Star Spangled Banner on a Cello through Fx Pedal.

This is a fantastic noise :-)

Tremoloa

Here is another odd instrument that has past through Shonky towers.
It is caled a Tremoloa it is a type of zither or chordaphone.
It was originally made in the 1930's and went through several small design changes. I believe this one originates from the late 40's early 50's.
I bought it mainly out of curiosity and soon found it it was quite horrible to play so sold it on (at a considerable profit ;-) )
It is basically a box made from plywood with two soundholes. 16 strings arranged in groups of four each tuned to the chords in the key of C attached to the left side of the soundboard and a single melody string along the right side. The single string is played with a plectrum attached by a thin metal strip to a heavy metal roller which in turn is attached to the instrument by a swinging arm. When you pluck the string it wobbles the bar and gives a constant wobble to the note.
The best example I found is on This Site

Mahogany Shonkybox Cigar box guitar

Here is my latest instrument
Yes it is another cigar box guitar
I started to make this with the intention of making a typical CBG but it soon took a slightly different direction yes it is a 4 string fretless CBG but I think it has it's own unique style.

The box was just a plain mahogany box so I'm not sure it was even a cigar box.

The Neck is made from a scrap mahogany  bannister from the massive load of scrap mahogany pieces I mentioned in a previous blog. It's a really nice piece of wood with lovely straight and rich grain.

The fingerboard is Bubinga with thin line note indicators (fret markers where the frets would be if it had them)

The nut, floating bridge and string retainer are all made from purpleheart and there is a small piece of sheet metal on the string retainer to keep the strings from digging into the wood even though that purpleheart is rock hard. and takes some working.

Gold tuners compliment the rich dark mahogany perfectly.

It is loaded with two simple 27mm piezo discs one near the bridge and one more towards the neck.

The top is glued on and the only internal access is via the jack plate.

I originally thought about fitting 12 - 52 flat wounds as the intention is to be able to play this not only as a slide guitar but also as a fretless instrument the fingerboard is flat enough. However It just wasn't lively enough and I wasn't happy about the extra tension. (I have since tried them on my  Squier affinity strat and had to put an extra 2 springs on the trem as the tension just pulled it right up!)

So now it has the low 4 strings from an acoustic medium set on which sound much better but I might have to go for the 5th 4th 3rd and 2nd as the 6th sounds a bit dead. and it's pretty quiet acoustically. I might have to go for a lighter set altogether to get the best out of it.

Here's the pictures. it will be for sale shortly as I will be re-cycling an old wardrobe to make a hard case for it. early enquiries are of course welcome.

The Salty Dog

The Salty dog is now complete and up for grabs on EBAY

I am very pleased with how this has turned out. It looks great and it sounds fantastic. It's always a worry when making an instrument because you really don't know how it's going to sound until it's pretty much finished. It is also part of the joy.
I really should get around to making sound clips for my guitars but don't expect a Shonky Youtube channel unless I find someone else who's willing to be the star.

Here is the Bumpf from my Website:

SALTY DOG

Salty Dog's body has been entirely constructed from pieces of driftwood found on my local beaches.

The neck comes from an encore strat which has been carved and painted to look like driftwood.

it features an aged tunomatic bridge.

Weathered tuners. Brass anchor Inlay

One unknown vintage, aged single coil pickup and a single vintage volume control with a seashell control knob is all this piece of flotsam needs to belt out an authentic blues tone. A compass in a brass plate from a sextant enhances the nautical theme. (The compass is affected by the pickup so of no navigational use whatsoever) The strings are anchored via a piece of driftwood.

The Salty Dog has been made as a Slide guitar. It's body shape is quite suitable for playing as a lap guitar The action is 2 - 2.5mm off the 12th fret so you can fret notes too. I wouldn't recommend buying this to use as a normal guitar, the frets would need dressing the nut would need lowering and the the tuners are pretty rubbish. This can be improved upon of course.

I haven't put strap pins on as I wasn't sure where to put them.

Sold

Homemade Electric Double Bass

On Ebay is this Homemade Electric Double Bass

Although it looks pretty ropey I like the inventiveness of the string retainer and the fact it is constructed using what looks like bits of scrapwood. I can't quite work out whats going on with the neck though.
It reminds me I must finish of my Upright Wardrobe Bass.

Supplies

Well recently I've done quiet well on sourcing supplies.
First of all a few weeks ago I scored at least a ton of mahogany offcuts from a joinery firm. all about 2.5" thick and 2 to 3 foot in length most 8" wide but some 6" and some 2.5" wide Some of it is in my local joinery firm being thicknessed as we speak to be made into guitar bodies for an electric guitar project I have in development, the thinner pieces will be usefull for necks.
I also scored a box of various potentiometers and capacitors for about a third of the going price.
Along with the massive job lot of pickups and tuners I probably have enough supplies to last me a couple of years.

I also picked up these lovely old Cigar boxes

If I'm going to make cigar box guitars I'm aiming to use old ones as I think they look better. Modern boxes are OK though but I see so many CBG's with the government health warnings on and why do so many CBG makers think sink drain covers are a good thing? 

