It's been a busy couple of months here at Shonky Central
Finally the last few weeks have been productive on the guitar making front and I have three completed guitars up for Grabs
The first is a 6 string CBG made from a Cohiba cigar box. Sporting one humbucking pickup.
The Box is a really nice and solid. The neck is bolted to a solid mahogany core which runs the length of the box and fills and is glued to the bottom of the box and fits flush with the top. There is also a peice of mahogany glued into the top and bottom edge (see Photo below). this is to add weight and give the guitar a bit more resonant stability. In essence Ive turned it into a chambered body.
The neck of unknown origin Although it looks like an old encore neck. (the Logo had been sanded off) was in a very sorry state. The fret board was dried out, frets corroded. it had also been redrilled for 10mm machine heads so they are not perfect. The Truss rod works as well as it probably never did. However my ethos is to re-use as much as possible, The finish was sanded back and refinished in a mat lacquer. The fingerboard has been liberally beeswaxed. I re-shaped the head to remove any allegiances and to reduce the weight. I also put a new nut on. So although it's probably unsuitable for standard fret playing it makes a perfect slide guitar neck. Having said that it's not so bad. It can still be fretted without too much difficulty.
For it's voice it's fitted with a cheap re-used humbucker. I hate to say cheap but really to get an authentic raw blues sound I don't think an EMG really cuts the mustard although if you wanted to buy it and have me fit a different pickup then it's really no problem.
So on a clean setting play it softly and the notes are lovely and clean an ring out like a bell. Hit the strings a bit harder and it gets a little crunchy.
With a bit of distortion it really sounds the biz. raw but not harsh is how I would best describe it.
There is no tone control as I wanted to keep it as simple as possible.
When I was measuring up the neck atachment I originally was going to fit the Humbucker directly in the body. I then decided to fit the humbucker with a mounting ring which meant the neck was 3mm to low. sow I have placed a mahogany spacer in the neck socket. I don't believe this is detrimental to the sound or performance in any way. who knows it might be what gives it it's special tone :-).
Sold :-)
Next up is this fabulous Custom Strat
It features an amazing distressed finish which has been created by a long process of multi layered application and then distressing by sanding scraping and melting. It has been upgraded with Genuine Fender USA Standard Standard Stratocaster pickups.
It plays very well and sounds just like a Stratocaster should.
Sold:-)
The last one for this post is this little 2 String.
This is one of my rustic builds which are hand carved and very basic
There are a couple of little experimental touches to this one. I've tried a different two pronged headstock. The good thing about this is that I don't have to waste much wood as the whole neck is made from a 1 inch square length of mahogany. It's also pretty quick to make.
The action is very high and with the thin neck enables the player to play a melody on the 1st string whilst leaving the 2nd string as a drone.
I have tuned this to C,G and can play some interesting ethinic indian asian sounding tunes on it.
Sound wise it's very loud for such a small box. The Mahogany top is braced in a radial pattern to add strength and to reduce the plonkyness. It has a nice Banjo'ish tone to it.
It does also have a peizo disc fitted for amplification or recording purposes although it is primarily an acoustic instrument.
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. 
