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Weekend Warrior CBG build, from beginning to end.

Well after several weeks of reading about CBG's,

purchasing my first CBG from ebay and loving it,

I decided I'm gonna build one. I though folks might want to follow along on as I learn and teach myself how to do this. All criticism and suggestions are welcome, but please remember, I am a pure amateur, and while I have some woodworking equipment I am by no means an expert. Just a weekend warrior waiting for Saturdays and Sundays to play with my guitars and workshop.

So here it goes:

Before beginning: Buying stuff.

Well, the obvious, A cigar box. Actually I got several, around 10. My wife stole 6 of them because they were "so nice". I was able to hold onto 4 or so. Made one into an amp just to get my feet wet with working with wood and soldering. See the pics for that. I got a really cool box from a cigar store for $10. However its sides, top and bottom are really thick around 5/8" inch thick.

The neck and fretboard: 1x4x48" that is big I know. too long and too wide. But I want a more guitar look to my CBG so the plan is to leave the headstock the 4" wide, but rip the neck to the 1.5" width. This way my headstock and neck will be one piece. I also want to have that angle on the headstock like a traditional guitar. Should be interesting. Oh, that is made out of Poplar. I also bought for $3 a 1/4x2x48" piece of Red Oak to use as a fretboard. I'm scared of gluing it to the neck, but hey, I won't have to do that for a while.

Tuning pegs: Bought from CB Gitty also got a set from China lets see.

Piezo buzzers: Got 5 20mm for $1.75 from Ebay. Soldered wire to them no problem.

2 A500k pot switches: from ebay $4

other stuff from ebay:

1/4" mono jack,

3p4t switch,

2p3t 5-way switch (I'll use one of these switches, not sure yet)

fret wire, strap pegs

mini player amp.

grommets, and other bling.

dollar store items:

potato masher (its on the amp)

hinges, brass door hinge pin, clasps, corner backets, shoe laces, eyeholes, suitcase corners,

all kinds of brassy stuff. who knows what I'll use, they were a dollar.

radio shack:

.047 mfd (uf) capacitor

.022 mfd (uf) capicitor

work donations:

7809 ic chip (for power supply for mini amp)

.1 uf capacitors (that's all they had)

molex connectors.

old keyboard connectors and panel mount housings (leftover crap)

lowes:

the wood, titlebond waterproof wood glue.various screws.

tools:

sears craftsman 10" radial arm saw from the 1970's

sears craftsman 9" band saw

4x36" tabletop belt sander.

Dremel 300 series with cutting jig.

miter saw, crosscut saw, various files, drill bits.

scrap wood

Well that's about it. I might update that list later on as I remember what else i bought.Anyway, I also spent a lot of hours planning and thinking about how I was going to do things. How to cut the headstock at an angle, and also to rip the neck part of my 1x4x48 (actual measurments: 3/4x3 1/2 x48) to 1 1/2 inch wide to match the 1/4 x 1 1/2" fretboard stock. so Friday night I picked up the 1x4 poplar, 1/4x2 red oak, and a 1x4 pine to practice on from lowes and woke up fresh on Saturday for my first day of real wood work on the Guitar.

to be continued....

- Jonathan

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Permalink Reply by jonathan leslie on December 11, 2011 at 2:16pm

OK, Day 1: Cutting the headstock and neck.

Instead of lots of dialog, I decided to take a lot of pictures. here is the photo essay of day one's activities:

http://jleslie48.com/jl/111210_guitar_01/acs.html

It took me a while to figure out how to cut the headstock. The angle is only slight, but should give the impression of a guitar. From what I read, if you make the angle more pronounced, you end up "short-graining" the neck and weakening it. I didn't want to do that, so I went with less of an angle.

Ripping the neck was easier than I thought it would be. The Radial Arm saw was really good at it.

I had drawn on graph paper the neck I wanted for the CBG, and traced that onto the headstock. I have penciled into the headstock a built-in pick and bottle slide holder, but I'm not sure if I'm going to cut them into the wood. Maybe I'll but it up to a vote.

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Permalink Reply by jonathan leslie on December 11, 2011 at 2:32pm

Day 2: sanding and fine cutting the headstock, neck, and cigar box.

photo essay:

http://jleslie48.com/jl/111211_guitar_02/acs.html

Ok, after tracing the headstock image on the poplar neck/headpiece, I took it over to my 9" bandsaw for cutting it out. That went pretty smoothly, and then I used my 4x36" belt sander to smooth it all down. I think it came out pretty nice. The headstock is about 1/2" thick, I don't know it that is too thin for the headstock. I may laminate a 1/4" thick piece on the backside, and then sand it down to 5/8- 3/4" I'd like some advice on that if someone knows.

Rounding the backside of the neck was pretty easy. just constant movement rounding the side. I cut the neck a little wide, about 1 5/8" it sticks out from the fretboard piece, but I figured once I glue it down I be able to sand it down all nice so it looks perfectly in sync.

