Friday, December 27, 2013

Working some wood part 2

In my last post I covered working on a "cigar box" type of guitar made from a cookie tin. This type of instrument can be made from virtually anything. In this post I am going to show you the painted tin, the tuners after I finished with them and the finished product.. enjoy.

The tuners are standard sealed guitar machine heads which I had purchased from an auction site. I purchased some hello kitty toys and carefully removed their heads and split them so that they would fit the tuner buttons inside. I then resealed them using a super glue.

 My original plan was to build my daughter a 6 string guitar; however, this build gave me problems at every turn. But the main issue being that more than 4 strings was causing bowing issues in the neck. I don't the proper tools to build a proper 6 string and that was a factor too. 

I put about 3 coats of black spray paint over a period of three days. I then used frog tape and cut the designs i needed as a stensil and sprayed on two coats of pink. i peeled the tape off while the second coat was still tacky so that it didnt stick and peel the black paint off as it had before. 
(remember problems all the way) 

I used an altoids mini lid as the bridge as i have with previous guitars which i also added a piece of wood under it to make it firm and screwed it to the body and neck. 

The red that is used in the bow is actually fingernail polish and it drew up the paint but ended up giving texture and looked pretty good as well. 

Next
I drilled the holes for the tuners and attached them. after puting on the strings 
(the middle 4 strings of standard guitar string pack.
)




Thursday, December 26, 2013

Working some wood

I hadn't posted any of this before, simply because there is a chance that my daughter would see and I didn't want to ruin her Christmas suprise.

I wanted to show this for my friend Shad. I don't have a computer and this is all done from my phone so editing is a bit iffy and can't post like I would if it were from a pc.. so here it goes... enjoy.

I started this project with a 2 x 1/2 in x 30ish in board the length all dempends on how long you want your finger board to be. I also have some 4 in x 1/2 in planks to use for head stock.

I use a plane to shave down the edges and put a partal rounding to the neck and finger board. I also cut a 45* cut to the end of the board and cut a piece of the 4 in plank at the same angle to made the head stock.

This I glue and add two 1 inch pieces of all thread to two pre drilled holes for extra support.

This is all sanded down by hand until smooth.

I then stained the entire board with homemade tea stain made (by soaking a large 1 quart size teabag in 1 cup of water for 2 weeks) which I appled about 7 coats.

I then appled another home made stain ( 1 1/2 cup cider vinegar 1 steel wool pad and 2 tablespoons coffee grounds soaked for 2 weeks) which turned the darker color which I used for the finger board.