My workshop is, like most, a converted space, a small space: every machine I own is mounted on casters to allow for easy (?) rearrangement of things for a different hand or machine process.  In this space I have also learned the discipline of demarcation; when a process is finished tools and supplies are returned to their designated storage drawer, spot or container and precious room is freed to permit another construction activity.  I'm actually pretty good at it, having refined it through…

For the past few months, well actually more than a year, I have been working at building 4 string electric guitars.  I have tried to apply all that I have learned in making cigar box guitars but of course I have looked at the "real thing", the Fenders and the Les Pauls and the Parkers and the Rickenbacker and the Ibanez.  For aesthetic reasons, and…

This guitar is made from recycled and left over materials from my home renovation and from parts filched from unwanted or unplayable guitars.  The top and back are red cedar roof shingles, the neck is made from a left over 2x4 from a garden gate…

My first cbg was a three string made from a really cool Niles and Moser Chancellor box. I think I built it in an afternoon.   Against the odds it worked, stayed in tune and was fairly playable - if you ignored the biting fret ends.  Since then I’ve built about 20 or so and like the first, each has presented me with questions or problems that…

There isn't much about building a cbg that I find tedious but set up can be trying.  I like a fairly low action on fretted cbgs and with that comes the requirement to refine bridge height and usually the nut (slots or overall height).

I was forever shimming or remaking bridge saddles trying to get the…