Sally finds sea shells by the sea shore - another CB idea!

To all you Cigar Box guitar freaks out there, beware!
You diddle around all evening and on the weekends making new Cigar box Guitars, drinking beer and making music with your friends! Well what's your wife (or girl friend) doing in the meantime? Here's a little idea I (we, my wife says she saw it first!) picked up that might just make her smile again and you can use any of the boxes that haven't turned into a fly swatter with strings!
The purse were displayed at the Raleigh Art ('sy) fair we visited in May during our visit to my daughter Jennifer and sparked another DIY (we cigar box makers do not buy anything we think we can make better, right?) project that will be my wife's birthday gift in just a couple of days.
Check out the pictures and think about your little lady the next time you run out of words for a new song, she might appreciate something just like this!
Best wishes from Bamberg Germany
american George
PS: during our stay in North Carolina we also caught Dr. Oakroots performance in Wilmington, as well. We all had fun and the Doc even played one of my CB Guitars. Now he's not as famous as Billy Gibbons but I was proud never the less!
Needles to say between the fishing, shopping, the days spent at the beach, and chillin' out with daughter Jenny it was a great trip (almost, since I'm NYC boy born and raised.... Neil Diamond, right?) home!

From the Blues to Blue (s) grass!

It's been quite a while since my last post - Christmas, New Years, Birthdays, etc. but american George is back and with two very different creations; a miniature 3-String Tele Thinline and a 4-String Dulcimer. Both begin with a "B" for the Blues and Blue grass and have just one thing in common - free scrap wood!
It's not that I don't have any Cigar Boxes to work with, but what do you do with the pieces of wood you've collected along the way.... it's just a shame not to use them, so I did!
As always the initial impulses came from outside sources. I fell in love with beautiful American made G&L Tele Thinline on display at my local guitar shop and since (like I said) having all that scrap wood around I thought it would be a snap to glue together, route and sand, etc. but.... it took me almost a whole week (day & night, folks) until I finally strung the little beauty DGB and plugged her into the amp!
As you can see everything except the tuners are hand made from your's truly and I'm very proud of my first (almost perfect) fret job - no nails or tooth picks here, solid nickel silver Stewart MacDonalds! The hand wound pickup is around 3.000 ohms and has Alnico 5 magnets with just a volume speed knob topped with a Jefferson nickel. Sealed and Waxed as always!
The Dulcimer just happened too! Yup! Scrap wood again and a plan I found on the Internet. Naturally the plan looks completely different, but compensating for the pieces of wood I had and my typical neck construction it's more or less what you can call a mountain dulcimer. Looks good, plays well, sounds cool and has two piezo elements mounted to an output jack in case some one needs to hook to an amp, although it's loud enough just by it's self. The satin finish is floor varnish, very durable (did our stairs with the stuff 8 years ago) and should hold up a long time to come. For the practice (a dulcimer needs frets, friends) I used the same fretting material as on the Thinline.
Now I just have to learn to play it - might take a few days? Maybe a life-time, maybe never!
Like always I've had a lot of fun (I also wanted to throw both in the dustbin at some point, too) making them so if you have any coments send them along.
Remeber all american George's Junkyard guitars are for sale to own, so make an offer if you really like them!
Best regards from Bamberg, Germany
american_George
P.S. as always there are more pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.com/ggborrelli/JunkyardGuitars

To Fret or not to Fret, that is the question - No. 8 has arrived!