Tabacalera 4 string Cigar Box Guitar

Recently completed is this rather sweet looking 4 CBG. I'm particularly proud of the neck which is carved from a piece of what I believe to be Afromosia from the stock of 20 yr old hardwood offcuts I sourced from a retired wood turner. As the wood of the box was quite thin I decided to experiment by bracing the top. I also reinforced the whole box with thin bars of wood glued into the corners and filling the gaps as it wouldn't have taken much to fall apart and in my eyes a CBG has to be able to be chucked in a backpack without the risk of damaging it. I also thought it might be an idea to re-use a laptop speaker as the pick-up. I had two of them from an ancient broken laptop I dismantled. I tried one out first by clamping the lid on my workmate end to end and sticking the speaker on with a bit of tape. It didn't sound so bad but I dropped and lost the one I tested so used the other one which typically was not working at all so then I used a speaker from one of my sons redundant and broken talking books. After I had put the whole guitar together I was very disappointed by the sound It was acoustically very quiet and dead and amped up sounded terrible. very low response from the speaker unless you played the strings hard which sounded so harsh it made nails on a blackboard sound like an angels choir which was absolutely unacceptable.  I hadn't planned on putting an access hatch in as it should never need any maintenance but unfortunately I would now have to make one I figured it also needed another sound hole but I didn't want to ruin the aesthetics. So I came up with the Idea of a rear sound hole which could double as the access hatch. I got the dremel out cut a hole out the back. I gave up on the speaker idea and went for the tried and trusted  27mm Piezo disc. Acoustically it is now still a bit on the quiet side but sounds much more pleasing to the ear much brighter. I also strung it up with the a d g and b string from an acoustic set of bronze wounds which gives it a bit more volume. Then I plugged it in to the amp and was incredibly surprised, quite rounded and smooth and not too plinky plunky. Below follows the photo's and specs from my website which is where you can purchase it. The Tabacalera Cigar box guitar is designed solely for slide use. with a high action and wide string spacing giving scope for for inventive slide playing. It's easy to play one two or three strings open and slide groovy riffs out on the others. The very high action also gives the player the ability to easily create a vibrato effect by wobbling your slide on the strings towards and away from the neck rather than quickly sliding back and forth along the string. Acoustically it has a nice slightly mellow if a little quiet tone. Plug it in and you'll be amazed by the richness of sound. At 74cm long and with it's reinforced box and sturdy construction this CBG makes an Ideal travel companion. Body: Vintage Tabacalera box reinforced Neck: Hand carved from 20yr old off cut of hardwood probably Afromosia. Inlayed dot markers. Bridge: Floating bridge hand carved from old cow bone found in a hedge and Paduak from 20yr old off cut. Tail piece hand cut and rough brushed piece of sheet aluminium. Nut: Roughly hand carved from same piece of cow bone as bridge. Good quality enclosed machine heads re-used but excellent condition. Pickup: new 27mm Piezo disc. 4 Acoustic Bronze wound steel strings. Pepper pot sound hole. Pickup access hole on rear doubles as an extra sound hole. Length: 74cm (29.5") Scale Length: 53cm (20.5") Approx) Width: 16cm SOLD

Pottering in the shed and Nick Drake on a sunny afternoon

Yesterday was a good day.
Started on another CBG build and also started routing out the body for my electric project.
The Driftwood guitar is pretty much finished and looks great although It just needs something to finish it off I need to go beach combing.
I've also finished another CBG this time a 4 stringer fret less from an old Tabacalera box. which is probably the best on yet although it did have developmental problems.
All of this was done with Way to Blue by Nick Drake as the soundtrack. He is a recent discovery for me. I had heard of him of course but have never really listened. Anyway it's fantastic and the perfect music for a sunny day of guitar making in the country. Stand out tracks for me are River Man and Black Eyed Dog.
Got a week off from my normal job next week so will be able to do some photo's of recent work.

Homemade Baritone Ukulele made out of Junk!

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On Ebay Uk is a very cool looking Jagmaster Style Baritone Ukulele.
In the sellers own words it is made from Junk.
Body from a Beech Chopping Board
Neck from an iroko worktop and centre stripe from a sports hall floor.
Technically and it's hard to tell from the pics, I'm not sure if it is actually a Ukulele or a baritone guitar or just a four string guitar. I think the latter as the seller says it is the same as a normal guitar without the E and A strings.
Any way I think it's pretty good and as it is made from junk it gets a big thumbs up from me. I might even put a sneaky bid on it but I am bursting to rafters with projects at the moment.

My Indie Shape

This handsome devil is to the best of my knowledge an Indie Shape Real Natural Built 2003 in Korea.

Body is constructed from swamp ash with thin rosewood strips, two strips of maple another two thin strips of rosewood and a central piece of maple. The chunky bolt on neck is hard maple with two rosewood strips and a rosewood skunk stripe. It has a chunky C profile, jumbo frets and abalone dot markers. It has a typical strat set up with 3 single coil alnico Indie custom pickups, tortoise shell scratch plate, chrome Wilkinson WVP tremolo and chrome Grover machine heads. It is finished in a super smooth satin.

Indie guitars Where formed in the UK in 2002 by Keith Willis an Ian Carnell. Recently however they seem to have moved and are now based in the US. If they have been bought out or just moved I don't know.

This one is (reluctantly) for sale on my website although it's a stunning guitar and sounds great I just can't get on with the jumbo frets and it is a little on the heavy side for my liking. Although I should really keep it as an investment as it's an early model and in virtually mint condition.

Sold.