first timer here. nice guitars and nice great ideas. i have a few questions for a first timer and have looked at some various guitars. i was thinking i'd have to join a cookie tin nation but I imagine I could get some help here. I plan on a 3 string slide, no frets, no tuners guitar. a cookie tin guitar
1) I have no tuners or money for them so im using screw loops ( i think they are called) can they be tuned ? 3 strings
2) I have a rectangle tin. I noticed that the tops of tins due to sturdiness and overall design are on the back not front of the tin guitars. It seems the neck has more sturdiness and overall playing ability on the back of a cookie tin. Unfortunatley, for looks the cool design should be on the front...anyway around this??
3) my first cookie tin guitar has a pine neck. I have removed tin from one side of the tin and inserted the pine wood against the rear of the cookie tin (the end of the pine wood plank is up against the back of the tin. Is it necessary to go all the way through the cookie tin? I plan on somehow screwing the wood to the tin? (maybe near the bridge)
4) Haven't figured out how to keep strings on tail piece or behind bridge etc??. I have a few ideas but need more. I have some sturdy wood pieces for nut and bridge or some bolts.. as it will be raised for a slide.
I'd like the guitar to tune but realize without real tuning pegs might be difficult. I also plan on making a whole for 1/4 jack and putting a piezo pickup or two (never done a pickup ever but saw many videos and got some radio shack stuff). at what stage do you drill and put the pickup in? do you drill the 1/4 jack hole with a drill going in or out of the tin? put pickups on after putting neck on etc?
thanks i realize these are alot of questions and so far the videos ive seen there are alot of builders playing already built guitars. are there assembly videos in particular for the novice first time cookie tin, no real tuners..type like myself? thank you again.
Replies
Well, good luck on your project. Next time you may get more response from other members if you keep the number of questions per post to a minimum, as not many people have as much time as I to respond to posts. The other thing you might try to get in the habit of doing is to think of your question in terms of keywords that you can use in the CBN search engine, then try to search for discussions that relate to your question. Most of the time the question you have will have already been answered else where on CBN. I do it a lot and usually find my answers that way.
-Rand.
I really like your idea of bolts as nut and bridge and would like to know how you cut the tops off? Also string guides possiblly screws would help I think to keep the strings for in place. Some sort of string guide one of the major flaws in my first attempt. Also the pine seems a bit frail to work with. So all in all my next attempt at this with follow a lot more of the things you've mentioned and pictures you provided ..so thanks a lot. It's seems like each instrument will be a different challenge. I'm glad I got something going. I'm very deficit on the neck calculator stuff but hopefully will get better. Any more tips on eye-bolt winding and placement very appreciated.
Hi Jon,
In CBN there's a discussion group called "Can Jo Consortium" which may have answers for your questions if you have time to read through their postings. In the mean time, I'll take a closer look at your questions and see if I can help to answer them.
-Rand.
-Rand.
With regard to your first question...
By "screw loops", I assume you mean "eye-bolt tuners". There have been many "eye-bolt tuners" built and documented on CBN, and you can research and view photos by searching the CBN website using the keywords "eye-bolt tuner" and similar word combinations. Each page on the CBN website has a search box in the upper right corner of the page.
Here's a photo of an instrument with eye-bolt tuners, so we can be sure we're talking about the same thing.
Another class of home-made tuners that you may want to consider are called "headless tuners", and CBN has a discussion group dedicated to the topic. It's called "Headless Guitar Tuners", and another source for such home-made headless tuners is "The Uncle Bob Guitar Project".
Here's a photo of a headless tuner:
Another option is to use tuning pins zither tuning pins. Here's a photo of a banjo that uses them...
So, go ahead and try building a guitar or three using any of these methods, then sell one of your guitars, and that should give you the money to buy a real set of tuners. They are not that expensive, and tend to work a lot better than home-made tuners. I recommend open geared guitar tuners. CBGitty has them for pretty cheap. I can get them cheaper, but that's because I live in China.
-Rand.
With regard to your second question...
I also tend to build "cookie tin guitars" with the bottom as the "sound board" because of structural strength concerns. If you mount the neck to the box (using the pretty top of the cookie box as the sound board), then you must avoid cutting the folded rim of the cookie tin's lid that gives it structural strength. It can be done, usually by including a "heel" on the neck, and cutting away a notch in the neck where it would otherwise meet the rim of the cookie box top. I've included a diagram of what I'm talking about below. I'd suggest searching through CBN Pictures using the keywords "cookie box" or "cake box" and "guitar" or "banjo" as your keywords. Also, I usually take the time to draw out my design before I build it as it's easier to see design errors and correct them before they get implemented in wood and tin.
Notice the two screws that fasten the end of the neck to the "tail end" of the cookie tin. You may also want to beef up the structural support on the part of the cookie tin that receives the neck. The diagram also show the part of the neck that goes under the sound board as being cut away to avoid contact with the soundboard in order to resonate better.
-Rand.
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