Nathan King

Thanks Nathan!

Hello,
I have started a CBN group entitled, "How to Play CBG" It is my hope and intention to encourage the "Wealth of Talent" here on the Nation to share their knowledge and skill to further the CBG movement. Please consider contributing an instructional "video" link to this group. If you are a viewer seeking instruction, please feel free to write. If you have any suggestions or know other players who you think may want to post instructional "video" links, please contact me. Thank you for your interest and support, Keni Lee

You have some cool ass builds here bro!

Nathan, thanks for the postive feedback; it's always encouraging. I have found the guitar style dulcimer really encourages me to improvise more than a standard fretted instrument. They are fun and easy to play. Have fun on your fretless CBGs!!! Doug

Nathan, Fretted instruments aren't all that difficult. The only critical tool is the fret saw to cut the right slot (I didn't have one and the first cbg was extremely difficult!). I made the miter box for it out of wood for cutting slots; I used a C clamp to make a press to push in the frets, and a grinding bit on my drill press to ground down the fret ends and then bevel on a sanding board. I never actually use a file on the frets anymore. Since I'm a chording rhythm player, so frets are essential!!! Doug

I love the elegance of that headstock but I think the thing I was most impressed with is the precision in those z shaped sound holes. The edges are all nice and sharp, I can see no tearing in the paper label, and they appear to be perfectly symmetrical. All of the seams where the stick meets the box appear to be very clean and tight as well. This all indicates a great amount of patience and attention to detail. There's a lot of raw ability there.

Josh

Nathan, thank you for the nice comment on my Kokopelli Ukulele. Much appreciated.

Nathan, thanks for the comment about the podcast. I have alot of fun doing it. As far as voiceovers it would be to have someone besides myself do my intro. Even something as simple as "The Joker Cigar Box Guitar Podcast". Whatever you feel like. I just wing the show most of the time. I am an electrician by trade, but doing the show just seems to come naturally.

Hey Nathan, and thanks. I posted some pics of one of my D-bows you may get a kick out of. Please check er out if you get a chance.

hey bro i,m just a guy that likes to experiment with building,i put you way above me in the playing department and put you right along side of me in the building department. you are as good at building as i ever could be.in fact you got some classy headstock work that i havent taken the time to do yet so you better than me in the building department.keep up the nice work man, good to have friends like you.

I like the triangle, I was wondering of you'd used a Dremmel, but it's nice to hear you used hand files - goes well with the "primitive" nature of these instruments.

yep i darkened the corners first then kinda shadowed the top corners to go all the way to the f-hole area so that it would appear to have that light colored area in the shape of a teardrop like a lot of old vintage guitars,also shadowed the bottom corners to go up to the reso coverplate. thanks fer the comments Nathan.yep i discovered that i could play without using the slide and the time passed from hours in reality to minutes in playing time.

Thank you for yours comment, at first it was a chunk of wood, but I did not manage to make shoulders, then I have make one sleeve for instrument

thanks nathan,i see you like my new black locust slide,the angled feets on the stom box is more comfortable to me and the fact that the box bottom dont touch the floor makes the whole body of the box vibrate more so in theory it should be louder.havent tried it yet just made it a few minutes ago.

Thank you for the coment on the cbg back Nathan, its just two coats of plain red mahogany laquer on Larixwood but i was quite happy with the result it gave!
Thanks and cheers, Frans

Hey No problem Bud!

Nice spider! Very leggy.....

Hey Thanks. I think they use either pine, or maybe spruce for studs and such but it sure is pretty grain and you did a great job of selecting and then using it. May have to try that .

Nathan, I'm no wood expert, but pine doesn't usually have that much pronounced grain. I'd vote for Douglas Fir, but could be wrong. Who cares, it is pretty whatever it is. You worked the grain very, very nicely.

Hi Nathan,
Thanks for stopping by.
I just love your knotty head stocks and tail pieces. Fantastic
(Geez, that sounds vulgar...but you know what i mean)
See ya,
Shelley.

thanks bro for the comment on the ontario vid,after watching you play the slide i got some inspiration on more character to style and i appreciate you for that. when i can get more better at finding my way around the fingerboard i should be able to come up with more new material,but i am kinda like you say you are its just comes out as you record without no practice before the recording. keep on jammin bro you do it well.

