Official Luthiers Forum!

Let me just start by saying that I have no wood working skills whatsoever, let alone luthier skills (or tools for that matter), but inspiration has struck nonetheless.

I have been a guitarist for around 15 years now, but have always been fascinated by eastern and middle eastern music. In recent years I've come across some middle eastern instruments such as the oud (like a lute), the saz, and the setar (not to be confused with a sitar).

I liked the exotic tones, and was drawn in by the fret spacing allowing for the microtones we just don't get on western instruments. I liked the idea of a bass/drone string coupled with courses of double strings (like you'd find on a 12 string guitar). What I didn't like was the reliance on friction tuners, the extremely light and fragile nature of their bodies, their lack of volume, and the lack of availability of properly constructed instruments of this kind in Australia. Put off by all of this I temporarily lost interest.

Recently though I spotted someone at a local market selling cigar box style delta blues slide guitars. They were clearly home-made from improvised parts, and from a distance all I could make out was the odd body shape and the fact that they each had only 3-4 strings. I thought at first that I was looking at home-made sazes and setars, and thats when it hit me: I could do this!!

My plan is to make a square-ish shaped electric instrument with a bowl shaped chamber inside. I love the weight, warmth, and sustain of my Les Paul, and was wondering if I could combine these qualities with an otherwise acoustic instrument.

To this end, I figured that I could get two bits of Queensland Maple (apparently extremely similar in qualities to Brazilian mahogany), each measuring 510mm x 370mm x 44.5mm and stick them one on top of the other. I would then remove a lute-body shaped chunk out of the middle of it (perhaps a fair bit more shallow, but you get the idea) and put a spruce sound board on top.

My first question - would having such a thick and heavy back and sides render this instrument practically silent when played unplugged?

Then theres the issue of the electronic side of things. I'd obviously want to go with some kind of under-saddle piezo pick up, but was wondering if I'd be butchering the soundboard too much if I also cut out a section to allow for a humbucker?

So as not to put too much strain on the sound board, I've opted against having an electric guitar style bridge. Instead I'll probably use a tail piece that screws into the butt of the instrument and comes up over the top of the body like those found on resonator guitars.

The bridge is going to be a bit of an issue. I'd like to have one bass/drone string (tuned to D), followed by a course of two "A" strings and a course of two higher "D" strings. No store bought bridge that I've seen will accommodate this. Come to think of it, the nut is going to be just as fun to bring into being!

My main goal is to make a unique instrument that holds its own both electrically and acousticly. I'm less interested in becoming a luthier than I am in designing and ultimately owning/playing this instrument, so I'll probably line the pockets of an expert or two to handle some of the trickier bits. Either way, I'll be sure to document it as best as I can every step of the way.

I guess the big question is: am I stark raving bonkers? Will this sort of construction work or am I completely barking up the wrong tree? It has occurred to me that in the thousands of years that human beings have been making stringed instruments, if anyone attempted this kind of build, they sure didn't persist with it - perhaps for a reason.

Andy,
Guitars are like women, we all like the ones we like. Your project sounds interesting. Draw a plan, gather your materials and begin. You will learn much on your voyage. (Hopfully enough to pull it off).

I say go for it!!!

If it works, GREAT!

If it doesn't the next one will be better!!!

Joe

_________________
Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

G'day mate,

Sounds like a fun project - I concur. Go for it - you'll learn some things, break some things, and end up with some worthwhile outcomes, one of which might be a musical instrument. I don't know the answer to your question - others on the forum are far more savvy when it comes to the physics of sound, but my bet is that heavy, rigid sides and back will kill a bit of the sound when not amplified, but it's the top that really matters. As long as the top is responsive, you'll get sound out of it. Good luck - keep us posted.

This may sound really dumb, but since this is an experimental instrument you can get a little crazy with it. For testing and such, keep a look out for wooden bowls with different thickness sides. You can glue a bit of wood to the top of the thinner one and see how it sounds, then do the same with one that is thicker and test it.

I've found that having thicker sides requires a bit more energy/effort to get them to sound out for you. Go as thin as you are comfortable with (1-2mm...maybe more?).

Have fun with it and keeps us updated!

