Recent Work: Tin Guitar. Romantic cigar box guitar and a junk cigar box Ukulele.

It's been a bit hectic at Shonky Towers lately unfortunately not making guitars, however I have made a few over the past couple of months that I realised I hadn't shown here.
This one was completed quite a while ago now and was a commission order for the same customer who commissioned the Shortscale 6 String CBG and case. It's a 3 string fretted guitar with an vintage Sportsman's relish tin.

The neck is fairly unique with copper strip fret position markers and an unusual enclosed headstock.
It's a wee bit fiddly to string up.
Sound wise like the Gingerbread man Tin guitar  it was pretty impressive with a real nice resonator sound.
Sound hole is on the top  side so the fantastic artwork isn't compromised and the Tin is braced and re-enforced with Cedar. The neck is attached to the body via 2 pine dowels that run through to a block at the back where the tailpiece is attached. Two Piezo's take care of the amplified sound and deliver a fairly true representation of the acoustic sound.

 

 

Next up is this 2 string slide.  Commissioned as a belated wedding gift from the empty box of celebratory cigars smoked at the wedding. To be fair it wasn't a box that I would have used and the recipients apparently are non musical so making it playable was not important. However it is playable. The dulcimer frets where added as an after thought at least if it is strummed it will make a reasonably nice noise.
As it was a gift to celebrate romance it has 2 strings in harmony with each other ! Gold machine heads with heart shaped buttons. Carved heart shaped fret position markers and a heart shaped sound hole and the name of the couple embossed in the lower part of the fret board. The neck is oak from an 60's dressing table. it would have originally held the mirror. For some reason It's one of my favourite builds so far.

 

Thirdly is a reasonably quick junk ukulele. I had been meaning to make it for a while and when a chap emailed me asking to make him a cheap one It spurred me on .
Marcella box. Neck is from a broken tool handle made from Beech with a mahogany headstock. fret board is from a cheap broken Ukulele. It actually turned out reasonably well. Yeah very quiet but I put a couple of piezo discs so it can be amplified.

There has also been another 6 string wich I will post about In a couple of days.

 

Cheers

ShonKy cigar box ukulele No2.

I have the second cigar box ukulele up for sale on my website.
It's a much improved design. slightly slimmer neck (but still much chunkier than standard)
I went back to using a disc piezo rather than a rod as it's much better. If you had a preamp then a rod would be great but that would mean putting an ugly plastic unit into it and totally ruining the aesthetic.

I went for a plain mahogany box this time and re-visited the multihole sound hole I used in This cigar box guitar. I echoed the largest sound hole by putting a little wave at the end of the finger board.

I have also been trying out a water based poly satin  clear coat as I really can't justify using aerosol cans as they are massively wasteful. It does mean I have to brush it on and I thought It would suffer from brush marks. To my surprise it is really easy to apply, no brush marks and it gives a nice very hard finish and very quick curing time. It does suffer from tiny air bubbles which collect in ridges and  joins but these can be sanded out once hardened.

It is available for sale on The ShonKy Website

 

 

Production is again on hiatus but this time due to the arrival of our baby daughter. :-)
  

Cigarbox Ukulele

The cigar box Ukulele is finished and I am overjoyed with the end product.
Apart from somehow denting the fingerboard after I had glued it on it's not too noticeable though.

Specification.
Concert scale Ukulele.
Body: Vintage La Corona cigar box. Cedar top (lid) Possibly beech sides and some sort of Mahogany type bottom. with original labels.
Neck: Mahogany scarf jointed headstock. Extra chunky.
Fingerboard: Wenge.
Bridge: Australian Walnut.
Saddle & Nut. Bone
Tuning machines. open ivory effect plastic buttons.
Position markers: Aluminium and Wenge.

I have strung it with Aquila strings and it just sounds so sweet. Not as loud as a standard Ukulele of course but loud enough. It does have the benefit of a under saddle peizo. which sounds fairly good too. although it probably would benefit plugging in to some sort of pre amp to get the best out of it.
I'm keeping this as a demo model ( I don't have the heart to let it go just yet either) If you want to order a similar spec one then get in touch. I did put the jack socket on the back which would be on the edge in any subsequent models.

New Cigar box Ukulele project.

I've started to make my first Cigar box Ukulele. and it's going along swimmingly. I made a couple of  Uke neck blanks out of Mahogany last year so it was about time..

I had an old block of Wenge that I got from a retiring wood turner that I have used for the fingerboard. I was really pleasantly  surprised at the amazing grain pattern when I planed it does have quite deep open grain though but I can't envisage this been a problem. Sealing will fill it to some extent.

 I also made some really nice fret position markers. I had some thin aluminium tubing lying around from a big plastic model kit of the International space station that got broken beyond repair many years ago. The tubing was to re-enforce the structure. I made up a dowel from a thin strip of Wenge just a little bigger than the internal diameter of the tube and hammered it into the tube. then I cut small segments of the tube. gave each side a little rub down with 320 grit sandpaper and hey presto custom markers. The segments  feature the end grain of the wenge which looks like a leopard skin pattern in miniature. I made two to cover up the screw holes in the bridge also.

I've also made a nice little bridge out of Australian Walnut from the same source as the Wenge.

I ought to make bridges like this for my cigar box guitars. any how another build on the roster.