Jehle

I've been thinking about making a Jem cigar box guitar. The monkey grip would just be a handle screwed to the top of the box, like this...

Now if I can just make a whammy from a door hinge...

Hey Jukkasil & Jehle, you guys do realize (right?) that you need to cut a track of the actual song "Working Man" by Rush. First album, back when they (and everyone else) were trying to be Led Zeppelin. Maybe 1972? '74?

I get home at five oclock

And I take myself out a nice, cold beer

Always seem to be wondrin'

Why there's nothin' goin' down here

It would be most fitting...

Comb the streets for the best 5-gallon drummer you can find, and you guys could be quite the trio.

Their name has to start with a "J" and be unpronounceable too. You could shorten your name to just Jerik, as in Erikbo Jerik. Can you hit things with wooden spoons and keep good time?

BTW, I didn't post this snippet to pimp either my guitar or Jukkasil's bass. I just did this for a laugh.

Okay... This is demented, and it's not a song. It does show that a shovel and a cigar box can make some pretty weird jam!

A shovel bass and a cigar box gutiar ... workingman mix!

No it just needs a demented solo... Any takers?

And yeah, I love the shovelbass too --although I don't see that as a "valid" instrument, more of a one-off art piece. Still excellent though. And different. Nice to see different things from time to time.

Well as a valid instrument, my bass is very playable (and I like its sound very much too), very light and ergomically thinking very easy to play. You can find some sound examples (mp3) from my project-page:

http://www.tuulikumpu.fi/?p=p_72&sName...a-ja-työvaiheet

I am SO going to loop those bass lines and play the CBG over it. The international trash jam has started!

I appreciate all the kind words about the Cigar Box Guitar Jr., it's not a toy at all. I suppose that's the point that I'm trying to make with these things now. Thanks for the votes!

Since I couldn't vote for myself, for me it was between the Lyre Esquire (because I dig longhorns), and that workingman shovel bass. Both are brilliant IMHO and I would love to own both of them. In the end, I had to go for the workingman. To see an old shovel and think, "I'm going to make a bass out of that." is freakin' brilliant.

I love guitars made from trash!

I got to thinking about this more.

I thought about ditching the truss rod altogether. What I really want to try now is a truss "string". I saw a picture of something like this recently. It actually looked like a string anchored at the headstock, and then run down the back of the neck and then tensioned at the end of the body with another tuning peg. It was really odd looking, but that's what it looked like.

There's tons of problems with the design, but it's something fun (and funny) to play around with.

There are so many good guitars entered this month. Makes me proud to be part of the selection this month. I don't expect to win.

Yes, the wormwood shovel bass is the most creative bit of work I've seen in ages. It's the leading contender for "most original".

I also really love that 7-string Mahogany Ibanez for the traditional build.

Oh, and the Longhorn Esquire is the guitar that I would most likely buy if it were in a shop.

There's tons of great work this month. Voting will be very hard. Good work everyone!

Well, part of the requirements for this order are to use this particular box. It's the brand that they smoke.

You do make a good point though about just useing the lid. I have a stack of broken boxes, some just lids, some just the box bottoms (and no they won't go together). I think you may have just given me the idea on how to use partial boxes.

Cool suggestion! Thanks.

Well, I have not posted an in progress build for quite some time now. Since I build guitars out of what I have to hand, I thought I'd show this build from concept drawing to the finished product.

This picture is a mash up of scans and photos and some line drawings put together in CorelDraw.

It took several itterations to get everything laid out, but the key things here are the use of an ACID cigars humidor, and the complete absense of visible wood and chrome. It's a tall order, and not something I normally do.

My first problem to overcome is that the humidor is not wood at all. It's chipboard with a thin veneer of cedar over it to make it look like wood. The outer shell has a fantastically thin screen print with a matte clear over it. I have to be really carefull working with this stuff.

There's the start of the project. Pictures of work in progress will show up soon.

After all this posting. I've got the munchies.

The "Gumby waves hello" guitar had me laughing so hard that I had tears. It was the "I'm not so sure about the bridge placement" comment that did it.

I couldn't have said it any better myself. Yes, I was being really hard on myself that day. I was deflated. Anxiety and depression can tear me down faster than anything despite any and all success I've had. Perhaps I jumped the gun and posted the "oh, woe is me" topic when I started this thread. But, I wasn't thinking too clearly either. Disappointed and frustrated I needed to rant a little.

I know that there have been threads about selling guitars on here before, but this one, being kicked off by my initial comments, I've found really really helpful. There's arguments for building guitars either way. But the main question is, what is my motivation. If I want to build what people want I could do that. But I have to do my thing and if someone digs it, they are welcome to have one of my creations or comission one.

It's interesting that you said that you started out not wanting a business. I suppose I could say the same for myself. I wanted to record my music (and I appreciate the complement on that as well) and I needed the right guitar to do it. A steady stream of instruments later and I'm building more than I play. Funny how that worked out.

Thanks again everyone. My crisis is over. However, keep the comments coming in. I'd like to know what your own experience is with motivation, why you build what you do, and how you respond to people asking you to do something that you normally wouldn't. That sort of thing...

It's a simple enough idea. I'll bet that there's a DIY version that could be made. Perhaps not as adjustable, but something simple for reproducing the same radius over and over.

Wow, thanks for all of the advice and words of encouragement, and constructive criticism everyone.

