craigslist and cut the body into a square and cover with a cigar box...I guess that follows under the rule that there are no rules..Plus my wifes due date for our baby boy is today the 19th, and that's gonna make less time for this fret stuff.. Zip strips look funny, rubber bands and nails look funny so this is what I found and thought I'd share... Anyway Thanks again..

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Permalink Reply by Jerryrig240 on June 21, 2010 at 10:05pm

That is one sweet setup you got there....I think a lot of us all have that one cbg that just was just slapped together, but just made to be....mine is my license plate build that I just recently have done....I love that hink....I should take a good pic of it...I have not posted it on the sight yet.

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Permalink Reply by Hip Bone Bellaire on June 22, 2010 at 12:49am

license plate build,, I've been waiting to build a matching set with my Texas plates but can't find boxs and just might use a bamboo cutting board and fret with staples..

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Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on June 29, 2010 at 6:20am

These staples look great and I bet they work pretty well to boot. I wasn't interested in using standard staples using an office stapler. Didn't seem to me like they would work well. But these industrial strength staples should do the trick. Will check out Home Depot! By the way, how much did the stapler cost? I know some specialty tools to be outrageously priced. I hope that's not the case here.

In all my canjos to date, I've used tie wraps (zip ties, call 'em what you like). What I don't like about them is that they dampen the vibrating string a bit. But what I do like about them is that they are movable, so if you make a mistake positioning a fret, no sweat, just move it. On one canjo I used fret positions from a fret calculator and found my fret positions to be off by a bit, most of the frets were off by the same amount, and I attribute it to a "high" nut and possibly a high "bridge" (you know, that hole in the soda can of the canjo through which the string runs and transfers energy to the can resonator). Have you experienced such fret positioning problems? I'm afraid to commit to fixed location frets. I guess I'll just have to just buy a few extra "sticks" and practice with the staple til I get the hang of it. They'll require a wider "stick" than I'm used to, but I have been wanting to build multi-string anyway.

Good info! Thanks for the post!

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Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on June 29, 2010 at 6:37am

What's the spacing of strings and neck width on your 3-stringer?

If strings 1 and 3 are separated from the middle string by 3/8th on an inch, that leaves "2.5"/16ths (5/32nds) between either outer string and their respective staple prong. Add to that about 1/8th of an inch on either side of the staple prongs and we are talking neck size of about 1 & 5/16th inch (21/16ths"). Add a little space for the width of the staple prongs themselves and I reckon we're talking 1 & 3/8" for the neck width. Is that cutting it too close?

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Permalink Reply by Hip Bone Bellaire on June 29, 2010 at 6:38am

No stapler, I pre-drilled the holes to a 1/2 dept or so, I cut each staple with a wire cuter/with an attached small bolt cutter to about 1/4 inch. Put a tad of superglue inside the wholes ..tap them in with a hammer and done... these are rough on top so this will give a bit of a problem when bending strings... good luck

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Permalink Reply by Micah Haley on June 29, 2010 at 6:44am

I really like the way you think man!

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Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on June 30, 2010 at 6:18am

Great Info!

Hip Bone Bellaire said:

No stapler, I pre-drilled the holes to a 1/2 dept or so, I cut each staple with a wire cuter/with an attached small bolt cutter to about 1/4 inch. Put a tad of superglue inside the wholes ..tap them in with a hammer and done... these are rough on top so this will give a bit of a problem when bending strings... good luck

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Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on July 3, 2010 at 6:35pm

Okay, today I got some of these GSE-15410 staples from the Home Depot in Pleasanton, CA. They were in the Electrical Department (about half-way down Isle 5). In their fasteners section they also had a thinner staple that was 1.25" wide (an 8th of an inch wider), but you had to buy a "million" of them in a box for almost 50 US dollars (several life time supplies for you average CBG builder). Forget that! I bought four packs of the "GSE-15410s", and I really like the thicker "rough top" look of these staples a lot more. Will use them on my next project, which will be my first 3-stringer round cookie tin "banjo-canjo". I working on the neck/headstock now, trying to figure how to best position the tuners. After that is done, I'll begin fretting. It'll have a 24" scale. Actually, I'll also be staining and "varnishing" the head/neck, so that will come before adding the frets. Will let you know how the fret work goes...

I also checked out Lowe's in Dublin, CA. Like Home Depot, they have lots of interesting stuff, but I couldn't find any large (1" wide or better) flat topped staples. They just had up to 9/16" wide flat top staples. I was thinking though, if you are building a stick dulcimer to play using the middle and bass strings as a drone, you could get by with the smaller width staples and just fret where the melody string(s) is (are). The drone strings are never really fretted unless you are playing chords, so not fretting the middle and bass strings is a viable option for "drone" players. On one of my three string builds in the near future I hope to add a fourth string so I can have dual melody strings for a hopefully louder melody with greater sustain as compared to the drone strings so the drone won't continue to drown out my melodies.

Lowe's did have some nice red oak and poplar boards for making necks and heads, but I still practicing my wood working skills so I'm sticking to my softwood pine for my next build or two (to use my supply up as well).

My last trip of the day (today) was over to Gryphon Stringed Instruments in Palo Alto, CA. They have a great collection of stringed instruments, but no stick dulcimers or cigar box guitars. But a great collection of banjos, ukuleles and even three mountain dulcimers. I spent some time picking out tunes on the ukuleles and the mountain dulcimers. The mountain dulcimers sounded great. I bought a bunch of individual geared machine tuners, enough for 4 builds. That should keep me real busy for the rest of my summer vacation here in the States. I would like to spend a few hours everyday checking out places like Gryphon. I wonder if they need any volunteers.

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Permalink Reply by Wade on July 4, 2010 at 3:55am

This is great! It gets me to thinking- How difficult it would be to take things a step further and make your own staples out of something like a clothes hanger or other wire.

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Permalink Reply by Hip Bone Bellaire on July 4, 2010 at 5:19am

I just found out that you need to make sure ALL THE FRETS ARE TAPPED ALL THE WAY DOWN.. as some of the frets on mine are not, placing the fret in front slightly higher then the one in back.

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Permalink Reply by MichaelS Country Boy Guitars on July 4, 2010 at 5:50am

Wade, you can get a simple wire bending jig and make them from coathanger or you can get different thiknesses of wire at hobby stores, or just use a small vise for bending them up. Sounds like agood down and dirty CBG type of fret to me.

Wade said:

This is great! It gets me to thinking- How difficult it would be to take things a step further and make your own staples out of something like a clothes hanger or other wire.

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