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My First 4-Stringer CBG

So far, this is my favorite CBG that I have built. This instrument is essentially a short neck stick dulcimer with a pair of melody strings tuned in unison. This allow the melody string to be a bit louder and have a greater sustain than a single string so the melody will stand out from the sound of the drone strings. This instrument also uses Aquilla Nygut ukulele strings. If you have read my blog postings, this is the one that started out as a concert sized ukulele, but I chickened out on doing chromatic frets, and left it as a diatonically fretted instrument. I think I like it more as a 4-string short neck stick dulcimer. It's my first neck with real fret wire frets.

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Comment by Rand Moore on November 25, 2010 at 4:08pm: Thanks for the complement, Ellwood. I guess for someone whose been building only a short time and has minimal wood working experience, they are okay. But, if you look around CBN you'll find lots and lots of them that are better built than mine. I wish I had a wood working shop and some electric tools like a table saw, band saw, electric sanders, grinders, etc., etc. But I live in a flat (a high-rise "condo") and work on the same desk in my "office" that I surf the Internet and do my other computing on. So all of mine are built with hand tools and an electric drill. I am collecting tools and gaining experience with using the tools I have, so as time goes on my builds should get better and better. Right now I am working on a six stringer which will be strung up using three dual course strings tuned "G-G-D-D-g-g," although I may tune the "bass" pair an octave apart. It will be diatonically fretted like a mountain or stick dulcimer. It will have a laminated neck and a home made sound box approx 9" x 7.5" by 4" deep. So, I'm going to see if the deepness of the box improves resonance and the sound of the instrument. I'll be writing more about it on my CBN blog as the project progresses. So stay tuned if you like.

Well, thanks again for the complement and good luck with all your builds.

-Rand.