To answer a few of the questions that came up since I last posted, I was really being hard on myself when I first posted. Yesterday, I got a gift from another builder, totally out of the blue, with a note saying that he really liked my work and that I should "Build another great guitar". Moments later, I got word on the go ahead for a commission build (yes, for a recycled cigar box guitar) for an agreeable price. And today, another consignment is in the works. That brushed away my blues right there.

I actually get a lot of demand for the guitars that I make locally. My home town is really big on recycling and on going green. People really freak out when they see what I can do with trash that other people wouldn't think twice about. For instance, making pickups out of bottle caps, washers, and sewing machine bobbins, or making nuts out of hair combs. It caught the attention of not one, but THREE television shows, of which one is set to air in about 6 months, another is part of a PBS documentary, and the third is as a historical consultant on the cigar box guitar. Then there's the book deal and video work that other people want me to produce for them. I actually have more work than I can get done at this point. I should also mention that a track I recorded recently is going to be released on CD soon... For that track I played this guitar that I built for $15...

Beyond my home town, there is a niche market out there for these guitars. For a good example, take a look at the front page ad for "Daddy Mojo" in the Billy Gibbons Guitar Legends magazine that's out right now. That advert must have cost thousands to run, but the guy is cranking out cigar box guitars like crazy and people are buying them. Even Gibbons has a cigar box guitar and has played it on Howard Stern's radio show. Now, I don't aspire to get to the point where I quit my day job and build guitars all day. I get too much enjoyment out of it building what I can, the way I want to.

I've been working on a celebrity endorsement, or celebrity gift more like it. I have a few good leads, but nothing has come out of it yet. You know these guys, but I'm not going to jinx myself by writing it down here.

So, the plan from here is to continue the gradual spiral of success up. I've got a packet of stuff and a few guitars to take to a local vintage guitar shop (where people expect to buy old stuff) and iron out the commission sales. Then I move gradually out from there. One small step at a time.

Thanks again everyone!

Maybe it isn't your product so much as your marketing and business skills?

CMA

Call within the next 10 minutes and I'll throw in a set of Ginsu Steak Knives!

NOW HOW MUCH WOULD YOU PAY?

True, products generally fall into one of two categories. A product can be made and then marketed to sell to the public. Or, the market can be analysed and products can be made that producers know will sell. There's room for both, but in todays marketplace, the second case is almost always true. It's very rare for someone to make a product and then try to sell it.

And to be more precise, I think people are mindless drones because they keep buying the same things without questioning why. It's not because they don't buy my stuff.

Take a look at that Pod, or Marshall stack you play through. Ever wonder why you have that piece of kit?

Oh, I'm torn. I'd love to crank out a bunch of cummy guitars that I could sell at $120 just to make a buck, but that's not why I started this whole venture. I wouldn't be happy in the long run. I didn't start building to make money anyway. I built to make my own sound. Ironic now that I almost never play and record any more.

Really, what I would like to do is make a bunch of guitars and then have an exibit in a museum as some modern artist. It's a long shot, but it's such an outrageous idea that I might as well go for it.

So, the muse wins. I build what I want and people can continue to be the mindless drones that they've been programmed to be.

Here's an example of my cat Smokie. Here, you can actually see him trying to grow by stretching out as far as he can...

http://home.hiwaay.net/~jehle/temp/Picture%20031.jpg

I had lunch today at Krystals, and they had FREE WI-FI. I could have posted at sliders... in public... FOR FREE!

I used to have to pay for posting,but now I only post when it's free...it means you don't get to post quite as often,but when you do get to post,it feels great to get it without paying for it....

main downside though is that when it's free,you are always trying to cram in as much posting as you can at a time,because you don't know for sure where the next is coming from

Right, and when I'm not thinking about the next time I'll post, I'm thinking about where my next meal is coming from. Obviously, Krystals was the cure for the meal of the moment. But, I could have posted and had a meal at the same time. It's rare that you can do both.

I wasn't sure where else to post this topic, but "Shop Talk" to me could also be about "talking shop" and about being a professional luthier.

So, having said that. I had the grand idea of building guitars like I do, from reclaimed and recycled parts. Now, I don't build trash. In fact, I really love my guitars and I don't want to sell them because I know how well they play and I love their sounds. But, people really don't care, or so it would seem, that I've hand crafted and assembled this guitar from a jumble of parts, that I've had to make things fit, that I've created a one of a kind playable work of art.

I feel like I'm being pressed into a position that I have to make a strat copy like everyone else in the world, or continue making a better and unique guitar that nobody wants.

I'll come out of the duldrums before too long, but for right now, I've had the wind knocked out of me. :|

I've never seen a teisco look like this one before. In place of the squint inducing pickguard, there's this nice sort of les paul version there with the pickups covering the routing holes. It's made me rethink about how I want to remake mine.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...A:IT&ih=018

It's worth it to check out the auction and copy all of the pictures before it's over.

Ben, your kitty (avatar) looks just like my cat Bruno. =^oo^=

I had lunch today at Krystals, and they had FREE WI-FI. I could have posted at sliders... in public... FOR FREE!

One time I had multiple browser windows up and I posted on TWO forums at the same time.

You young whipper snappers... I'm an old codger as member 47! I'm in the double digits.

My post rate comes and goes, mostly depending on how long the honey-do list is.

Yeah, I hear as you get older that can starts causing you some problems.

Well, speaking of minds in gutter...

I can only post for a few minutes before I roll over and go to sleep.