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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on June 26, 2015 at 12:51am

1) 30" short scale bass looks like your best bet using a standard D (4th) string. Unless you wanna do frets, you'd be building a fretless bass diddley bow. You won't get the deeper bass notes you might want unless you use a thicker string, like an E bass string. The standard roots bass canjo is called a washtub bass...think about it:

Washtub, broom handle, hinge, piece of baling wire.there's designs on how to build a washtub bass here on CBN. Another route would be to use a plastic 5 gal water jug as your "can." Go over the the Cigar Box Basses forum, and dig around.

2)"I want to make a heart guitar for my wife with just one string.,so what string would be best?"

Easy: a heart string. >:-E

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Permalink Reply by John Sawyer on June 26, 2015 at 12:18pm

HA!  As far as which string for a One string guitar... (Diddley bow) . . . 

My pick would be a "A" String from a 6-string set tuned to "G"... but . . .  pick a string that "Sounds good" to you... there are no rules, barely any guidelines...

Heck the regular g string would be good... just don't tell your wife what you gave her...

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Permalink Reply by john mackay on June 29, 2015 at 3:34am

here is my 1st canjo,made from scrap parts inc the the skull tuner.

the skull tune had a hollow nut missing so I use a washer as a support.

the rest was scrap material inc string as I would've binned that.

painted frets.

sound loud enough for me to hear.

tried heavier strings but sounded dull.

anyway here it is 

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