My 1st build: saz/setar/cigarbox hollowbody electric guitar

[AndyF]

Let me just start by saying that I have no wood working skills whatsoever, let alone luthier skills (or tools for that matter), but inspiration has struck nonetheless.

I have been a guitarist for around 15 years now, but have always been fascinated by eastern and middle eastern music. In recent years I've come across some middle eastern instruments such as the oud (like a lute), the saz, and the setar (not to be confused with a sitar).

I liked the exotic tones, and was drawn in by the fret spacing allowing for the microtones we just don't get on western instruments. I liked the idea of a bass/drone string coupled with courses of double strings (like you'd find on a 12 string guitar). What I didn't like was the reliance on friction tuners, the extremely light and fragile nature of their bodies, their lack of volume, and the lack of availability of properly constructed instruments of this kind in Australia. Put off by all of this I temporarily lost interest.

Recently though I spotted someone at a local market selling cigar box style delta blues slide guitars. They were clearly home-made from improvised parts, and from a distance all I could make out was the odd body shape and the fact that they each had only 3-4 strings. I thought at first that I was looking at home-made sazes and setars, and thats when it hit me: I could do this!!

My plan is to make a square-ish shaped electric instrument with a bowl shaped chamber inside. I love the weight, warmth, and sustain of my Les Paul, and was wondering if I could combine these qualities with an otherwise acoustic instrument.

To this end, I figured that I could get two bits of Queensland Maple, each measuring 510mm x 370mm x 44.5mm and stick them one on top of the other. I would then remove a lute-body shaped chunk out of the middle of it (perhaps a fair bit more shallow, but you get the idea)and put a spruce sound board on top.

My first question - would having such a thick and heavy back and sides render this instrument practically silent when played unplugged?

Then theres the issue of the electronic side of things. I'd obviously want to go with some kind of under-saddle piezo pick up, but was wondering if I'd be butchering the soundboard too much if I also cut out a section to allow for a humbucker?

So as not to put too much strain on the sound board, I've opted against having an electric guitar style bridge. Instead I'll probably use a tail piece that screws into the butt of the instrument and comes up over the top of the body like those found on resonator guitars.

The bridge is going to be a bit of an issue. I'd like to have one bass/drone string (tuned to D), followed by a course of two "A" strings and a course of two higher "D" strings. No store bought bridge that I've seen will accommodate this. Come to think of it, the nut is going to be just as fun to bring into being!

My main goal is to make a unique instrument that holds its own both electrically and acousticly. I'm less interested in becoming a luthier than I am in designing and ultimately owning/playing this instrument, so I'll probably line the pockets of an expert or two to handle some of the trickier bits. Either way, I'll be sure to document it as best as I can every step of the way.

I guess the big question is: am I stark raving bonkers? Will this sort of construction work or am I completely barking up the wrong tree? It has occurred to me that in the thousands of years that human beings have been making stringed instruments, if anyone attempted this kind of build, they sure didn't persist with it - perhaps for a reason.

[Allen]

Welcome to the forum Andy.

As far as your questions go, bridge and nuts are easy things to build. No worries there. Building such an instrument is pretty different to anything I've seen, so not much help there. I suppose it comes down how successful you want the sound to be un-amplified, or for that matter, possible feedback problems if it is.

There are others here that are far more knowledgeable than I am about those matters, so hopefully they will jump in here.

[Nick]

Firstly welcome to the forum Andy and we look forward to seeing your build in progress (with plenty of pics ).Hope you enjoy our little band of merry men (and women!)
From what I can gather from what you are saying, I would say the acoustic properties of this guitar won't be as loud as you are hoping (if you want it's electrical and acoustic values to be as they would on dedicated instruments) The "soundbox" won't be deep enough to amplify some of the longer sound wave (bassier) tones so you may find that it will sound a bit 'thin' acoustically. It's not so much the thickness of your back and sides, although this does have an effect on the final sound but it's more the volume, or amount of air inside the soundbox that gives it acoustic volume and fullness.
If you want to mount a pickup through the soundboard then (and if you want to accentuate the drone) I would mount it up near the neck, it shouldn't affect the soundboard properties too much up there (depending on your bracing plans) and will 'mellow out' and accentuate the fullness of the sound,plus if you're worried about cutting a hole for it, there's already a rather large hole cut in it called a soundhole. I presume you want to put some sort of sound hole in, you don't say in your post.
Some years ago I built myself a Telecaster shaped guitar that used a slab of Mahogany for the back and sides, I hollowed out the inside so that I had a wall thickness of 10mm all round then made a spruce soundboard, braced it the same as I would an acoustic and cut some 'f' holes in the same as a thinline. I used an acoustic bridge which had a piezo undersaddle transducer plus two humbuckers in neck and bridge position.Electronics could switch between the two systems. Amplified it sounds brilliant and acheived everything I wanted, acoustically it has about a 1-2 meter projection outside that it cant be heard. Even as the player I can only hear it abit louder than I would a full solidbody and it lacks the fullness of tones.
Just a few thoughts to add to your thought processes. But you aren't Bonkers! I like to do things that are different too.

