Dlog

Please read the rest of this post to learn about the cigar box sitar —>

Teressa got me a table saw for my birthday.
1.5 horsepower, Belt Driven, 10 inch Craftsman.
Can’t beleive it. Amazing support. Cheers to her.

My projects, for a while, will probably be alot less immense than the bass. (http://www.daniyel.com/dlog/the-bass-project) My satisfaction with that project is great, but the anticipation that comes with a project that size is just too much. I need some quick turn around projects. I have a back log of ideas, 3 sketchbooks of headstock, body, engineering designs for all sorts of crazy instruments… a bass banjo, a guitar with a speaker built in… another banjo made from a film reel container. (And I feel a sculpture or two brewing in there somewhere. Interesting that I am leaning into 3 dimensions after so long on only 2. Evolutionary step. Won’t stop here.)

I just finished a 3 string cigar box guitar.

I made 2 different bridges for it, one like you’d expect with notches for the strings.
The other is just a rectangular slab of wenge’, the hard, dark, African wood I used for the fingerboard of the bass. There are no notches so the strings buzz, it sounds like a sitar. RAD!

I thought it would be funny to give a nod to the bass design which includes a harness for a 5th of Old Forerter Bourbon. I couldn’t find any Old Forester “airplane” bottles, or Woodford Reserve, so I went with Wild turkey. I can’t open the box up with out taking off the strings, so this is more of a time capsule kind of thing. One day, in a year or so, I might have to change the strings…

The cigar box sitar took about 15 hours total. And cost me less than 10 dollars. I had some tuning machines but needed smaller ones, the headstock on this was very tight. Note the awesome taper detail on the head stock. Table saw magic.
The strings are recycled from a classical guitar. They are the 3 biggest nylon core strings from a set that has been on at least 3 instruments now. The box cost me a dollar at a local thrift store. The Wild Turkey was around 3 bucks. The finger board (the wood is Ipe. “ee-pay”) was 2 bucks, from the scrap bin of a wood store. All the other wood (the entire internal structure) was free from the PNCA wood shop scrap bin. The tailpiece is a hinge. It has 3 holes for screws… this is where the decision to only put 3 strings on it originates.

It is a lot of fun to play, the action is great. I don’t have it tuned too high… D - A - D, and occasionally I tune the top string up to the E so I can play standard chords. At least, 3 notes of them.