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Comment by Mark Bliss on October 14, 2013 at 3:38pm

Another example that simple is good!

Thanks so much for sharing, just love the banjinator sound!

(planning a four string reso of some kind once I get some projects off the workbench. Neck re-set on a Harmony uke tying me up. Tiny buggar!)

Looking forward to more from you. Good work.

Comment by turtlehead on October 14, 2013 at 3:23pm

Mark, here's a pic of the inside, kinda blurry, but I glued some small blocks in to screw in the lid.  As you can see, I split them or missed entirely, but the lid is holding fine. Could have done 4 screws and maybe even omitted the blocks entirely. There are two piezos, one dipped in tool handle coating attached to the underside of the lid and one sandwiched between wood installed under the top.  They are attached with double sided tape. 

Here's a pic of the bridge. 

The bridge itself is an aluminum rod.  I was shooting for the placement to be more in the middle of the lid, but it didn't work out that way.  I came up with this solution to focus more of the string vibration to the center.  I had tried a traditional style bridge at the back of the lid, but it didn't sound good at all.  I might someday make longer "feet" to see if it makes a difference, but I'm happy with it as is sits.

I'm now experimenting with a small condenser mic in combination with the piezos - so far so good, but it needs tweaking.

I'm going to have part two of this lesson ready soon, so stay tuned!

Comment by Mark Bliss on September 30, 2013 at 2:01pm

Sorry to keep side tracking the thread off the lesson subject, but do you by chance have any pics of the internals during the build, how you mounted the can lid, built/mounted the bridge etc? All acoustic or did you install a piezo? If so, yeah details man, details.... LOL!

For what its worth Turtlehead, I have found a thicker solid box sometimes works very well for a reso style build.

Comment by turtlehead on September 30, 2013 at 12:46pm

Sure thing Piggy - hope it helps.  Thanks RTZ and Bug, I love the guitar and you're right RTZ, you can get a lot out of 3 strings with this, and it's a good place to start building up the picking hand. 

Comment by BUGGY (C) on September 30, 2013 at 10:09am

Thanks that's a great tip/video, ...nice reso by the way...

Comment by RTZGUITARS on September 30, 2013 at 4:17am

GREAT job Turtle it is the best way to get a full sound out of 3 string and play some good old timey tunes.

I think you may have kicked the door down for some people. 

Comment by turtlehead on September 27, 2013 at 1:56pm

Thanks Ted and a couple of 'atta boys for UJ.  It will be second nature soon and I'm going to hold you to a song ;)

Thanks for the encouragement MBliss, I will give it a go for lesson #2 and try to do a split screen.  It's really the only way to do it right.  As for the guitar, I'm pleasantly surprised with the comments on the sound. I wanted a simple build with the coffee can lid, but I did a combination of things that I think added up to something nice.

1. Scarfed headstock and zero fret meant very easy setup and great action.

2. The coffee can lid is old and seems quite a bit thicker than what would be found today.

3. Box top is a door skin measuring shy of 1/8" thick.

2 and 3 have combined to make this resonate incredibly well in my opinion.  I can feel the vibrations all the way up the neck and also on the sides and bottom of the box.  The box itself was found in an old basement already re purposed once from a shipping crate of some kind.  I'm surprised it resonates at all at approx 3/8" thick.

Strings are the DGB strings from a set of Martin medium acoustics, scale is 24.5.  I tried some lighter strings at first, but the acoustics really set it off giving it some good plunk. 

Comment by Uncle John on September 27, 2013 at 1:23am

Turtle and fellow students, I am getting this strum.  Just doing it a couple minutes a day and it sounds nice - especially while changing chords. 

Will likely be quite a while before I can put it into a song.  

Comment by Ted Hartman on September 26, 2013 at 3:14pm

turtlehead, great stuff...tuning, strumming....etc. thanks for sharing with us. 

Comment by Mark Bliss on September 26, 2013 at 2:11pm

I really like the way that guit sounds too. Do you have any information to share on the build specifics, VSL, string guages, etc?

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