Due to popular demand (I think it was my son) I've added (working - at least you could call them that) frets to Junkyard Guitar No. 8! No they're not silver nickel polished frets from Stuart MacDonalds (I'm saving that for next year) but just plain finishing nails, but it's just as much work as the real thing and works just fine. Now you have the best of both worlds - slide pure or notes by the numbers! As you can see from the pictures I stopped at the 20th fret. I could have gone for 24 but it would have just been for the optics - at best the slide is on the pinky and you're and not going get any fingers working up there anyway and with the slide it's millimeter work so play it by ear!
As always I've added my home-made and hand wound AlNiCo custom pickup (3,200 Ohms for those interested) and a Fender volume knob mounted on top for the violin-effect fanatics among you. What more could you want in a Cigar Box guitar? As always they're for sale so make an offer!
I hope you enjoy reading my Posts and I'd sure like to hear your comments so drop me a line!
Your,
american George
P.S. If you want to take a better look at all my Junkyard guitars, visit my Picasa Web Album @ http://picasaweb.google.de/ggborrelli/JunkyardGuitars

Is it Bo Diddley or Diddley-bow No. 6 & 7 just finished!

Well the first attempt on eBay with my Junkyard guitars wasn't as promising as I had thought, but I was still busy this week and turned out two new Junkyards.

Junkyard No. 6. is a cover version of No. 3 with some changes: shorter (57 cm) scale, a diagonal Pickup position and a sheet metal bridge - a little Tele touch! I added my "Money for nothin'" tuner buttons for good looks!

Junkyard No. 7 is a cute little Diddley-Bow with clean European design. The hand wound alnico pickup goes directly to the output jack. I'm pretty proud of the tuner/nut solution, it's both functional and cheap - very DIY-ish!

I've added all the new pictures in my slide show (previous posting) or you can go directly to my Picasa album to get a better look: http://picasaweb.google.de/ggborrelli/JunkyardGuitars

I hope you enjoy having a look and I'm looking forward to be hearing from you soon!
Your
american George

P.S.: If you find something you like, remember everything is for sale - make an offer. If you want something special drop me a line.

Finally some sound.... not great but (if you turn it up) loud!

I've finally managed to add some music (noise?) using Studio 9 (such a pain!) to animate my pictures. Some may not find it particularly virtuous, so I've kept it short to spare those with critical hearing. Mostly your hearing just Junkyard Guitars No. 2, (Lapsteel) and No. 3 (trusty 3-String Cigar-box)
If you have some tips (musically or otherwise) feel free to offer them.....
hope to be hearing from you soon,
american George

A Thousand pictures (hope it works) are better than a million words?

Well it's worth a try. If it works you will be able to start the official american George Junkyard guitar slide show (courtesy of Google - I thought I'd just add that since it's for free!) Now if I could just get my music to work....
Hope you like it!

The Collection.....

I want to keep my promise and present my 4-Cigar-box-guitar-collection. As you can see only two are genuine Cigarbox guitars - the little three string sweetie and my latest achievement the double neck fretless one-string bass/ three string slide. The cream colored is a lapsteel and the orange Anti-War-Demo is from a baking pan I bought at the flea market.

The little brown box is my battery operated reference Amp - if it sounds good through that it will sound great through anything else!

In coming posts I'll introduce each one in detail. If you've enjoyed yourself so far drop me a line.
Your,
american George

In the begining....

Don't ask me how or why I decided to build my own guitars, maybe I was just surfing the Net and discovered a Cigarbox-Guitar web site and found that cool, followed some more links and said to myself.... "I can do that too!" So I did and so far have managed to make four different guitars.

Basically they're all slide or frettless and since there are thousands and thousands of fretted e-guitars from all over the world out there I thought the DIY Cigarbox idea very appealing.

On the one hand it's a very simple musical instrument that doesn't cost a fortune to make. On the other hand unique (for every 1,000 Strats or Paulas out there you won't find a single one like mine) and with a little imagination and an awful amount of time you can develop something that no one else can buy - a real custom shop guitar. A great eye catcher on any street corner, Pub or Concert.

In the coming days I'll be adding pictures (maybe a sound file or two if I figure out how to add it) and stories about my ongoing Guitar-making-adventure. Needless to say if you like what you see, tell me about it. If you want to own (even now I hate the thought of parting with one, but....) I'll be eBaying the one or other shortly.

Hope to be hearing from you soon,
American George