[AndyF]

Thanks guys. I've sort of taken my lead on the acoustic side of things from ovation guitars. They have a composite bowl for a back and a regular soundboard on top. They don't have a standard sound hole near the middle like most acoustic guitars, they have a number of small holes in the sound board up near the neck. I've seen one model that had three holes on the bass side and two on the treble - I'll most probably run with that.



My theory is that I might be able to apply this to an electric guitar with a solid back instead of a thin one. Also, like I said in the opening post I'm no luthier and have no aspirations of becoming one. I think it would be far easier to cut a hole in a solid bit of timber than it would be to bend, brace and generally assemble an acoustic guitar.

Having said that, I'm aware that there's going to be more to attaching a sound board than "whacking on a bit of spruce" as I put it in my opening post. I'm going to seek help on that part for sure.

If the volume is more affected by the depth of the chamber than the thickness of the "walls", I'll still give this project a go. I might just have to have a look at making it deeper. I was mostly worried that if the back wasn't thin like the top board, there would be no sound coming out and the main concept behind the instrument would be dead in the water.

[jeffhigh]

why don't you just buy a cheap pawnshop guitar and replace the fretboard with one fretted to the scale you need
replace the nut and string it with drones and paired strings to your requirements

[AndyF]

why don't you just buy a cheap pawnshop guitar and replace the fretboard with one fretted to the scale you need
replace the nut and string it with drones and paired strings to your requirements

That would have to be the quickest, cheapest, and easiest way to end up with a playable instrument strung in the manner I'm after - to be honest, I can't believe I didn't think of it myself.

However, with that proposition in front of me, I still feel inclined to go ahead with this build. The main attraction to me is not just the strings/fret arrangement, but also the concept of having a solid, weighty, electric instrument which can hold its own acoustically. Having a unique instrument with a tonne of character would be awesome too. I'm not going to get all that by violating a cheapy.

What I was wanting to know before I took it beyond a hypothetical design phase, was if such a thick and heavy back and sides would write off any chance of acoustic guitar volume, or will a deep chamber and decent top make up for this? I can probably get the chamber around 90-110mm deep at its deepest point.

[jeffhigh]

IMHO You are not going to end up with a satisfactory acoustic response.
because of the limited internal volume, and a soundboard with a humbucker slotted into it and a number of other reasons.

The solid back will not give you any of the electric guitar properties you want either, because the bridge will not be fixed to it.

I would either convert an acoustic (with a peizo bridge pickup) or build a flat solid body instrument from the timber you have.
regards
Jeff

[AndyF]

IMHO You are not going to end up with a satisfactory acoustic response.
because of the limited internal volume...

I'm estimating that the empty chamber will be roughly 400mm x 300mm x 100mm deep. Surely thats not much smaller than a small acoustic guitar? You could just about hide a ukulele in there!

...and a soundboard with a humbucker slotted into it and a number of other reasons.

That answers my question about the humbucker! Mind you, I have seen some archtop guitars which have a humbucker attached to the fingerboard, perhaps this might be the way to go?

The solid back will not give you any of the electric guitar properties you want either, because the bridge will not be fixed to it.

Wont having the trapeze tailpiece screwed into the body take care of this? If not, the hollowed out chamber won't come all the way to the back of the instrument, perhaps I could use an electric guitar bridge and screw it all the way in there. Am I in the ball park of this thing working yet?

Thanks very much for the feedback Jeff, you're certainly putting things into perspective for me and pointing out problems I wouldn't have thought of.

[Nick]

Personally I wouldn't worry too much about mounting a humbucker into the soundboard. As I said in my earlier post, if you mount it up near the neck where it will give you a nice mellow 'fat' sound and also from a design aspect, the soundboard isn't usually very active up in this region of the board anyway, mainly because there's a thick tonebar glued underneath and a fingerboard glued on the top! But if you want to go with the fingerboard mounted version, they do work rather well but cut down your options as far as "sound shaping" goes, they are primarily designed for jazz playing so lack a little top end.

The 100mm depth should give you abit of volume too, I envisaged from your first post a sound box that wasn't very deep so hence my comment. The thicker back & sides will still however alter the end sound which I imagine will be more at the thin end of the spectrum, if this is the sound you want then you won't be disappointed.

