Homemade Diddley Bow Electric Slide Guitar (a la Jack White)

This is possibly the cheapest and easiest guitar you could ever hope to make. There are some similar guitars in other tutorials, but in my opinion this trumps them for ghetto factor. If you have seen the film "It Might Get Loud", or at least the trailer, you will be familiar with this. Jack White rocks one of these suckers:

Update: Working link for the trailer is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YvNVqf2at0
 

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Step 1 Supplies

First thing, gather your materials:

Some sort of plank of wood. The one I used here isn't ideal because it is thin enough for the nails to come through the other side.

Bottle

Nails

Guitar string

Hammer

Smaller chunk of wood for mounting pickup

Pickup

Output Jack

Comments

[yoyology]

For additional DIY cred, make your own pickup. http://www.instructables.com/id/cheap-and-easy-guitar-pickups/

[freeza36]

Jack White is one of the best guitarists ever, even though he used very simple means to play. One listen to "Seven Nation Army," and you will believe it.

[TommY.KillER]

Since I saw this, during watching It Might Get Loud, I want to make one too! :D Tomorrow I'm going to go buy a pickup :)

[freeza36]

you gotta love Jack White

[steve howe]

You can get cheap humbucker pickups as well as jack sockets from Janikas Music Shop at http://www.janika.co.uk Steve

[bigredlevy]

i made one a few years ago to play bottleneck style. it's made from pine and plywood, with a broomstick neck. it has a piezo pickup under the bridge.

[rklinger]

beautiful...combo diddley bow and cigar box guitar look...got any for sale?...brother-in-laws birthday in Nov

[bigredlevy]

sorry mate, i don't sell any of my guitars. it really wasn't hard to make, though.

[CaptainWow]

Nice job on that one. I imagine having a hollow body would make it sound a lot nicer.

[JuCo]

not to nitpick, but this is a diddley bow. cool make, though. you could also use a soup can, instead of a bottle, and play it unplugged.

[craig3]

semi acoustic maybe? how would it sound with the soup can with a pickup?

[JuCo]

like a piezo attached to the can? i dunno... i would imagine that it would sound sort of like a banjo with a piezo pickup played with a slide. in other words, strange and demented in the most delightful ways.

[CaptainWow]

yeah i figured there was probably a better name for it. thanks for the tip.

[JuCo]

no problem... i just checked and wikipedia's got a decent article. it's not very in-depth, but there's some interesting factlets. (like lonnie pitchford's headstone having a playable diddley bow on the side of it.... road trip, anyone?)

[CaptainWow]

im down. so is bo diddley named after the guitar or the guitar after bo diddley?

[JuCo]

double response... i just checked wikipedia and it's completely made up because his birth name was "bates" and he was adopted by his aunt (i believe, dang short term memory!), so he took on the last name "mcdaniel" before changing to the stage name. P.S.- his first name was "ellas", so that might explain why he chose to go by a pseudonym.

[JuCo]

judging by the times for each being named, i'd guess that the man was named after the instrument. i'd have to check to see, though, if his last name was "diddley" and the nickname came from that (or was named by parents that had a sense of humor), or if it was a stage name that he created from whole cloth.

[n3rdd]

I wonder about using an actual machine head for tuning

[CaptainWow]

Yeah I imagine that would work if your wood was the right thickness for the machine head.

[sockless]

So what does the beer bottle actually do?

[CaptainWow]

It acts like the bridge on a regular guitar. Gives the strings something to resonate off of.

[phant0m_sp00f3ra]

damn this is sooo sweet it looks like my next proyect, and also the movie! when will it b released?

[CaptainWow]

sometime in august I think. Looking forward to seeing Jimmy Page shred it up. By the way, if you make this, probably use screws instead of nails or else a way thicker board because as soon as I tried to add a second string it cracked pretty badly.

[whiteoakart]

If you haven't seen the movie, do whatever you can to get a copy.  It is really amazing.

[phant0m_sp00f3ra]

O: Ok i'll take that into account mate. I am imagine mine with lots of colours (spray paint FTW!).

[MteamyMcHotsauce]

 AMAZING MOVIE

[tj1001]

im sorry but i have no idea what to do when i get to the wiring step

[CaptainWow]

it really depends on what sort of pickup you have. sorry im not the most knowledgeable on the subject. try taking it down to a guitar shop and see if they'll show you.

[ItsTheHobbs]

Nice project, can't wait to see the movie.