When I cut out the hole for the neck is when I found out that the CB was really thick. I knew the sides and top were really thick, but I didn't realize the bottom was 5/8" thick as well. I must of spent about 2-3 hours sanding it down so it is about 1/4" thick. So now, I don't have to notch my neck at all: I will leave it the full 3/4" thick through the cigar box, and laminate the 1/4" thick fretboard to line up with the top of the box. Actually its the bottom of the box, There is this really cool insignia on the top of the box so rather than chop it up, I decided to leave the box top intact, and make the bottom of the box the front of the guitar. OH! I also bought some RIT dye to do a sunburst stain on the front of the guitar. we will have to see if that is gonna work later.

well the weekend is almost over, That's if for this week. If people like this thread and I'll continue it with how I progress.

OH and any suggestions will be welcome.

- Jon

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on December 12, 2011 at 1:47am

Jon,

Please keep up the progress reports. This is fun to watch.

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Permalink Reply by jonathan leslie on December 18, 2011 at 2:59pm

Ok, we are at the end of the second weekend, And so far no disasters:

http://jleslie48.com/jl/111213_guitar_03/acs.html

Started with some soldering, soldered the Piezo's and the 14" mono plug. Hooking them together and

running it through an amp you could test the piezo's just fine. Tap on them and your fingerprints are very

loud.

In a moment of clarity I realized some of my model making skills could be applied to guitar making. By using my

modeling exacto knife, I scored the remaining sections I wanted to cut out and the also the fret slots. this made a

nice clean line I could follow with the dremel (for the CB) and the hacksaw for the fret slots.

I was surprised how easy and clean it was to stain the CB. I coated the whole thing with a base of Golden Oak, the

same finish at the rest of the box. I almost stopped there, but I really wanted that sunburst look so I took a much darker stain and starting in swirls on the outside, I rubbed the darker stain into the outside of box and then took a clean cotton cloth and smeared it towards the center blending it as best I could, wiping excess back up to the edges so no harsh lines appeared. the Stain was applied strictly with squares of an old 100% cotton bedsheet that has been cut up into rags.

The poplar neck was stained with Golden oak, and the fretboard (that I predrilled with 5/64th pilot holes, and 1/4" countersinks. I'm using #4x 1/2" brass wood screws for fret markers/hold downs while gluing the fretboard) in Red Oak isstained with the Walnut and also the jacobian. Its not as dark as I would really like but oh well.

finally I carved my initials into a piece of Red Oak for a badge on the headstock. a little white paint and stain on that as well.

Well when the stain dries, the next step will be to glue the fretboard to the neck, then the nut to the fretboard.

Am I supposed to poly-urathane the neck?

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Permalink Reply by jonathan leslie on December 30, 2011 at 2:45pm

OK, so weekend 4 and 5 are combined. Actually weekend 4 was christmas and little was done as everybody was at my house for the weekend. That's ok though, as I was scared to continue anyway as now I'm down to the gluing and permanent stuff. No more stuff I can just fix if I mess up, Once glue is set, there is no going back. So without further ado, here is the picture essay of week 4:

http://jleslie48.com/jl/111230_guitar_04/acs.html

I started by gluing the fretboard to the neck. A little post glue sanding and it fits really nice. While that was setting, it was time to fit the volume, tone, and selector switches into the box. Back to my old problem, the box is over 1/2" thick. I had to thin out big sections of the box so the pot switches and the 3p4t selector switch would have threads come out so I could bolt them to the front of the guitar.

I followed my wiring diagram from week 3 pretty accurately:

and it went pretty smoothly. I really like that I put a connector in place on the tone control and piezo buzzer hookups so can swap out parts without soldering. Using the 3p4t switch, I have 4 positions, 1) both piezo's off, 2) first piezo only, 3) both piezo's, 4) the second piezo only. On piezo is definitely in a 2"x2" piece of red oak I have that will be placed directly under the Bridge. I'll place 2 others someplace, and connect 2 of the three piezo's at a time to the selector switch.

For finish, I used water based Varithane. It dried in about 2 hours, and I was able to get 3 coats on the first day. I put on a 4th coat on the neck and fretboard the second day. the top of the CB got 2 coats.

the Frets were very time consuming to put it. I had to re-cut the fret slots as the varithane got into the slot. I tapped the frets into place, then pressed them in with my vise. I first cut them to size with my dremel, cut back the insert part, and then when in place and pressed, trimmed the fret with the dremel.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on December 30, 2011 at 4:04pm

Jonathan,

Taking your work a step at a time looks like it is working well for you. This looks like it is gonna be an outstanding first build.

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Permalink Reply by jonathan leslie on December 31, 2011 at 11:44am

OK, its done!!! and before midnight here in NY New years eve (I'm gonna make the contest deadline!!!) Here's the last

bit of work and final pictures:

http://jleslie48.com/jl/111231_guitar_05/acs.html

The nuts on the Guitar strings were too small to be caught by the holes in the hinge, so I'm using #6 screws as

guitar pegs. They are not screwed in. Even with the angle on the headstock and the raised fretboard, the strings wouldn't

stay in the notches in the nut. I installed 2 eye holes and a brass rod to hold the strings down behind the nut.

I'm using the 2 (.011"/.28mm), 3(.016"/.41mm), and 4(.024"/.61mm) strings off an electric guitar string package right now (A506 series), strings seem a little tight, but the 3,4,5, strings seemed even tighter.