Thursday, May 12, 2011

CIGAR BOX GUITAR - Part 4 of 10

Day 4 of my Cigar Box Guitar Project. Today I tackled the Nut and the Bridge. Below is a base or saddle for the bridge. Whichever you like to call it. It will hold the bridge upright.

Bridges are easier to adjust height-wise if they aren't permanently glued down, so a slotted base is what I like to use. The tightened strings hold the bridge down onto the saddle. If the strings are too high I can sand the bottom of the bridge down and then click it back into the saddle. If the strings are too low I can put a strip of veneer or some credit card plastic under the bridge. So far I've never had to do that, but the option is there if I need it, and I have been trying to come up with a good excuse to cut up some of Mei's credit cards.

Here's the Nut. It's wide at the bottom for sturdy support, and then thin at the top so the strings are resting on a sharper edge.

On the other side you can see 2 pencil lines. the lower line represents the fretboard surface. The upper line shows me how deep the string grooves need to be. The distance between those 2 lines is just barely more than the height of a fret.
That's what I did this day. It doesn't look like much but it did take a while since the parts were so little and finicky.

More to come.

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