BLACK WATER UNION AT MOTHER'S TAVERN 9/29

We're playing at Mother's on Wednesday.  Git there.

AN ANTI-BELLUM BIRTHDAY PRESENT

My birthday is coming up on Sunday, and as an early birthday present, my wife bought me a pre-war (WWII) Slingerland arch top tenor guitar. I did some research and it looks like the manufacturing date is 1935 or possibly even earlier. I can't believe I own an instrument that is almost 80 years old. Of course, 80 years is a long time time to exist as a guitar without sustaining some sort of damage, and this guitar is no exception. The bridge was missing, and the set neck was separating from the body. This neck separation also came with a slightly loose dovetail joint which caused the neck to slop about 1/16" from side to side when the strings were taken off. The tuning pegs were falling off as well, and the whole guitar was filthy. I decided to take matters into my own hands instead of paying the hundreds of dollars it would take to have the work professionally done. Here's some pictures and some brief descriptions of the work I did:
Here's the whole guitar after I finished getting it all set up, homestyle. The body and neck are maple with a rosewood fingerboard, according to the 1930's Slingerland catalog I downloaded. It has a huge sound for a tenor- super loud and mellow at the same time.

Since the guitar was missing its bridge, I decided to just make my own rather than pay $25.00 for one on line and then wait a week for it to get shipped to me. I hand-shaped a block of "poor man's ebony" (poplar colored with black Sharpie) to match the profile of the arch top. I cut a kerf in the block, glued in a plastic saddle, and slid it under a new set of strings. The intonation is pretty good... way better than I expected, and I think the bridge fits the overall look pretty well. The action is great, actually- better than many of my other guitars despite the well worn frets, and the slight bow in the neck doesn't seem to matter at all.

I cleaned up the headstock and tightened the tuner plate screws (which, miraculously, were not stripped.) A little guitar polish really brought out the MOP work, and I'm particularly impressed with the green diamond in the middle. The inlay reads "Slingerland Songster." At some point I'm going to try to remove the red paint some idiot put on the tuning pegs.

The tailpiece is original, which is rarer than you might think; it reads "Slingerland Chicago, USA." I thought about taking a bit of steel wool to the rusty spots, but I kind of like the tarnished look.

Finally, I fixed the neck (sort of) by installing a trim head screw to pull the neck back into its original position. This took care of some of the side to side wobble as well, and the string tension did the rest- the neck is solid now, and I see no reason it won't stay that way. Thanks to my wife for a fantastic birthday present/awesome afternoon project!  I can't wait to play it with the boys tomorrow night.

SHOW TIMES

Come see us at Sally Loo's Coffee Shop this Thursday forthe Photo Booth Release party. Then on Sunday, we're gonna be at the Cal Poly Organic Farm fundraiser event playing some chemical-free old time to raise some money for old school farming. 

Next week, come out to the Clubhouse on Thursday, September 24th for the Blackwater Union, Zeb Zates and Anthony Roseli. It's gonna be Ta-Ta's last show as a bachelor! 

TWANG & BANG TONIGHT!

Come on out to the Frog and Peach tonight for a boot stompin' throat jawin' hullaballoo with the Blackwater Union and a bunch of other country/bluegrass bands from SLO.  It's gonna be a hell of a show. We go on around 5:30. Git there!

BOTTLE NECK SLIDE

Now that I have a sweet CBG, I figured it might be time to make my first authentic bottle neck slide. It was easy- all I had to do was find my glass cutter and chug a bottle of 2 Buck Chuck real quick. First, I scribed a line around the base of the neck. I ran hot water over the scribed section for a couple of minutes and followed it with cold water. Then I tapped the neck gently with a mallet and it broke right off. I finished it up by grinding the sharp edges down on the sidewalk (old skool, yo) and then polishing them with 100 grit sandpaper.

Next time I will probably use some masking tape to guide the glass cutter so the cut won't be so jagged, and I will also cut the neck a little higher up so the slide will be shorter. Overall I think it came out pretty good for my first try. I want to make a few different colors, so I guess my wine drinking is about to escalate. 

AMMO CAN 6 STRING

Today I finished the Ammo Can Guitar I've been working on. It's not as polished as the JR tenor, but it's got an amazing range of tone. I didn't run the neck all the way through this time, gambling on my ability to firmly mount the neck to the body, and it payed off. I think it's maybe a sixteenth out between the head and the end of the fretboard, but it doesn't seem to make any difference, and it holds tune just fine.  This was my first foray into the world of fretting, but it was easier than I had thought it would be- just a pullsaw and a hammer and some fretwire. The key was using a square to guide the cut. I laid out the fret positions using my '75 Harmony 3/4 scale acoustic as a template- the scale is 21.5" from nut to bridge. The hardest part was getting the bridge angle right so the intonation wasn't off... that took a couple hours of trial and error, and I ended up having to shim the nut with a jigsaw blade (whatever works, right?). I keep learning new things about the instrument the more I play it- for instance, I just discovered that if you turn the latch on the box lid by 180 degrees, it creates a rattle that sounds just like someone turned up the gain. It's natural distortion- amazing! And, since it is still operable as an ammo box, I can keep any number of things in it during shows: extra picks, a whole microphone as a pickup, or, best of all, 2 inches of ice and three cans of beer. Best Instrument Ever.

Specs:

-Poplar neck

-Mahogany fingerboard

-Ammunition can body

-10 speed rear cluster guard sound hole co

ver

-Simpson Strongtie neck bracket

-Old Fender Tuners (mismatched, all right handed)

-Maple table leg neck brace

-Abalone inlay drawer-pull bridge

-Light gage strings

-Total Cost: $24.00

J.R. CBG LIVE!

Here's a video of me more or less playing an old Doc Watson tune. I'm still getting used to the fretlessness of the neck, so I'm sure the viewer will forgive any bum notes. I tuned to GDGD for this song, which is how I also tune my fiddle. I think I'll keep the guitar in this tuning, since it also makes playing slide a lot easier.  Enjoy! (Also, for some reason my camera turns everything backwards, so the backwards writing on the headstock is actually correct in real life.)