3 String Guitar Made From Hardware Store Parts: the Sledgehammer

video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p0Zyi76ooQ

I wasn't sure of a good group to put this in; it combines woodworking with music. I've made cigar box guitars before but I had to order some parts from the music store: tuners, nut, bridge, pickups... I decided to test my skills to make a guitar solely from the hardware store strip mall (it included a dollar tree store) but the point is: no parts made to be on a guitar are the source material. I did use real guitar strings, but all the parts of the guitar were bought at the hardware store.

DISCLAMER:

I did 3D print the sledge hammer, I'll include the 3D print file, While this was not from the hardware store, it is actually just decoration and not functional. It is also not functional as a sledge hammer either.

Supplies

hickory sledge hammer handle, paint sticks, toothpicks, 1/2x2x36" maple board, 3/16 eye hook, 1/4-20 washer/coupling/thumb screw binding wire, aluminum angle iron piece, #10 screw, 3/8" screw, wire, piezo buzzers (from the dollar tree), 1 1/4" pvc pipe piece, shrink wrap tubing. penny finishing nails, nail polish, crazy glue,hot glue gun, spray pain: primer/flat black/plasti-dip, 3d printed sledge hammer model. 1/4" audio jack.

Step 1: Getting Started, Splitting the Axe Handle

So this build of a cigar box guitar got its inspiration from CB Gitty's website dedicated to homemade guitars when he made a guitar out of a pick axe. Not very practical, and I stuck the idea in my back pocket. I then came across a CBG maker that used the eye hook and 1/4-20 screws for tuners. That also went into my back pocket as I was very intrigued by the idea of how you could make a guitar from just farm parts, as they originally were done. The icing on the cake was that my neighbor was moving away and dropped off left over stuff in his house which included a broken 16lb sledge hammer... with the replacement handle. So now I'm off.

the trick to make this a real guitar with full frets was I need a 1 3/4" flat section and the handle is round. I made a jig to hold the handle still and ripped some 15" of the handle to give me a flat surface that was wide enough. With the jig it was surprisingly easy. the last bit of the cut had to be done by hand, and then an orbital sander was used to give me a nice flat surface to mount the fret board on.

Step 2: Prepping the Fred Board.

the fret board was cut from a nice piece of maple stock 1/2 x 1 3/4 x 36. I only needed about 15 inches. The 1/2" is thicker than most fret boards, I did this to make up all the material I removed in the handle for bot strength and to get the fret board back up to the height of the neck. This didn't seem to effect the sound of the guitar at all. Online I found a website to print a fret layout for a 25" guitar (the 25" is from nut to bridge, with the 12th fret half-way.) I drew the fret lines on the wood and I actually cut them with a dremel circular cutting tool and not the hack saw and widened them with a file. As the frets were going to made from finishing nails, the wedge could be a bit deeper and wider than if you buy fret stock, but this is a hardware build. Then there is a bunch of sanding to round off the top and the corners, Don't round off the bottom as that will glue to the neck. Frets are dark so then came a nice stain of jaccobean bean on the maple. applied by rubbing in the stain with squared of kitchen sponge.

Step 3: Setting the Pick-ups.

I always like the idea of a headless guitar, and the tuner design lends itself beautifully to this. This will also play into the sledge hammer theme as the neck will really look just like a axe handle and not have the tell tale tuners at the top. so using a forstner bit hollow out a little section of the fret board so I could glue the piezo buzzer into the indentation and run the wires into the left over space I cut out of the neck. I also added a second piezo to the neck in the same area for good measure. To get the piezo buzzers you tear apart the window alarm you buy from the dollar tree store. They were glued with the hot glue gun.

Step 4: The Tuners and Head

so the tuners are very different. the 1/4-20 thumb screw and coupler will hold the barrel of the guitar string which is also backwards, and the loose end ties off at the top. I'm very happy with the fidelity of the 1/4-20 screw: there is no need to get fine thread. It may be a little sloppy and loose, but I rubbed wax all over the the threads so they filled in and make the movement very smooth and fluid. I'm also very happy with how well the stay in place: The guitar easily stays in tune for days. I drilled pilot holes and screwed the eye holes into the neck. To move the couplers, its kinda hard to turn them so I use a wrench that I keep with the guitar. Its actually really cool and easy. I added notes to the pictures for the finer bits.

