HD Cigar Box Guitar

I took a trip to Sturgis to meet up with some friends and watch ZZ Top play. One of my friends is a dedicated Harley man and shares my passion for That little ol' band from Texas. The trip inspired me to build another CBG....

A Harley Davidson themed build. 

I took a trip to the Harley shop to pick up a couple goodies. I managed to get out without buying a Harley.

My friend has a skull theme on his bike and since I will end up giving this to him I thought I would make it match his bike. I had a black box in my stash, it should work well with the chrome.

 I'm using oak for the neck. I'm thinking a fretless one string acoustic since it will spend most of it's time hanging on the wall in his Harley room but it still needs to be playable.

Oak isn't the easiest wood to carve, but I managed to get a recess carved out to mount the key fob in the head stock. 

It was looking a bit plain, so I added a crescent shaped sound hole and a scull and crossbones inside.

Originally I was thinking a one string Diddly Bo for this build but I like three strings better. 

Finished up... the skull peeking out through the sound hole. Originally I had glued the round medallion to the lid of the box. The epoxy didn't grip the shiny chrome and it popped off, I regrouped and thought about it....

I glued the medallion to the neck instead, this also freed up the top to vibrate more. 

A threaded brass rod for the nut.

As usual I didn't take enough pictures of the build, but this is how it ended up...

CBG Fretboard

Link to Scarf Joint Blog

With the scarf joint for the headstock complete I'm on to the next step. The next part I'm making is the fretboard. I was intimidated the first time I tackled this job. The fret spacing is critical, it has to be right or the CBG is going to sound like crap. But how precise does it need to be? Stringed instruments with frets have been being made by mere mortals for a long time, long before calculators, computers and CNC machines. So go for it, take your time and be as precise as you can.

The neck on this build is maple and I'll be using maple for the fretboard. I like to mix it up some times and use a wood with contrasting colors, it just depends on what I have on hand and my mood.

Most guitars have a scale length around 24 or 25 inches. I had decided on a 24" scale for this build, a shorter scale means less tension is needed to get the strings in tune compared to a longer scale.  

There are plenty of fret calculators available online, I don't have a favorite I just Google "fret calculator" and use which ever one comes up that is easy to use. I like to use millimeters instead of inches, it's easier for me to figure out where to mark 34.237 mm than it is to figure out 1.347 inches using a ruler. 24 inches is really close to 610 mm, so I'll use 610 mm for my scale length.

There is always the option of printing out a template, I've used them and they work fine. I just prefer this method. 

My fretboard will end up being about 410 mm long. I'll mark the fretboard for 20 frets but may end up using only 19 frets. The final length will be determined when I decide the final position for the bridge. 

To get started I lay my steel rule on the board and clamp it in position, I don't want it moving around while I'm marking the fret positions. 

I use a knife to make a mark at each position. The knife makes a thinner mark than a pencil. 

A short mark to start with...

Once all the fret positions are marked and double checked, I remove the ruler. I have a machinist square that I like to use to guide the knife for marking the full width of the fretboard. I place the tip of the knife in my first mark, it is easy to feel the mark with the tip of the knife. Then I slide the square up against the knife.  

Holding the square firmly in place I mark the fret position the full width of the fretboard. 

 The frets are a "T" shape with teeth to help hold them in the fretboard. 

The fret wire I'm using is about .021" thick between the teeth.

the teeth measure about .031" thick. 

The blade of my coping saw is .021" thick, the same thickness as the fret wire. This will mean a nice tight fit for the teeth on the fret wire and eliminate the need for glue to hold the frets in place. 

 I use the knife again to position the square, placing the tip of the knife in the mark and slide the square up to the knife. I use the square to guide the saw blade until I have a good cut started. 

I make the cut slightly deeper than the tang on the fret wire so that it doesn't bottom out before it is seated. A real fret saw is on my wish list, but this is working for now.  

With the fret slots cut I need to find the final length of the fretboard. I marked the bridge position with a piece of tape and measure for a 24" scale.

The fretboard needs to be 16 1/2" long from the nut to the edge of the box. 

The 20th fret position is very close to the right length so I will cut the fretboard there. 

With the fret board cut to length it's time to glue it in place.

After letting the glue set up over night it is ready for the frets to be installed. 

