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Black Oliva

It was Uncle John that started me on this with his ‘oldie but goodie’. I had a very nice Don Ramos box and a neighbour gave me a 6ft length of “hardwood”, which turned out to be walnut. Once I finished the neck I realised that the Don Ramos box was too deep. My usual supplier came up trumps with a fantastic black and gold Orchant Oliva box.
The resulting CBG has 24” scale with 12 frets and a disc piezo. The fretboard is 1/8” mahogany with some 3/16” white wood to give height and a visual relief. Like UJ’s it is tuned DGB. The tuners were a 3+3 set and I had already used the other side, hence the tuning keys on the underside. All sounds very nice, but I need to get to grips with the chords. How hard can that be?

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Comment by RON NORTHCUTT on July 9, 2020 at 11:24pm: I have often used the same set up on tuners and it sometimes brings comments from non cigar box guitar players. I actually prefer it, just seems more natural to me. When I first started building I bought all kinds of tuners, tail pieces, pick ups and it caused me a lot of confusion and time trying to figure out what to use on what guitar. I am now settling on my preferred hardware and it has really increased my efficiency. No two are exactly alike but the basics remain.

Comment by AGP # on July 9, 2020 at 9:08am: "Nice Looker Jock", and nice to see a description of the materials used, and the Scale & Tuning etc, something a lot of builders neglect to mention in their posts, and as for Chords!, to quote B.B. King a few years back, "I Don't Do Chords" :-)

Comment by Uncle John on July 9, 2020 at 7:57am: And you can play it slide too- G open or a high G at the 12th barred or slide. C across the 5th frets and D across the 7th frets.

Comment by Jerry Jordan on July 9, 2020 at 7:57am: Nice guit and setting for the pic.,.,

Comment by Uncle John on July 9, 2020 at 7:56am: Wonderful looking CBG, setting and pic.

I love DGB. So easy to play in the key of G. G is open. C is the small string fretted at the first fret and the big string fretted at the second fret. D is the small string fretted at the first fret and the middle string fretted at the second fret. Em is the big string fretted at the 2nd fret.

Your boogie note to hit on alternate strums is that Em.

Get a standard six string chart and look at any chord and just play it using the 2nd, 3rd and 4th string as show in the chart.