Step 5: Glue the Fret Board to the Neck, Add the Frets

lots of glue, lots of clamps, and lots of time. I gave this 3 days to dry. I didn't want the clamps to leave marks on the neck or fretboard, so I used paint sticks to keep the clamps from digging into the guitar parts. The "zero" fret (the nut) is a #10 screw I didn't glue that in yet, but the frets are 2" finishing nails glued down with crazy glue. The dremel cutting wheel cuts down the nails do this on a diagonal and smooth over the frets.

Step 6: Finish the Fretboard, Wiring Up the Electronics, the Bridge

once the glue dries (it was titlebond wood glue I think waterproof,) I put a coat of poly-urathane mixed with teak oil on the fretboard to give it a semi-gloss coat and seal it. The red and black wires were soldered as per the wiring diagram. and that little section after the fretboard that was cut out of the neck was where all the wires came together. They were soldered properly with a few turns around the neck so the cable that they are attached to can't pull directly on the buzzers and the small wires. More notes in the pictures.

Step 7: The Sledgehammer

at this time the guitar is fully functional. It plays great after fiddling with the right strings, and adjustments to the bridge and nut. The aesthetics though, it screams for the business end of the sledge hammer. A real one would be ridiculously heavy so I went with a 3d version I could print. I'm including my 3D printed design for the print up sledge hammer. It is designed in parts to fit the 3D printer and needed to be glued up but that was easy. I also made the ends threaded so the sledge is actually storage for stuff, a slide, the tuning wrench, picks, cables, etc. It also turned out with the construction that you can drum on the sledge and get really cool percussion coming through the amp. Anyway, this is cosmetic and if you don't want to get the parts 3d printed, they you can make any other back you want, make some wood axe blades, a scythe, keyblade, whatever.

Now for attaching the sledgehammer to the neck, that was a bit tricky. the neck wasn't long enough, It wasn't thick enough for the hole going through the sledgehammer either. It also was oblong. So what I did was I figured out that 1 1/4" PVC pipe inner diameter was just a little too small for the neck to fit inside it. That is actually great because if you didn't know, if you head up pvc pipe with a hair dryer, it gets very soft and pliable. I heated up the end and in its soft state forced the 2-4" of the neck that was at the end into the pvc piple and the pipe stretched and warped to fit exactly onto the neck. Once that cooled, it retains the new shape and it is pressed on really well. On the other end of the pvc pipe, I shimmed some paint sticks to sorta get to the right size of the hole in the sledgehammer, and then used black shrink wrap to hold, clean up, and thicken hte pvc pipe. I think I needed two layers of shrink tubing and that allowed me to properly shim the pvc pipe into the hole of the sledge hammer. Look at the pictures for details.

Before I press fit the sledge hammer onto the pvc pipe, I had to paint the sledgehammer. That consisted of 2 coats of rust colored primer, then 2 coats of flat black, and finally 3 coats of plasti-dip black rubber coating. For even coats I suspended the sledge hammer from a string and spun it while I sprayed.

Step 8: Final Notes and Finishing

I put another loop of thicker binding wire at the head to clip on a carbiner for a guitar strap. the other end of the guitar strap tied to a loop at the base of the neck where the sledgehammer attached to the neck with a zip tie to keep it from sliding around. The weight distribution of the guitar didn't work well and if you let go of the neck the guitar would tip down by the head. I probably could of added some weights into the bottom storage container of the sledgehammer, but instead I added 2 more straps for the guitar so it actually is held in place like a gun holster from a clint eastwood dirty harry movie where they keep the gun under their armpit under their jacket. That was some fiddling, but in the end it felt really natural and comfortable and very easy to put on. The guitar does not lend itself well to being played while sitting down,but that's ok. All in all, a very satisfying build and the guitar plays really well. I had one or two fret nails that were high but I was able to sand them down with the dremel but other than that, a textbook CBG. Oh, I used the #5, #4, #3 strings (A,D,G) from a pack of fender 150xl on it and tuned the guitar to GDg. I didn't put any volume or tone controls on the guitar to keep it clean looking, but I'm planning on an inline volume/tone control box made of a whiskey flask as a followup! Enjoy!!! (video coming shortly of it playing.)