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Permalink Reply by jeffrey ross on July 13, 2015 at 9:10am

I did one 6 string. I laminated the neck from 3 pieces, two oak sandiwched around a piece of maple. I made the neck blank over sized and cut the head stock as one piece. For the neck shape, I trace my Alvarez 6 string and sort of modified as I went. The fret board is NOT radiused as I found this too difficult at the time. I used no truss rod and it holds tune at standard tuning fine. The action is a little high so it is best with a slide but is playable with fingers to about the 9-20 fret area. I ran the neck all the way through the largest cigar box I had and I run my strings from the tail to the tuners. That puts all the tension on the neck, not the body.

Its not a Martin but it is a playable, nice sounding guitar. I used a piezo pickup inside, just above the base side of the bridge.

I hope this helps a little.

Jeff

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Permalink Reply by Skeesix on July 14, 2015 at 6:54am

You can use neck laminations to stiffen the neck so you don't need a truss rod.

For the peghead, there are three possible designs -

You can go Fender style and cut it all out of the same piece, but you'll need string trees to create enough string angle over the nut.

Or you can go Gibson style and do a scarf joint to create the peghead angle.

Or if your laminated board is thick enough, you can simply cut a peghead out with the required angle (looks like you make a scarf joint, but you didn't).

Length of board - assuming this is a neckthrough design - length of peghead + length of scale from nut to bridge, plus enough extra to get it to the end of the box (you have to figure out which fret you want the box to join the neck at and then measure the length of the box and see how far it goes past the bridge). Plus an extra few inches if you want a tail sticking out the end of the box. Plus an extra several inches in case you screw up cutting a scarf joint, for example.

You can always cut off extra length, but it's harder to add it back on.

Radius fretboard - probably the easiest way to get started is to use a radius sanding block. Stewart MacDonald's sells these or you can make your own using 10 or 12 laminations of plywood with the radius cut in via bandsaw and glued into a block. I put a handle on mine to make it easier to hold onto. Then stick some heavier grit sand paper in the radius with spray glue or double sided carpet tape and sand away.

Neck thickness - about 1" total is a good thickness. So if you're using a 1/4" fret board, make the neck 3/4" thick. You can use that same thickness the whole length where your hand plays, but may need it thicker inside the box for various reasons, such as making a cutout for the lid, adding a recessed pickup, creating a neck angle, balancing the weight of the neck so the guitar is not neck heavy.

My suggestion would be to draw the whole thing out to scale in a drafting type computer program first, so you can visualize things better and know the dimensions you need (or find a drawing someone  else has done).

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Permalink Reply by doggylv . on July 15, 2015 at 3:43am

Skeesix, thank you for the info, 3/4" seem a little thin from when I laid it out and from what I've been hearing here, make the neck thicker,won't feel right at first to the player....I did cut out some cardboard to lay out a top and side view, not computer savvy enough to draw anything...

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Permalink Reply by Richey Kay on July 14, 2015 at 8:22pm

Some excellent advice already, but did you check out Smokehouse Guitars PDF on 'Advanced CBG Construction'? That is pretty much a guide to building a 6 string CBG.

Like the others have said, your main differences with a 6 string as opposed to a 3 or 4 is that you ought to have a truss rod, or a strong lamination, and you will want a radius on the fretboard. I have made 32 3&4 string guitars and I feel... almost ready to tackle a 6 string. I feel I understand the work involved.

Could I ask why you wanted to make a 6? Good luck anyway chap!

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Permalink Reply by doggylv . on July 15, 2015 at 3:39am

PDF...what PDF...I will have to go look for that....Richey like you I have built a number of 1,2,3 and 4 stringers but I have a few people that keep asking about a 6 stringer, so I thought I might give one a try. Thank you for the info, now to try and find that PDF....

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Permalink Reply by Richey Kay on July 15, 2015 at 4:06am

Here you go:

http://www.cigarboxguitar.com/knowledge-base/advanced-cigar-box-gui...

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Permalink Reply by doggylv . on July 15, 2015 at 5:48am

WOWS, this is great...great....great, thank you for finding this for me and a shout out to Smokehouse for doing this, I will be busy for awhile reading...

Btw,I really like that song you wrote on the April 19 video, very very nice.

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Permalink Reply by Richey Kay on July 15, 2015 at 6:46pm

Yep, I love that guide. I read it about once every 6 months and I always pick up something new.
Thanks for checking out the video!

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Permalink Reply by JL on July 14, 2015 at 11:48pm

What little I know - 6 strings medium set - put over 150# of tension on the neck, ANY neck will bow forward to some degree under that load.  Trying to predict how much and putting a 0.5mm to 2.0mm back-bow in the neck so it ends up straight is, well, ... that's why adjustable truss rods were invented, lol.

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