Here are some good resources I ran across...

http://cigarboxguitars.com/
http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/cigarboxguitars/

Thanks for the encouraging responses guys. As you've probably guessed from my original post, I rather quickly went from "scrap plywood box" to "what if I used quality timber?". Once you start thinking about quality timber you start thinking about quality everything else - except build of course

I've done a lot of asking around about this, because I could potentially spend a lot of money on supplies for something that might already be dead in the water.

The advice I've been given is that I'll need a thin back for this to work acousticaly, and that by placing the bridge on the sound board I lose the warmth and sustain that the solid wood should bring. Of course, just to complicate things, placing the bridge on a solid piece of timber will help the amplified sound and limit any potential feedback problems, but apparently it'll render the sound board lifeless.

What to do then? I've conceeded that the amplified sound is more important to me than the acoustic sound. If acousticaly its louder and sounds better than your average unplugged electric guitar, I'll consider it a bonus. So here's my plan:

The first board of 44.5mm gets an egg shaped hole cut in the middle of it.
The second one also gets a similar hole cut out of it, except this time, it'll be cut on an angle.
I'll also cut a hole in the middle of the offcut out of the first board, and attach it to the back.

Once I've stacked them on top of each other, the end result should be like a tunnel. None of that carving business from my original post!

So that I can get some kind acoustic response, the slightly smaller circular opening in the back of it shall be closed in with a sheet of 2.5mm thick maple. Hopefully, that combined with the spruce on top will help me meet my minimal acoustic requirements.

I'll be attempting a through neck under the sound board, except I'll try to keep it as narrow as possible where it contacts the soundboard. The only exception being where I'll mount a tune o matic bridge and humbucker into it. Hopefully by screwing the bridge into the neck, and it being in contact with the rest of the solid body, I'll be able to maintain the sustain and warmth I'm after without feed back dramas. In the neck position I'll possibly attach one of these to the finger board:

...and I'll be relegating the piezo pick ups to the "too hard" basket. Having two courses of double strings means I'm going to need saddles which can position them appropriately. I've managed to source a 12 string tune o matic for the job - I don't know of an easy way to install a piezo pick up once I've got that bridge on.

Having never built, well, anything before, the mere concept of bracing the inside of an acoustic instrument seems so arcane and esoteric that I dare not even venture into it. How do you guys suppose my soundboard would fare being only supported by the neck down the middle? Bare in mind its a square sheet glued to a square board that has a round hole cut in the middle - so all the sides will be attached to something solid.

I'm back. 6 months later, after sitting back and having a long hard think about all this, and reading a whole bunch of online tutorials about acoustics and instrument design, I've decided to go back to basics.

Essentially what inspired me was the concept of cigar box guitars. They're made from inexpensive materials and can be put together by amateurs. So I'll start with the basic cigar box design, except I won't be using a cigar box, the fret markers will be in a different position, and instead of three strings, it'll be three courses of strings (two of them will be doubled).

For those who aren't familiar with the concept:

As Lightnin Hopkins says:
"So I went ahead and made me a guitar. I got me a cigar box, I cut me a round hole in the middle of it, take me a little piece of plank, nailed it onto that cigar box, and I got me some screen wire and I made me a bridge back there and raised it up high enough that it would sound inside that little box, and got me a tune out of it. I kept my tune and I played from then on."

As for the body, this is where I'll still be straying from the basics. Instead of a cigar box, I intend to take two slabs of timber (40cm x 30 cm X 5cm), cut a large hole in the middle of each of them, and stack them on top of each other. I'll attach a thin sound board front and back, and carve the neck down a bit where it passes through the body to minimise its contact with the sound board. Sort of like whats been done to this neck:


I'm entertaining crazy thoughts about having a floating sound board in there somwhere, but wouldn't know how to mount it without it absorbing the front sound board's movement and therefore losing volume.

I'll be gluing on a fingerboard of sorts to avoid splinters whilst playing, to help lower the action a bit, and to have something for one of these to attach to :


The strings will pass through the bottom of the neck (see the "tailpiece" in the cigar box photos above) and up over a custom made acoustic style bridge. I've been reading THIS for inspiration with the bridge.

I'm thinking this will be acousticly louder than your average cigar box guitar, and will hopefully have a better tone. I'm not sure how it will sound plugged in, but I'll settle for having it sound like it does accousticly, only louder .

I have obtained some scrap wood to make a mock up. If all goes well with said mock up, I'll buy some decent timber and maybe refine things a bit. Who knows, it might even end up looking, sounding, and playing like a legitimate instrument!! maybe