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Permalink Reply by Stuart Baldwin on October 15, 2016 at 1:24pm

Here's one I made earlier.  After three CBGs, I jumped in with this:

One thing about six stringers is that you feel that you need to use proper guitar hardware. The (mostly chinese) hardware on this wasn't too expensive and Telecaster hardware is pretty basic anyway.  The neck is from Amazon (£25) but I did wind the pickups myself.  The pickguard is cut from a spare vinyl tile from our bathroom!

Then, guilty at leaving the CBG theme behind I built this:

I didn't have a big enough box so I made one from reclaimed english oak. The neck is one that I was given by a friend (along with the cheapo pickups).  Wiring is classic Les Paul but the neck turned out to be a bit twisted so it's waiting for me to get a chance to make a new one.  This one doesn't feel as nice as the Tele, maybe because I can't set the string height properly, but it is nicely balanced.

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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on October 15, 2016 at 5:30pm

You can make a semi hollow electric six string. Here's a link to a work in progress of my AutoRATic Rhythm and Blues Cosmic Glider.

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/photo/img-boxtwo001?context=user

The only thing I did wrong is not putting sound holes in the top. 

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on October 15, 2016 at 6:54pm

I never chopped a regular 6 string to make a CBG, it seems a pointless exercise. I have however made plenty of them from my parts bin, and I always have loads of 6 string bridges, pickups and necks to hand. In which case what I'm doing is making a conventional 6 string and utilising a cigar box (or an oil can or whatever) for the body.

Here's one I did last week...stock Tele bridge and Fender pattern neck.

 The other way is to build the neck from scratch, and that is a whole lot more difficult, as your typical six string player will want "proper"playability...so a truss rod will be needed and radiussed fretboard will often be specified. If you want a challenge, it's great way of improving your guitar making skills.  Here's an early one of mine with a 24 fret neck. I made a radius sanding block and just hand sanded the radius onto the fretboard, no special tools or jigs, just hard work and a lot of checking by eye and a steel straight edge. The truss rod isn't just there for strength, it is really useful to be able to control the relief in the neck to ensure low action and playability. It's possible to make a 6 string neck with a simple fixed rod for strength, but it does put more onus on your skills to be able to make a perfectly true neck with just the right amount of relief in it. As I say, plenty of opportunity for learning new stuff, and you don't need a bunch of special power tools or jigs, it can all be done by hand...this 24 fretter was made with hand tools and just a pillar drill to help out a wee bit.

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Permalink Reply by Fomhorach on October 17, 2016 at 4:42am

I agree with what you said about a fixed truss rod.

When I built my 28" scale semi-base I used an aluminium T section bar but I knew I had to have the neck dip built into the neck before fretting. This also throws up problems with fret leveling. I got lucky and I would not recommend this method of build.

It would have been far more easily done using a proper truss rod.

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Permalink Reply by JL on October 17, 2016 at 4:01am

If you are building this for yourself...

Take the easy step and just make a wider neck than you did for your 3 & 4 strings, do all the rest the same way you have been doing it and enjoy the journey and the end result.  Your head will be full of ideas on what to do next time before you are finished.

Also, use low tension nylon acoustic strings and you won't have to worry about a truss rod. (this time)

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Permalink Reply by Taffy Evans on October 17, 2016 at 12:11pm

Hi All, I  have built 6 string guitars since the mid 1970's [plus most every other popular fretted instrument] and used all manner of neck reinforcing methods. This starts back in the day with solid steel bar [key steel], shop made adjustable truss rods, factory made duel action  truss rods, and carbon fibre reinforcement. And of course no truss rod at all in four and three string CBG's, although these do have a suitably deep neck and correct grain orientation.

Any way, the six stringer pictured was built in early 1980 and features a solid [key steel stock] bar. 

As I still have this guitar I thought I would measure the action and tell you how it has faired over these 37 odd years.

The action over the 12 fret is 2mm and the relief in the neck over the 7th fret is 2 thousands of an inch, nearly flat.  In the building I did not put the relief in the fingerboard but let the string pull slightly on a flattish neck. my other guitar from 1975 and finished the same way has slightly more relief at 8 thousand. With the guitar pictured I have to have summer and winter bridge saddles to compensate for changing action heights and buzzing due to seasonal timber movement.  

PS...

A solid steel bar would make the neck of a six string light CBG too heavy and unbalanced I feel.  

The two guitars above had the same mahogany necks, the first had an ebony fingerboard [stiff] and the other a rosewood fingerboard [not as stiff] So keep in mind what you use as a fingerboard as it aids neck stability.

For what its worth, Taff

                                                                                                                                     

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