I got busy installing the frets and forgot to take pictures. I'll try to remember to get pictures on the next build and add that step here.... 

CBG Scarf Joint

I thought I would blog about each step of a CBG build. I'll try to give plenty of details on each step. I normally start with the neck, and the scarf joint.

I normally use Oak or Poplar for my necks. I found a local source for Maple 1X2s so I'm using maple for this build.

I rough cut the head stock to 4 inches on my builds. This dimension isn't critical, you just need enough room to mount the tuners.  

The cut line marked out from the 4 inch mark to the opposite corner. This angle isn't critical, just enough to get the tuners bellow the nut. I used to know how to do the math to figure out that angle but that knowledge is lost to time....

I use a pull saw for most of the cuts on my builds. It works well and I like using hand tools as much as possible for my builds. 

My cut wandered off the line. I have built about 6 CBGs using a scarf joint for the head stock and I haven't managed a perfect cut yet. They get better each time though. I'll straighten it up with a plane.

I put a couple witness marks by the cuts so you can see the orientation of the pieces as they will be glued up. 

Using some scraps to protect the neck I clamped the two pieces of the joint in my bench vice. The cut side is up on both pieces. I used a scrap of 1/4" fret board to back up the thin end.

This is the plane I use to smooth things out. 

A few minutes with the plane and the two halves are trued up. You can see the line is perpendicular where the two halves overlap. 

Everything I need for glue up is laid out. A piece of plastic will keep the neck from being glued to the bench. The problem with clamping a scarf joint is the two pieces want to slip when they are clamped together. I have a scrap screwed to my bench that the short piece will butt up against and I will use a C-clamp to clamp the long piece to the bench, this will stop the joint from slipping when I put the clamps on. 

Most of the tuners I have used work best in a head stock that is 1/2" to 5/8" thick. When I glue the scarf joint I glue them up so the head stock will be a little over 5/8" thick, this leaves some material for clean up. 

I'll let it dry over night before I take the clamps off. 

All glued up.... I used the plane again to clean up the sides, I also cut off the excess length. At this point you have a complete head stock. Lately I've been adding shape to my head stocks to do this I add some width to the head.

Contrasting colored wood works good here if you want to add some interest to the build. This time I'm using matching Maple scraps. 

I planed the mating surfaces to get a good gluing surface. Then clamped the glued up pieces in my vice.  

Another night of glue curing and it is ready to be cleaned  up.

Everything cleaned up and ready for some shape. I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet....

You get the idea though. This neck is ready for a fret board and box. 

CBG broken screw removal

While mounting the Hardtail bridge on my latest CBG I had a bit of an issue, one of the mounting screws broke off just bellow the surface of the box. There wasn't anything to grab a hold of so I was stuck....
I remembered seeing a tool to fix this kind of problem and an online search found what I remembered. It is called a "Hollow Screw Extractor" they can be found easily on line. I didn't want to wait so I spent most of a day driving around the nearest town with more than one hardware store looking for one. 3 hardware stores a tractor supply store and a craft store later and I came up empty. It is a simple tool, just a metal tube with teeth on the end, kind of a miniature hole saw. While I was at the craft store I saw what I needed 6mm tubes sold as a miniature wind chime kit. I picked that up along with a 1/4" hardwood dowel.

The Chime kit.

I used the corner of a metal file to cut teeth into the end of the tube. They aren't perfect and don't need to be to cut wood.

I tried it on a piece of scrap oak. The scratches to the right of the hole were my first attempt, the cutter wanted to wander around. I drilled a shallow pilot hole to get it started and it worked well. I was leaning on the drill a bit to hard and it broke through the back of the scrap. I'm glad I tested it in scrap first. 

 This is the broken off screw head next to the hole with the rest of the screw in it.

Success! The end of the broken screw is visible in the end of the plug. The 6mm tube cut a hole slightly smaller than my 1/4" dowel, so I ran a 1/4" bit through the hole to get it to the right size.

I cut a piece of dowel slightly shorter than the depth of the hole. Glued up the dowel and started it in the hole.

I pushed the dowel down flush with the top of the box and cleaned up the excess glue with a damp cloth.

The repair will be hidden under the bridge. I'll let the glue dry over night then remount the bridge with the new screws I picked up today.