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  • Rand Moore August 1, 2011 at 1:35pm

    Hi Terrill,

    I looked over your photos and your builds seem pretty good to me. Maybe you have in mind some "beginning" CBGs built by folks who come from a wood working or luthier background who you are comparing your work against. Sure, their builds are going to look and sound really great. I got started a bit over a year ago and had absolutely no wood working experience, nor many tools. Yet after maybe a dozen builds I have built progressively better and better CBGs. Sure your first couple leave a lot to be desired. Just building the head and neck assembly, figuring how to mount 3 or 4 tuners on the head stock, and how to mount the neck onto the cigar box is a lot to learn in a first build, and because there are many different ways of doing most things, it will take you a dozen build before you get the hang of how to best build your guitars, given your circumstance. For instance, I live most the time in China, and my best source for good quality wood to build with is trim wood that's sold in 2.2 meter lengths and is 3cm wide by 0.5 cm thick. So, I have to build up my necks by laminating (gluing) together 6 or 7 long narrow slats of wood. I also don't have access to cigar boxes in China, so I have to build my own boxes from this same material, and then use 2mm thick plywood laminate for the sound board and back board. So my techniques for build instruments is much different than most other builders. Other factors that may cause your techniques and quality to vary include what tools you have to work with. If only hand tools, then your instruments will likely take longer to build and may not be as well fashioned as compared to those builders with a garage full of expensive power tools.

    Also, if you come from a traditional guitar background, CBGs won't compare. What you should compare a CBG against is a el-cheapo canjo. If you have played a canjo, then come to CBGs, you'll think CBGs sound really great. That's how I got my start, and I have made quite a few CBGs, but have moved on to my own boxes. I think you have more control over instrument quality if you build your own boxes, and that may be a direction you will want to consider if CBGs don't sound good enough to you.

     

    P.S. I like some of the ideas you did come up with. It shows that you are quite innovative. The bottle cork you use to provide a place to store your slide on that one CBG is a new idea, as is the idea of adding mass to the box to make the tone sound better. I think you are doing a good job so far, just hang in there and make incremental changes to your instruments, focusing on perfecting one or two "issues" with each build. The hobby is fairly inexpensive, and so experimentation is not so expensive. Just keep at it.

     

    -Rand.

  • Ryan Rose August 1, 2011 at 1:21pm
    Getting better and better. Nice work.
  • Terrill Kovacs August 1, 2011 at 12:42pm

    Thanks for your feedback and encouragement guys!  I expect to put up a lengthy post soon, but in the meantime, I just uploaded pictures of builds 6 - 10 here:

     

    http://www.cigarboxnation.com/photo/albums/builds-6-10

  • Terrill Kovacs August 1, 2011 at 12:15pm
    Good old eye-bolts.  I had to use a pair of needle-nose pliers for open them up a bit, but they worked like a charm. 

    Dave Davies said:
    They look great.  Just curious, how did you anchor the chicago screw?
  • Bluesheart July 31, 2011 at 10:00pm
    Some nice looking CBGs. I understand that it is a rather addictive hobby, but it is a hobby for most of us at least. I'm sure those have taught you a lot. Take a break if you get tired. Only thing more fun than buildin' em is playin' em. Lucky for us playing slide goes great with a cold one!
  • Dr. Dave July 31, 2011 at 7:50pm
    They look great.  Just curious, how did you anchor the chicago screw?
  • Rand Moore June 26, 2011 at 11:18pm

    Hi Terrill,

    If learning to play these instruments is getting you down, you might try building a different sort of instrument - one more oriented to beginning musicians: stick dulcimers (aka 'strum sticks', 'strummers' and more than a dozen other names) and dulcijos. Both types of instruments use diatonically spaced fretboards, which pretty much restricts you to a single key (w/o retuning), but there are a lot less "wrong notes" because most of the accidentals just don't appear on the fretboard. This make it easier for novice musicians to master.

    If you have never fretted an instrument and feel intimidated by the prospect, then try fretting one of your current builds using electrician's tie-wraps. Use the thinnest ones you can find that are still long enough to go around your CBG's neck. Use a larger sized (thicker) tie-wrap for fret 0 (in addition to your nut) so your open string notes sound similar to your fretted notes. There is some muting of the notes when you use tie-wraps as frets, but it is plenty loud to play by yourself. You can then tune the frets with a chromatic digital tuner, which I assume you have (if not, get one). We generally begin by tunning the instrument to D-A-D' or G-D-G' (open strings). Then tune the frets for string 1, stopping the string at the next fret, moving the fret up or down until its in tune, and repeating this for all the frets on the string. Then repeat this for strings 2 and 3 and eventually they will all be tuned fairly accurately. Alternatively, you can use a fret calculator to tell you where they go, but you will likely still have to fine tune the tie-wrap frets.

     

    305730891?profile=RESIZE_320x320There's a lot of tunes that have been tabbed for the stick dulcimer and many more available for the mountain dulcimer that can be adapted to stick dulcimer fairly easily. Here is an example of a tab for Old Joe Clark:

     

    The numbers above the words of the song indicate the fret on the melody string to fret while you pick the string with your right hand. In the tradition of mountain dulcimers, the second and third strings are usually just used as drone strings. With a little practice it is easy to master these melodies, and this success helps to reinforce your interest in learning more.

     

    If this seems interesting, I can direct you to more information on CBN. There are several groups where stick dulcimers and dulcijos are discussed. These include:

     

    1.) Dulcimers and Strummers

    2.) Three string guitars

    3.) Banjo Players Unite! (Dulcijos)

     

    You can also check out my personal page as I have tabs there as well and descriptions of a number of stick dulcimers, dulcijos and other instruments I have made, all with diatonic fret boards.

     

    -Rand.

  • Jay Patton June 24, 2011 at 3:06pm

    Not overthinking is what I LOVE about doing this. I start out with a VERY rough idea of what I want, and I just go with it. If I mess something up, I improvise it to correct it. I've made 5... I think... and I've yet to get to a point on any of them where I'm like "I'm starting over!".

     

    I just adapt. lol

     

    All your builds look great! Keep at it!

  • Bad Finger (Eric) June 24, 2011 at 1:27pm
    Grab a slide and a pick and enjoy the sweet sounds of your labor.  My second build is still my favorite and I play it most every day.  Working on #6 when the mood strikes me.
  • Terrill Kovacs June 24, 2011 at 12:11pm
    I want to thank everyone for their advice - I think I am going to follow almost all of it.  Take a break, have a beer, play some music and have a smoke (Marlboro Menthols, though).  Keep the ideas coming - I think this is a great thread.
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