Finally, some new projects and products 5-10-2012

After just about 22 months straight of having backlogs, I finally got caught up and now am free to pursue a couple of projects I've been wanting to go after for my business.

I am currently building my first Cigar Box Guitar, and have been duly warned that these things are addictive.  Well, the first one I picked out will have twin bow, or round rod necks.  One has a fretboard on top of it, and the other will gain three bass strings.  Obviously, I needed some sort of headstock to house nine tuners, so I made one out of purpleheart.  The rods, which are 1 1/4" thick oak, will go right on through the cigar box, and be fitted into a solid block of purpleheart on the back end to stabilize things a bit. 
I'm to the point where I am starting to look into how the pickups will be mounted into the cigar box, and the very few controls I plan on.  It's all a geometry challenge since a cigar box, even a wooden one like this one, is fairly weak.  Obviously you have to do a bit of "strengthening". 
This one I plan on being strictly a slide, but it might be close enough so the six-string fretted side will be frettable.  That would make this a pretty neat unit, with those three pluckable bass strings on top.
We'll see how it all comes out.  Either I end up with a piece of junk, or a really neat guitar for not much money!

Other projects I have in mind are the Interactive Art project I still have to finish.  I have the guitar, I just need to design a great looking frame so possibly an art gallery would want to sell this, instead of a music store.  Remove the guitar, play it at will, put it back up in the frame for art in your home.

The last item is my heel reduction project for bolt on guitars.  I have the body, and a neck, I am currently looking into how much wood I can remove and still maintain integrity in the build.  So far, it looks like a lot of wood will hit the floor!

By the way, check me out on www.strumschool.com, under their first Audio Blog post.  I am working with these fine folk in a series of interviews for beginning guitarists who want to learn how to purchase and play a guitar.  We cover a number of items so we kind of do the work for you to make sure your purchase and experience are a good one.

Tsunami