I had an interesting revelation the other day when I saw the wiring for an American Strat side by side with the wiring for a Mexican Strat both with bridge position humbuckers. What was immediately grabbing my attention was that on the American version the volume pot was 500k with 2 250k tone pots where the Mexican had 3 250k pots. The switch is 7 way on the American and splits the bridge position humbucker to a single vs the 5 way on the Mex. 

Wandering in a vast forest late at night with only a faint candle to light my way, a stranger appears and says, "Why haven't you been building cigar box guitars?" 

Well, all my answers are lame, so I'll just say that I'm building again and that I'm making some changes and hopefully will have some photos to post very soon.  I'm doing my very first 3 string on a box I made. 

I have some local musicians playing my guitars and people wanting me to make them something, so hopefully…

Hi guys, I am an absolute glutton for punishment. I am doing my own boxes now and at first I thought I was going to use a nice 3mm thick plywood for tops and back and continue doing neck through method but that leaves me with floating bridges and I want some glued on bridges and am thinking about either a mortise and tenon or bolt on with a neck block.  I am wondering if any of you would care to elaborate on your method of neck attachmeent and specifically things that you found that did and…

I'm sick of finding a cigar box that looks nice but it's a little small and the shop owner wants seven or eight dollars for it.  Often times I walk in to a shop and find nothing at all in the size range, so I just decided to not play any more. I have a nice little stash of boxes for when I want to revisit that method but making my own boxes I can have exactly the size box I want and my soundboards don't wind up being masonite.  I have two of my smaller sized boxes ready to install the necks…

OK, I lied.  There is no movie.  

I know that we are about the building of these instruments but we are all also keeping an eye out for cigar shops.  I've got 6 shops that I routinely check and one that I went to once and never will again.  

One store just gives them away, one will save boxes for me, one thinks their boxes are are the only ones in town and the others are reasonable with what they charge.  Lots of times I go into a cigar shop and there is nothing there I'm…

After selling my first instrument I earmarked that money for various things to offset the cost of building my instruments.  I bought tuners, pickups, and tools and the biggest purchase I made was for more C clamps.  

I had bought some really good quartersawn red oak and it had just been sitting there leaning up against the wall and I finally ripped it and made neck blanks out of it.  I had some slab cut maple that I ripped and laminated to orient the grain on the quarter and placed a…

It is gone.  I'm a little excited and a little sad.  I really liked it and I was not planning on selling it today, but someone saw it, played it and pulled out cash.  What's a girl to do?

I am now in a frenzy to build its replacement and I have one Punch box.  I think I'm going to try for 3 at the same time and finish in a month.  …

Last week I went to the lumber yard and found a piece of cherry that was in their half off bin.  I got a board about 8" wide and over 4 feet long for a little over $4.  This is 4/4 lumber and there is some very pretty wood in it. 

I am making my own box since one of the guys I work with made a boxjoint jig and is making a guitar along with me on this one.  We are both using spruce for soundboards that formerly graced the insides of a Steinway piano for about 90 years.  

Here…

I really love that there are people here from the other side of the world from me. I think this is one of the best things about the internet and this site in particular.  I am in the southeast part of the United States and getting tips and suggestions from people in New York, Australia, UK, etc is just a treat.  It just deserves being said that I really enjoy this aspect of CBN.

Well, I had every intention of working on my 6 string, but since the box joint jig is not finished I am at an impasse on that project so I took my worst box and my worst piece of neck wood, an imperfect fretboard and embarked on m first 3 string.

The neck is poplar reinforced with two 1/4"X3/8" splines of red oak. 

The fretboard is ebonized maple with maple position dots.

The electrics will be a double piezo embedded in the bridge and wired straight to the jack with no…

I carried #5 to an open mic that my daughter was performing in tonight and the guitarist that I had in mind when I planned this instrument sat in with another performer and used it to play lead and #5 and Rob sounded fantastic.  What a rush to hear a really good picker play an instrument I made and the audience really enjoyed it as well.  To top things off I got a request for a refret on a telecaster. 

My daughter took video of Rob playing my cbg and hopefully I'll get a video up in…

I was so pleased with the size of the box on my last build that I would like to repeat it, and I will, but I'm going to start building my own box tomorrow.  I've sparked interest in at least one person I work with who is now building his own box for his first guitar and since I want to learn how to make boxes I'm going to join him in making one.  He is a really talented guy that can do ANYTHING.  His first is going to be amazing I'm sure and I'm really excited about building my own box.  My…

I won't be using Elemer's yellow glue any more. The thicker viscosity makes it a poor choice for gluing where you are using anything other than substantial clamps.  Spring clamps just don't have the force to give a good glue line using Elmers.  Titebond is a little thinner and this helps it perform better under clamping pressure. 

Well, I'm waiting for the corners to come back from being nickel plated, but the time is here for me to think about my next build.  Decisions, decisions, decisions! Several weeks ago I bought a really beautiful quartersawn oak board with really straight grain and not a hint of a knot anywhere.  There is enough in that board to make 5 or 6 necks.  Today I bought a  really nice piece of jatoba very nearly on the quarter.  Only the ends of the board give it away, Really nice color, hard as a…

How did this happen? Who cares, I'm having a really great time building these instruments and I thought I would put up a little rant about what I have in mind for some future builds, stuff I have bought related to this lovely addiction and whatever else comes to this weary old mind of mine.

My blogs will look like an exercise in loose association and can be extremely random, so there you go.