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My first CBG and its a BTG! A great Saturday night playing with my wood

So this is my first build I've been watching and learning on this site for the past month or so and eventually built one. Thanks to Juju for his advice from the interview i did with him on my blog.

So this is England and we don't have the oversized CBs available so easy over here, but we do have LOTS of biscuit tins, i found this Christmas themed Scottish Shortbread tin on the street yesterday, after a few days looking in shops for something similar, so its an authentic junk guitar, a Biscuit Tin Guitar, has anyone else made one?

As my first attempt its far from perfect but I learnt a lot and next time will know to do a few things differently. For example I decided this morning I would go and buy a spokeshave to shape the back of the neck, this was a wasted £15 really as even after sharpening it I couldn't get it to cut right so i ditched that idea and just went for a sanded neck. Will have to spend more time with the spokeshave on some junk wood later on, as its not as easy as it looked on you tube ;(

I raped and pillaged some shit guitars I had laying around for the machine heads, pickup, electronics, pot and bridge pins. Put it all together this afternoon in my room making a complete mess and after about 4-5 hours i had this little beauty.

The action is really high, and plays a nice slide and as you;d expect has a really tinny harsh sound to it, i'll post a song at some point these instruments really do inspire you when writing songs.

Look forward to making more and would appreciate feed back and any advice

Dirty X

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Permalink Reply by YeahDoIt on November 7, 2010 at 12:40am

Looks very much like my metal cookie box guitar. Does it sound tinny and harsh when you use the pickup or acoustically?

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Permalink Reply by Ukecansam on November 8, 2010 at 12:03am

Dirty Roger,

I am new at this as well and I like what you did with the tin. I play guitar and ukulele and like my action low. Do you want higher action with a CBG ?

Nice Job,

Ukecan

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Permalink Reply by JUJU on November 8, 2010 at 1:14am

hey man - great job on the first build - as you said you learn as you go on thats the best bit theres no rules set out like a normal guitar each build will get better as you learn by mistakes - but looks like you have masterd the basics

you asked for any advice well if you want to lower the action add a Fretboard to the neck 6-8mm which will lower your action by 6-8mm you could also cut the bridge down some and lower the nut alll together you should end up with pretty low action without having too much trouble - hope that helps mate

congrats on your virgin build i just know your itchin to start number 2 :)

juju

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Permalink Reply by dogfinger steve on November 8, 2010 at 11:17am

neat lookin guitar there man. hope it's the first of many :0)

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Permalink Reply by Bluesheart on November 8, 2010 at 1:10pm

Hey, great work on that.

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Permalink Reply by Dirty Roger on November 8, 2010 at 2:03pm

No i really wanted a lower action but, i'll aim for that on the next build ;)

Plays the slide great though :)

Ukecansam said:

Dirty Roger,

I am new at this as well and I like what you did with the tin. I play guitar and ukulele and like my action low. Do you want higher action with a CBG ?

Nice Job,

Ukecan

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Permalink Reply by Dirty Roger on November 8, 2010 at 2:04pm

Thanks dude, getting started on the next one already! woot :) this shit is fun!!!

JUJU AKA SOUNDSSOGOOD said:

hey man - great job on the first build - as you said you learn as you go on thats the best bit theres no rules set out like a normal guitar each build will get better as you learn by mistakes - but looks like you have masterd the basics

you asked for any advice well if you want to lower the action add a Fretboard to the neck 6-8mm which will lower your action by 6-8mm you could also cut the bridge down some and lower the nut alll together you should end up with pretty low action without having too much trouble - hope that helps mate

congrats on your virgin build i just know your itchin to start number 2 :)

juju

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Permalink Reply by Dirty Roger on November 8, 2010 at 2:05pm

Added a video, WOOT!

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Permalink Reply by JUJU on November 8, 2010 at 2:49pm

hehehe YEAH MAN lovin your video thats freakin cool man wasn't Expecting that at all - started out pretty normal then ...Give me sum sound :) very cool mate i really enjoyed that nearly as much as you did i can see your six stringers gathering dust like the rest of our guitars lol!

welcome to your new addiction
juju:)

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Permalink Reply by Mungo Park on November 8, 2010 at 5:45pm

Great video man, buy the looks of it you could lower the strings down a swack, seems like you have lots of space below the strings. Cheers Ron.

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Permalink Reply by Jim Mitchell on November 9, 2010 at 12:44am

Sounds and looks good..... When I was first getting the hang of using a spoke shave (and a plane for that matter) I always had the tool set for too big of a bite. Not a good practice! I use my spoke shave to carve my necks and have it set for very fine cuts. There was a really good discussion here on the subject about a month ago. Let me know if you can't find it and I'll dig up the link. I guess I'll see you at the meetings, these things are addictive....hehehehe

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Permalink Reply by Don Thompson on November 9, 2010 at 2:41am

It may be an optical illusion but from the side it appears your neck bends upwards once it leaves your tin. Have you held a straight egde along the box and checked to make sure it is straight? You can also look down the guitar and see if it is bending up.
Don