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Rand Moore's Blog (29)

Piezo Preamp Experiment

Today I assembled my first preamp based on a

MFP-102 FET using a circuit design I got from the Internet (see URLs listed below) and components I bought from Radio Shack last summer. It buffers a pair of Radio Shack piezo pickups to drive a 15 Amp guitar amplifier I have. It worked first time, but the two piezo pickups are very sensitive in spite of wrapping them in foam. I will be experimenting on how to make the piezo pickups less sensitive and… Continue

Added by Rand Moore on September 20, 2010 at 8:00pm — 16 Comments

Rand Moore's Cigar Box Ukulele Project 2, Part 1

Hi All.

I completed my Cigar Box Ukulele Project 1. The instrument turned out pretty good, but because I chickened out and only put diatonic fretting on the neck, I discovered that it makes ukulele playing a lot more confusing rather than simplifying it. Perhaps, with GCEA tuning, diatonic fretting doesn't work. I know I was confused, so I re-tuned it to "D-A-d-d" and used a nut and bridge set up to support dual course melody strings spaced 1/8'' apart from each other and 3/8''… Continue

Added by Rand Moore on August 9, 2010 at 6:00pm — 1 Comment

Rand Moore Cigar Box Ukulele Project 1, Part 3

Well, last time I messed up on the head/neck scarf joint. The two mating surfaces weren't 100% flat and so when I clamped one side down, the two pieces rolled a bit, and I didn't notice it until after the two pieces had dried that there was a big gap on the other side. (Sloppy wood working, I know. Well, I'm just a beginner at wood working. I also screwed up my 3-string head/neck assembly (my other on-going project) by using super (crazy) glue to glue on cut nails as frets. Lesson: …

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Added by Rand Moore on July 27, 2010 at 4:00pm — 3 Comments

Cigar Box Ukulele Project 1, Part 2

Back again. I have been building a concert sized cigar box uke, but I messed up gluing together the head and neck (the scarf joint), so I'm going to try to build it again in a day or two. One of the surfaces I glued was not completely flat and when I glued, then clamped the two pieces together onto my "work bench", both clamps were on one side and I failed to inspect the back side. Had I done, so, I'd have noticed the big gap that only got bigger when I clamped them tight. I didn't notice till… Continue

Added by Rand Moore on July 17, 2010 at 6:05pm — 2 Comments

Cigar Box Ukulele Project 1

I have found a couple sources for Cigar Boxes around my "summer home" in the SF Bay Area. I quickly made a one-stringer (diddly bow-like) CBG w/o frets, mainly to get the idea of how to attach the neck to the cigar box. Another goal was to make an instrument I could use to play around with a slider while using a chop stick to pound on the strings (a new style of playing), as well as picking while fretting with imaginary frets (also a new experience for me). Wish I knew more about how to… Continue

Added by Rand Moore on July 13, 2010 at 9:30pm — 1 Comment

3-String Headstock Design #1, Part 4

Added by Rand Moore on July 13, 2010 at 4:30pm — No Comments

3-String Headstock Design #1, Part 3

This is part 3 of my 3-string headstock design and build project.

Well, now I have a block of wood about 5.5" long by 2.25" wide by 0.75" deep with which to build my headstock. It also has a 22 degree angle cut for where the head piece will mate with the neck. The headstock diagram I drew will soon be used to shape the headstock and to drill out the 3 holes for the tuning machines (tuners). Before starting this… Continue

Added by Rand Moore on July 6, 2010 at 7:00am — No Comments

3-String Headstock Design #1, Part 2

Once you have a board prepared for use as the headstock (as described in the previous post), you need to decide how you will be attaching it to the neck and how you will be installing the tuning machines (tuners).

Let's start by discussing how I plan to connect the headstock to the neck. As you may recall from the first post, my neck and neck stock both have a 22 degree cut (plus or minus a degree), revealing a sloped surface about 2 inches long. The question is how the… Continue

Added by Rand Moore on July 4, 2010 at 11:00am — No Comments

Headstock Design #1, for a 3-String Cookie Tin Canjo

I'm working my way up from "one string soda can on a stick" variety canjos to "3-string round cookie tin Banjo-Canjos," I finished a "

2-Stringer" a few days ago and have been playing and tweaking it, since. The instrument is tuned G-D, and the second string plays/sounds best as a drone. So, playing it is not much different than a one string canjo, but it sounds a lot better. Now I want to add another string, but that means a more complex headstock… Continue

Added by Rand Moore on July 4, 2010 at 3:00am — No Comments