After a few varied builds - lunchbox, Christmas tin and even a few cigar boxes, I decided to build my 'player'. Truth is I kind of felt like these builds were all experiments and it was time to get serious-ish.

Enter Jaime Garcia. This 'My Father Cigar' box is beautiful, simple and well constructed. Thin top and bottom. Although they are plywood, the tap tone was promising. It measures 10-3/8" x 7" x 2-3/8".

For this build I decided on a couple firsts for me: (1) put the tuners at the tail and (2) get a decent break angle at the bridge. The tuners weren't a challenge, just new. But getting decent bridge height was definitely breaking new ground.

For reasons unknown to me I am reluctant to cut my neck. So how do I get 3-degrees of angle? My answer came in two parts. By offsetting my neck-through entry and exit points I could get 1-1/2 degrees. And if I built a 'thickness-tapered' fretboard I could get another 1-1/2. Voila! 3 degrees and 5/8" inch of string height at the bridge.

The volume is improved over my prior builds. The sound is more guitar-like. The short of it is that Jaime is a joy to play! I'll upload a sound sample in the future.

Here are some photos of the project.

I am still quite new at all this and welcome your thoughts - even critical ones.

Cheers!
   Robert