Enrico asked me to post a pic of my 3-string in another thread. Rather than hijack someone else's thread, I figured I'd post it here. Show us your 3-string (if you've got one)! Here's my 3-String that I made: Around 1840 or so, cigars started being packed into small wooden boxes, holding 20-50 cigars apiece. Poor folks "back in the day" couldn't afford to buy instruments, so they made 'em with whatever materials they could scrounge up. Cigar boxes were often recycled into musical instruments. I thought "I'm a poor boy -- I should make one!" So I did. The neck itself is a piece of neighbor's oak coffee table that was being thrown out. The fretboard is flooring left over from a remodeling project. The frets are brazing rod (normally used for welding). I visited the local cigar store, where they had some neat wooden cigar boxes on hand ($2 each). I dug through the pile and found one that was the right size. I also liked the cool graphics on the box. It was a box for “My Fathers Cigars” and the cigars that came in it were “Flor de las Antillas” (a Toro size cigar). So if anybody asks what kind of guitar I have I'll tell them “I play My Father's 'Flower of the Antilles' – it's the Toro model.” To prevent the wire strings from cutting through the wood at the top edges of each hole, I ran them through the hole of a pop-rivet; these made nice little wire guides to protect the wood. The tuning keys are real guitar tuners (cheapo from China). The “nut” is where the strings leave the frets toward the tuners; the nut, in my case, is a bolt. The bridge was “repurposed” a piece of rubber-coated dish rack that broke on our diswasher. I drilled a hole in the side of my cigar box and added a 1/4” jack wired to a piezoelectric buzzer. The ceramic microphones work on the same principle as the buzzer, only backwards. When you add electrical current to a piezo-electric's ceramic element, it vibrates and makes a buzzing sound. If you add an amplifier instead of power, then the ceramic element picks up vibrations and translates them into current that is then amplified. It is, in effect, a poor-man's electric guitar pickup. Thus, I made my cigar box guitar electric. I had no Earthly idea how to play a guitar, so I started out with an old religious song my Mom used to sing - “Angel Band” by the Stanley Brothers. I was able to noodle it out in about a half hour. That led me to several old Hank Williams (Sr.) songs, which are remarkably easy to play on a 3-string. I found that you can play most anything on a 3-string so long as you get a little creative with a note or two here or there. It's fun! Let's see YOUR homemade guitar, banjo, fiddle, drums, or whatever! If it's musical and you made it, let's see it! - Bax
It's not in the pic, but I added a guitar strap, made out of an old piece of clothesline. Also picked up a used Behringer AT-108 2-channel amp at a local guitar store. Now I can run my mic and gitty off the same amp. This successfully annoys both my bride *and* her cats as I wail and strum, trying to learn how to play it... Mission accomplished! - Bax
That is such a cool instrument. What kind of strings did you use? What notes do you tune each string?
It's leaning on my 1960 Ford Ranchero. Strings came from a local guitar store. I told the guy what I was doing and he picked them out for me. Don't know much more about the strings than that. It's diatonic tuning and set up for G-D-G at the moment. I positioned the frets by using my son's Fender fret spacing as a guide. All I need to make a chord is to "bar" across a fret (all 3 strings). No fancy fingering required. You can play almost any rock and roll song with just three chords, after all... - Bax