Hi Nathan
Many thanks for the request and you kind comments , much appriciated mate you have some fine looking builds yourself
keep up the good work bro
Thanks again
juju.

Hi Nathan-

Dennis Menard here, you asked for more details about my Cigbooster pedal. The picture is on my profile and here I cut and pasted from one of my previous ebay auctions. I've got one pedal still left, the rest are all sold.

This is the first ever stompbox designed for the Cigar Box Guitar player. If you have built or bought one (or a whole bunch) of these lo-fi works of art, you may have decided to electrify your new axe with a piezo pickup.

These piezos come with their issues, including low output and a tinny sound.

This gig-ready, bulletproof pedal corrects all those problems. Footswitch between true hardwire bypass or a buffer/booster. With the effect switched off, you get the true bypassed sound. With the effect switched on, you have two choices. First, leave the knob turned to zero and it acts as just a buffer matching the impedance of the piezo with your amp to erase the tinnyness and harsh sound. Turn the knob up and it becomes a buffer plus a signal booster to add several decibels to your sound.


This JFET pre-amp boosts your signal and evens out the signal response across the sonic spectrum. Part of the way it does that is making the impedence of a piezo much more to the liking of a guitar amp.

Made with the best components. Metal film resistors, electrolytic capacitors, and Switchcraft jacks. It is wired so that it is only on and drawing current when the input jack is plugged in. 9V battery is included. All analog, all point to point, all hand wired. This pedal is quiet enough to record with.

I haven't built one of these for a while and it might be a while before I have time to build one again. If you think you want it, act now so you won't be disappointed.

Here is a review written by Bill Jehle of JellyBelly Music:

"When I first saw the active piezo electic circuit made by Dennis I
had one question, can you put it in a pedal so I don't have to put a
battery in my guitar? Much to my surprise he already had one - The
CigBooster. I bought one on the spot.

Having made my own stomp boxes before, I know how hard it can be to
put all the little bits and pieces in to a box. Dennis really
surprised me by putting it all into an MXR sized Hammond enclosure.
That's a tight fit for any stomp box. Nice job there Dennis!

The CigBooster is a must have for piezo electric pickup players.
Plain and simple, it has a knob, and a button for true bypass
operation. It's made to buffer the piezo output into a level that
guitar amps are happy with. It really works great with my ratty old
tube amp and keeps it chugging along at full steam. Now, what's
really cool is that the CigBooster can be used with "normal" guitars
too. I run my cigar box bass through this and it breathed new life
into it. The tone was transformed into a thunderous sound that drove
the amp at the perfect level - just enough sag - and I could tweak it
with that knob. Another way to look at it is, this is the box that
makes your amp go to 11. It's that good!

If it ever broke or got stolen, and I don't suspect it will, I'd buy
two more to replace it!"

Bill Jehle
www.bellyjellymusic.com

Yhanks for the invite, truly an honor.

I haven't made any 1 or 2 string pickups yet, because my research showed they weren't very popular, but I could whip one up for you, if you wanted. Just let me know.

Skeesix

Hi. You asked about the instrument. I have a couple of videos up showing my stuff - there is one called "Instrument demo" - that explains a bit about it

Oh and thanks for watching!

i'll get right on that nathan check in a little while. have a great day

whamola pics were the best i could do in my small room nathan

hey you asked me what i used for my sound hole, its just an old screen from an old window, and then i painted it red, simple!

The video on the top is me through my Marshall jtm60 and the video at the bottom is my buddy Joe playing through his Victoria Regal

thats nifty! im in the process of making one right now do you think that paint will do the trick.... For instance i want to make the frets a lighter wood stain then the dots different color too

another question.. how do you get the cut off nuts for the bridge?

im finishing the parts right now and all i have is to stain and its done

After fretting, basically last thing prior to stringin up and playing.