These are all just observations I've found from my Tele experience and mounting pickups into the soundboard of my Selmers btw. Feel free to ignore if you wish, but the experiment may just well be worth it.

[AndyF]

The thicker back & sides will still however alter the end sound which I imagine will be more at the thin end of the spectrum, if this is the sound you want then you won't be disappointed.

If you'll excuse my complete ignorance for a moment , what is it that brings out a full sounding bottom end in an acoustic guitar?

These are all just observations I've found from my Tele experience and mounting pickups into the soundboard of my Selmers btw. Feel free to ignore if you wish, but the experiment may just well be worth it.

It'd be mighty silly of me to come here asking questions and then ignore the answers. I appreciate any thoughts you wish to add.

[Nick]

Well to my thinking(others may have different theories, that's why we may all build the same guitar differently), it's not only the size of the box that gives a full sound but the sound is reflected by the back, back out the front of the instrument. With a thicker back it is unable to move or resonate when a longer wave (a bass frequency) hits it so the only time it moves is when the high frequencies hit it, it is these that get reflected back out the front and the bass frequencies are absorbed and disapated within the guitar so don't get reflected back out the front.
I like to use the analogy of a speaker, let it vibrate naturally and it gives a full reproduction of the info being sent to it, now touch the cone, bass frequencies immediately drop of and the sound becomes quite thin, push a little harder and it gets thinner & thinner until no sound. Now think of the soundboard as the magnet that drives the speaker's action and the back as the cone that reflects that. By thickening the back you are increasing that dampening amount,until we end up with the solidbody volume and thin sound.

[jeffhigh]

The volume of the space will end up substantially smaller.
You only have a total of 89mm body thickness when you glue together the boards,
and you were talking about carving out a lute shaped dish.
You want the volume to support the Low D note you are intending for your drone.
It matters what you fix your bridge to more than what your tailpiece is fixed to.
Support the bridge on an area of the soundboard which is free to move for your accoustic volume. if you fix it to a solid area you lose acoustic volume but gain sustain and feedback resistance

[AndyF]

The volume of the space will end up substantially smaller.
You only have a total of 89mm body thickness when you glue together the boards,
and you were talking about carving out a lute shaped dish.
You want the volume to support the Low D note you are intending for your drone.

This is where I was going to try and get tricky. I would cut a hole in the top bit, and keep the cut out section. When I cut the hole out of the next board down, its done on an angle, sloping inwards. I take the section cut out of the first board, and attach it to the bottom of the instrument to cover the remaining hole, and maybe even dig into that piece a little. That will give me more depth than the two boards on their own.

With a thicker back it is unable to move or resonate when a longer wave (a bass frequency) hits it so the only time it moves is when the high frequencies hit it, it is these that get reflected back out the front and the bass frequencies are absorbed and disapated within the guitar so don't get reflected back out the front.

Perhaps this smaller round piece that I intend to attach to the back of the instrument could also have a section cut out of it on the same angle as the previous piece. I could then cover that hole with a proper acoustic back. Again, its a massive compromise being much smaller than the back of an acoustic, but do you think this would help?

It matters what you fix your bridge to more than what your tailpiece is fixed to.
Support the bridge on an area of the soundboard which is free to move for your accoustic volume. if you fix it to a solid area you lose acoustic volume but gain sustain and feedback resistance

What if I fed the strings in through the back of the instrument (the solid bit of course), and used an acoustic bridge with a piezo pick up on the sound board? Unless I've got my wires crossed (and going by craziness of the whole project this is a good possibility!!!) this should involve the solid body of the guitar with the movement of the strings, and maintain acoustic volume by keeping the bridge on the moving sound board.

I've gotta say, my hat is off to you two for persevering with my questions, and for somehow having a clue about my intentions based on my muddled descriptions and no pictures.

I really appreciate the feedback guys. Thanks.

[jeffhigh]

Anchoring the strings through the back like that will just restrain the soundboard

[AndyF]

ok,ok,ok, how's this one??

What if (brace yourself here!) I had the neck go right through? It would support the sound board where the two sheets would join, and the sound board would be sandwiched between the bridge and the neck. I would imagine that with the neck meeting up with the solid part at the butt of the instrument, this would mean the bridge is mounted to a solid part. It would also be attached to the sound board.

