I was tired of carrying around heavy guitars and amplifiers whenever I went on holiday or camping and needed something to play while I was away. That's why I made this. This is a light, portable, strat-style guitar that I take with me whenever I go away from home and want a guitar with me. It has two built-in speakers that, while certainly not loud enough to perform with, are definitely loud enough to practice with and can match the volume of an acoustic guitar, but with the tone and sound of a stratocaster. This project cost me £80 in total to build, cost of tools not included, and uses an amp circuit designed by the good folks over at 'runoffgroove'. It's called the RubyAmp, and is easy and cheap to make and gives a nice, crunchy, Fender-ish tone. I also included an output socket so that I can flick the inbuilt amp off and plug it into a proper amplifier for performances.
And I know that having pickups and an amp circuit in such close proximity isn't ideal, but this is just something for practising. I've noticed that, since I put the amp circuit in the top left, at high gain the neck pickup starts squealing since it's so close to the amp circuit. This isn't much of a problem though, and the other pickups are fine. Also, since the box is stuffed with electronics and I used electric strings instead of acoustic, this CBG doesn't sound great acoustically. But that's not a problem when the amp circuit is flicked on. It just means that if the battery goes dead I'm stuck with a quiet-sounding guitar until I can pick up another 9v battery.
The biggest challenge was designing something that could withstand the tension of the 6 strings, as the cigar box itself is very flimsy. I used a strat neck from Ebay as I really didn't want to build a neck, and designed the structure so that none of the tension is on the flimsy box.
Electric Blues Build Your Own Cigar Box Guitar Kit
This is a great project for someone getting into electronics, soldering and basic woodworking. It's actually pretty easy to make and the result is very satisfying and impressive. Don't be intimidated by the thought of building a neck, just buy one like I did. They come pretty cheap.
Take into account that you'll need to use some initiative to make one of your own. I can't provide dimensions of the parts you need to cut out or the size of holes or anything because this all really depends on your individual cigar box, guitar parts and taste. But read on to find out how I made mine, and apply it to your own cigar box!
I used Ebay to buy all the parts for the guitar itself. For the components for the amp circuit, I used Bitsbox.com (UK). In the USA I'm sure that something like Radioshack would be fine. I salvaged the speakers from a pair of computer speakers I had lying around. Don't go out and buy expensive speakers for this, look around and see what you can find. If you can't find anything suitable, get some cheaper second-hand speakers. It's not really worth putting a really expensive, high-quality speaker into this.
Cigar Box: How To Build A Cigar Box Guitar For Around $25
If you do go with a pre-wired pickup set then make sure to take a picture of it! This is useful if you need to lengthen some of the wires or re-solder anything.
Before even starting your guitar, think through exactly what you're going to make. I'll go though my design. It's useful to have all of the necessary parts at hand for measuring.
My design, pictured above, focuses on keeping the string tension away from the cigar box, which would definitely not be able to withstand the tension. It also uses a pre-made guitar neck off Ebay. Basically, the neck bolts onto a piece of wood that runs through the box where it is connected to the bridge through the box lid. As shown above, an extra piece of wood with a hole for the bridge pickup is bolted onto the length of wood to give the height required to meet the lid of the box. For the tremolo system to work, a channel has to be dremelled out of the main length of wood to fit the springs.
Learn How To Play Cigar Box Guitar
Important - The placement of the bridge (where the end of the strings attach) is very important. It needs to be in the right place so that the scale length is correct. If it is too far forwards or backwards, the guitar will not play in tune. Generally, the bridge should be twice the distance from the nut to the 12th fret. The nut is at the top of the neck and the 12th fret is where the two dots are.
Go ahead and saw out the main piece of wood. It should be protrude from the edge of the box and go up to the start of the bridge if you're using a tremolo bridge. If your bridge is fixed it should go underneath the whole bridge. Don't worry about making it perfect, this is just a prototype so that you know where and how everything fits.
I did the pickup holes first. Since I bought a pre-wired pickguard I could lay the pickguard over the cigar box and trace out the positions of the pickups. If you don't have a pickguard you can easily find templates online. Be careful when making the holes, you don't want to make a wrong move and put a hole in the box where there shouldn't be one. To make the pickup holes, I drilled a hole big enough for the coping saw to get in through, inserted the coping saw by taking the blade off then re-attaching the blade through the box, sawing out the hole then filing/sanding the hole down. Drill two holes either side for the pickup screws.
Video: Barrie Man Explains How He Makes Cigar Box Guitars
The holes for the pots could just be drilled. Remember to drill small holes for the little extrusion on the pot to fit into. I had to widen the top of the pot holes so that the hex nut would actually fit onto the pot to secure it in place. Drill holes for the switches, the output jack and the strap nuts in the same way. There should be one strap nut on the bottom of the box and one on the left of the top surface where the neck goes in.
I made the channel for the pickup selector by drilling a series of small holes and filing them into a single channel.
The hole for the bridge must be smaller that the bridge itself. For a tremolo bridge, it only needs to be big enough so that the part that extends downwards from the bridge can rock back and forth freely.
Cigar Box Guitar Royalty Free Images, Stock Photos & Pictures
Don't worry about the neck hole being perfect, there needs to be a little room so that the lid can be opened and closed once the neck has been attached. It should be slightly less deep than the depth of the wood plus the depth of the neck.
Make sure that there are sound holes. I actually forgot to do them and had to add them at the end. You can do anything you like, f holes look quite good. You can find templates online. The last picture shows the sound holes at the bottom of my box.
It's a great little amplifier run off a 9v battery with a volume and tone control, plus it's really easy to build. If this is your first time reading a schematic don't get disheartened, it's actually pretty simple.
String Cigar Box Guitar
The symbol with the 3 horizontal lines means 'ground', and all of the grounds are connected together. It's just more convenient to use the symbol than to draw lines to them all. The negative battery terminal is also connected to ground, and the negative terminals of the input jack and the speakers are connected to ground.
You don't have to worry about actually understanding the schematic too much, you just have to be able to solder the components onto a stripboard. A stripboard has strips off copper underneath running from left to right. Here's a link to a nice, compact stripboard layout:
The red squares mean that the copper strip has to be broken at that point. I just use a drill and make an indentation so that the copper no longer touches. Have a look at the picture above. To make sure that you do it right take a multimeter, set it to measure resistance and touch it on either side of the indentation. If the figure is 1, you did it right. If it's less than 1, you need to drill more.
New Cigar Box Guitar Project Day
The blue lines mean that wires have to be put onto the board. I use chopped-off resistor legs for this. Just solder them in after you've drilled the indentations.
On this stripboard, a wire needs to be soldered to each of the holes on the left and two of the holes on the right. The 'GND' is ground,
0 Response to "Electric Cigar Box Guitar Diy"
Posting Komentar