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My first solo build - and first post

After designing a few CBGs and lap diddley bows that my husband brought to life with power tools, I made my first solo creation this week, and I'm smitten with my guitar style diddley bow.

While I've made 2 lap diddley bows and 4 CBGs with 3 strings with my husband on the power tools and me on design, this is the first one I've made on my own and first one with a round neck. The pickup is a piezo disc pickup pre-wired to a jack from cbgitty.com. I used 1/8" pop rivets for string ferrules, a Ping tuner, 1" pine dowel, a craft box (I know some purists may be annoyed by that), a slotted screw for the nut, a lamp nipple for the bridge, and tarp grommets for the sound hole covers. I sawed the dowel with a hand saw for creating flats for the tuner, then I used a drill with regular bits and Forstner bits for all the rest.

I've been a hobby guitarist for 16 years, but I'm totally new to slide guitar. This is so fun! I love the simplicity, and there is something amazing about playing music on an instrument you made yourself.

This video is a demo of a diddley bow (1 string cigar box guitar or CBG) I made on 12/30/15. https://youtu.be/vNHkUX8UAJI ;

I had to turn off the Christmas tree lights while using the Mustang amp because they were causing some electromagnetic interference and creating an annoying hum on the amp. Most of the music I played I learned from Juston Johnson tutorials. The long song I played was based on a tune by Elmore James.

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Comment by Primitive Acoustics on January 4, 2016 at 4:50am: Well done! Cool Diddley Bow and a fun video, sounds great!

Comment by Jim Morris on January 3, 2016 at 4:14am: Excellent Janis. I've done some that way for friends who don't know much about these instruments and then shortened them for this site. I'm just now learning to edit vids so it's a slow process for me.

Comment by Janis Wilson Hughes on January 3, 2016 at 3:39am: Jim, thank you again! I'm coming up to speed slowing on how to use this wonderful site. I trimmed down the video to 'just the playing, m'am' last night. Just added it to the videos with your instructions. That original clip was made for all my friends who are uninitiated into the awesomeness of CBGs. They're asking me for more info than what I droned on about in the video. ;) Hahah, they're mostly visual artists and potters. Anyway, here's a link to the short version which is posted over in the videos section now.

Comment by Jim Morris on January 3, 2016 at 1:58am: Hey Janis, if you go to the bottom of the videos section on the main page there's an "add videos" button you can click on. Then you click on the you tube logo and you can copy and paste there. Often folks might not have time to go thru all the forums and blogs but the vids on the main page kind of hit you in the face. Good luck!

Comment by Janis Wilson Hughes on January 2, 2016 at 11:56am: Rooster, TAP, Jim, & Daniel, thank you so much for the supportive comments! I'm a newbie 'round these parts. Jim, do you mean post just the video in the video section? I really don't know my way around posting here.

I'm very thankful for all the info folks have shared here on designs and parts! I think I discovered the pop rivet tip somewhere on here (I have some brass ferrules from cbgitty for builds in that color pallet as well). Now I'm rambling into another long post... ;) Heehee!

Comment by Jim Morris on January 2, 2016 at 11:35am: Yeah you ought to post maybe a shorter version of this vid (we have short attention spans) on the main video section. Lots of folks might miss this since it's sort of buried in a blog and it's worth looking at for sure!

Comment by Daniel Walter on January 2, 2016 at 10:26am: you go girl. love the natural wood.

Comment by Jim Morris on January 2, 2016 at 10:13am: Excellent Janis! Definitely not annoyed by a craft box. I'm currently working on a uke using one. Keep up the good work.

Comment by the anonymous pick on January 2, 2016 at 9:33am: good stuff ;-)

Comment by Rooster on January 2, 2016 at 6:44am: Really great job Janis.............diddleys are really fun because they force you to be creative in your playing with only one string. Well done ma'am ;-)