So Nathan I have gotten all the parts the whole guitars put together except for the frets :( I'm leaning towards the hard way out with actually fretting the guitar and making the next two stringer fretless.. What do I do first stain the wood or frett the guitar? Also what are those little caplet type things at the bottom of your guitars that make it so the strings dont dig into the wood
thanks Matt

sorry somehow i deleted the comment that you sent me before actually reading it if you could please resend it!! information is very needed

Hi Nathan, Sorry I am not much of a cameraman myself, but I will get some pics done of the instruments using the wenge wood for fretboards. Tonight I cut 5 new fretboards from wenge, one I also sanded down, and the pictures can do no justice to the feel of the material.
Really looking forward to finishing another couple. Seem to be very popular out here right now.

Hi Nathan. Thanks for the comment. Yeah this ab shell is funny to work with. Was going to buy pre-made dots but I thought that was too easy and did'nt want to wait for delivery. Anyway, now i know how to do it I can experiment some more. Funny thing is, I still have one nicely shaped ab dot somewhere on my shed floor that escaped. Doh!

Thanks for the welcome, Nathan . . . It will take me a while to digest all the info available on the site - WOW!

Nathan, thanks so much for the details. My experience is that scale length, tuning, and string weights have a big influence on intonation. I found on my first CBG that if the string tension is not sufficient, intonation suffers. You gave me enough info to "run the tension numbers" which are: 20.18, 20.25, and 20.30 (thickest to thinnest string) . Very balanced!!! I'm curious as to how satisfied you are with the intonation on your instrument.

I have been shooting for around 24. For example, stretching the scale length on yours to 21.75" would change the numbers to: 23.87, 23.95, and 24. On my DAdd one I used a scale length of 22.5", with .32, .22, .15 strings and the tensions are: 23.75, 25.01, and 22.5. I am very pleased with the intonation. Without a doubt the shorter 20" scale length improves playability as you so ably demonstrated!

Again, thanks for taking the time to shoot a video; seeing and hearing instruments is of great value.

Doug

Nathan
I’m glad to hear the USTC program has been of value! Thanks for the additional info and discussion.

How does the tone of the EBE strummer compare with the GDG one? Does the 25.5” scale make it more difficult to play with reaches for chording? I encourage to post a video of it too.

I’v e only built one strummer, most of my string experimentation has been with four strings GDAD, DGBE, and some variations on the same intervals. My goal is to get something that is less tinny and more into an acoustic guitars sonic range, and a fuller sound.

I tried dropping the DGBE tuning an octave with thicker strings; it sounded like mud! The tension was such that I was able to tune it up to EAC#F# and it had a richer tone but it still was bottom heavy. I tried altering the GDAD to EBF#B and it has a less tinny sound but the tuning would make it difficult to play with other acoustic instruments which is the whole point for me since I lead and play on a worship team.
Which brings me back to your EBE strummer. I’ve been thinking about a 24” or so scale length 6 string (3 pairs) EEBBEE with the following string weights 52, 26, 34, 16, 12, 12. It would put it in the sonic range of a guitar at the top and bottom end plus a guitar could play off the same chord sheet at capo 2 (I do that all the time anyway). I was thinking of a diatonic scale instead of the dulcimer one to open up playing in more keys. What do you think?

Unfortunately I haven’t had any building time recently, might start something tomorrow if it doesn’t snow. My wife got me a band saw for our anniversary in September and it’s still in the box!!! I have been playing my homemade 27.75” short scale electric bass (most recent build) a lot and am eager to build an improved version based on what I learned building it. It’s my best effort to date. I might even put an electric pickup in the planned EEBBEE instrument based on my success on the bass.

Doug

thanks fer the cool comment Nathan about the double barellcanjo. i just want you ta know that you have inspired me ta do better quality work on my cbg stuff cause you have proved to me how much cooler they look and sound if ya spend a little more time doing better quality work on them. and the best part is the results are overall more satisfying with the finished product. thank you.

Thanks for your comments Nathan, I really dig what you're doing too mate, really classy.
I can post a CD to you for $15 plus postage if you like, just email me at:
thorleyguitars@yahoo.com.au

thanks fer the comment nathan on the canjo vid. take care bro.