I know absolutely nothing about bracing, but if its done purely for structural purposes, this might be enough. The sound board would be a square sheet sitting on a square board with a hole cut out of it - meaning the corners of the top sheet would sit flush on top of the corners of the first board. Hopefully with the corners supported by the board underneath and the thru neck supporting the middle, it might not want to cave in. Perhaps with the exception of where the bridge is screwed into it, the neck in the chamber could be narrowed down so there isn't as much in contact with the sound board.

Then again, Nick's post describing the back of the guitar as acting like a speaker cone has got me thinking about cones...

...maybe I should look at a resonator?

[Nick]

Sorry Andy I'm having a hardtime picturing what it is you are trying to do or where your design is going (not trying to squelch your inventiveness though) If you go with the neck through design, it will be an electrified instrument only. In order for it to be an acoustic as well as electric, the strings need to contact the soundboard with either a fixed bridge (as in your 'normal' acoustic) or a floater (think jazz archtops). If you have a neck through design and anchor the strings with an electric style bridge then you may as well have nothing under where you plan to put a soundboard, the effect will be the same.The strings don't have enough energy to drive the soundboard by floating above it, they need to be in direct contact.
Personally I'm now thinking of Jeff's original suggestion of getting a cheap clunker from a pawn (not porn ) shop and play around with that.Once you get the layout you want working acoustically, then stick some pickups in it. You can then transfer the information you have discovered on the first 'experiment' onto a purpose built "Andy" original design.
If you go the resonator route you are essentially doing the amplified acoustic scheme also. Bela Fleck has a Banjo shaped like an electric with the skin (My Banjo terminology is crap!) or head embedded in it. Amplified it's close but no cigar to a Banjo sound, acoustically it's hopeless as a Banjo. Which ever route you take will be a compromise and one or the other of the sounds you want won't be the dominant, with an acoustic electrified being the lesser evil of a compromise.
Not trying to squash your enthusiasm, just making you aware of possible pitfalls.

[AndyF]

Which ever route you take will be a compromise and one or the other of the sounds you want won't be the dominant, with an acoustic electrified being the lesser evil of a compromise.

I've mostly played electric instruments in the past, and thats where my enthusiasm lies. I've got an el cheapo "entry" or "student" model ibanez strat copy which I noodle on at home unplugged. They must have routed the hell out of it, because for an unplugged electric guitar, it can be heard quite well. I was hoping with this eastern/frankenstein instrument I could apply the relationship I have with the ibanez to it, only more so. I figured that making it deep and giving it a proper soundboard (and to a lesser extent a proper back as well), would take this process a giant leap forward. It still wouldn't sound anywhere near as beautiful as the acoustic guitars you guys on this forum make, but it'd be a darn sight closer than my ibanez.

I also figured that by making the chamber rounded it would avoid having sharp corners. I once had someone tell me that corners do horrible things to acoustics. He was talking about the acoustics of a room, as he was designing a recording studio, but hey, it probably still applies to guitars right?

Some years ago I built myself a Telecaster shaped guitar that used a slab of Mahogany for the back and sides, I hollowed out the inside so that I had a wall thickness of 10mm all round then made a spruce soundboard, braced it the same as I would an acoustic and cut some 'f' holes in the same as a thinline. I used an acoustic bridge which had a piezo undersaddle transducer plus two humbuckers in neck and bridge position. Electronics could switch between the two systems. Amplified it sounds brilliant and acheived everything I wanted, acoustically it has about a 1-2 meter projection outside that it cant be heard.

The solid back will not give you any of the electric guitar properties you want either, because the bridge will not be fixed to it.

This is what I'm really wrestling with at the moment. I want it to turn heads when amplified, and at least maintain some kind of acoustic voice when unplugged.

I was originally considering using this mandolin bridge/piezo pick up with a trapeze tailpiece.

My concern would be that by not attaching it to anything solid I would lose all the qualities that justified getting that much solid maple . The story of the telecaster has me thinking though, the fact that it sounded brilliant when amplified - would the 10mm walls have had nothing to do with this fact? Was it all in the pick ups?

If I go with a through neck and screw the above mentioned bridge (or similar) into it, I'm thinking I might be able to attain the amplified sound I'm after, and possibly meet my minimal acoustic expectations. My minimal acoustic expectations being something which projects more than a couple of meters and has a tone which is better than an unplugged electric guitar. Of course if the part of the bridge which comes between the saddle and the face of the instrument were to be wider than the neck underneath it, do you think it would be kind enough to share vibration with both the solid neck and the sound board?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on my comments about the bracing in my previous post.

Not trying to squash your enthusiasm,

You couldn't possibly!!

just making you aware of possible pitfalls.

Thats primarily why I came here, and you guys have been a great help in that regard. I'm amazed (and relieved) at how much I've learned with out generating a single piece of saw dust.