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Permalink Reply by Dan Sleep on August 6, 2011 at 12:57am

I have some questions though. What's a good way to get proper spacing for what are essentially the top three pairs of strings on a twelve-string guitar?

How about a trip to your local guitar store and measure the spacing on a standard 12 string?

 

How do I securely and simply bolt on the neck? Should I use three bolts or just two?

 

Use as many bolts as you can. I made a few bolt on necks and used 4 and didn't have any problems.

 

What's a good height for the fingerboard above the box?

 

When I add a fingerboard, I make the neck flush with the box lid, then add a quarter inch thick fretboard, making the fretboard a quarter inch above the lid. This seems to work pretty good when I use a commercial Tele style hard tail bridge.

 

What kind of bridge setup do you recommend? Stringing straight up through the cigar box's lid seems way too risky.

 

I would avoid coming up through the lid unless you have it reinforced to prevent problems. Maybe add a commercial tailpiece?

 

Also, how would a standard single-coil pickup work on a build like this? I've got effects pedals for tone and such, so I'd just like it to function. I don't have a piezo but I do have a pickup, a volume/tone knob set, and an input jack lying around...

 

Go for it! Again, just make sure you keep things structurally sound.

 

 

I'm kind of concerned about the box as well. It's a standard all-wood cigar box made of cedar. Not paperboard or thin, but I'm still worried about how much tension a total of six strings would exert on the box.

 

I would put some reinforcing wood inside the box. Doing so can cut down on the resonance abilities, but if you are putting a pickup in it, then it doesn't matter quite as much. On the ones I made, I ran a piece of 2x4 pine the entire length of the box and liberally glued it to the back of the box. You want to avoid a structural collapse, which could be dangerous as well as disappointing.

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Permalink Reply by Fiddling Wolf on August 6, 2011 at 4:05pm

Thanks for the help. I'm thinking of going the "canjitar" route now. I bolted a piece of poplar below the "strat" neck for a neck-through design to eliminate stress on the soundbox, and already have a tin lying around. Seems like the tin would work with a simple pickup too, just strap a cheapy single-coil in the tin and it should pickup the reverb since all tins contain some steel now.

 

I'll definitely have pics if it succeeds. Any suggestions on how to make a nut? I can't afford to buy, well, anything at the moment, but I have a bunch of hardwood and metal scraps lying around.

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Dan Sleep on August 6, 2011 at 4:53pm

Go to your local home improvement store and find the free Corian samples they have where they sell countertops. It cuts and sands really easily and makes pretty good nuts and bridges.

 

I used Corian on my latest Queen B build.

 

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/photo/queen-b-2-002?context=user

 

Fiddling Wolf said:

Any suggestions on how to make a nut? I can't afford to buy, well, anything at the moment, but I have a bunch of hardwood and metal scraps lying around.

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Order99 on August 6, 2011 at 7:57pm

   My first (recent) successful build used bone strips cut from a 1.00  pre-cleaned chew bone...the popular Uncle Crow build used different sized bolts for nut and bridge...most fiddles use a hardwood like Ebony or Mahogany...the 'Vaudville Fiddle' plans on this site call for a 'piece of notched brass' for the nut and Oak bridge..A homebuilt guitar at Instructibles.com used a shaped domino for a nut...I think you've got a lot of choices.

 

  That Queen Bee nut looks out of this world though-I might need to try that material myself..

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