ShonKy cigar box ukulele No2.

I have the second cigar box ukulele up for sale on my website.
It's a much improved design. slightly slimmer neck (but still much chunkier than standard)
I went back to using a disc piezo rather than a rod as it's much better. If you had a preamp then a rod would be great but that would mean putting an ugly plastic unit into it and totally ruining the aesthetic.

I went for a plain mahogany box this time and re-visited the multihole sound hole I used in This cigar box guitar. I echoed the largest sound hole by putting a little wave at the end of the finger board.

I have also been trying out a water based poly satin  clear coat as I really can't justify using aerosol cans as they are massively wasteful. It does mean I have to brush it on and I thought It would suffer from brush marks. To my surprise it is really easy to apply, no brush marks and it gives a nice very hard finish and very quick curing time. It does suffer from tiny air bubbles which collect in ridges and  joins but these can be sanded out once hardened.

It is available for sale on The ShonKy Website

 

 

Production is again on hiatus but this time due to the arrival of our baby daughter. :-)
  

Marlin Sidewinder. My new favorite guitar

The Marlin Sidewinder. Much maligned and often found lurking in the depths of Ebay where they sell for small change.
I picked this one up with a job lot of guitars. It was dirty. So dirty you could have grown potato's in the accumulated grime. The intention was to break it for parts or to sell it on as it was. However curiosity got the better of me and I decided to give it a clean, fret dress and see how it played.
Usually the sidewinder comes with a two point floating tremolo with fine tuners this one when I picked it up had a weird chunky Japanese 6 screw trem. The saddles of which where all adjusted to be as far back as they could go which for perfect intonation wasn't far enough. mm! someone had changed the original two point for this one but no when I took it apart no extra holes so it was originally fitted with a 6 screw but just not this one so replaced it with a typical squier style one which fitted perfectly and with room for adjusting the intonation.
Also they usually have a bar string retainer whereas mine has the two round string trees.
Marlin also made the Slammer which was a single coil version with the 6 point trem and the round trees so this is some sort of hybrid I guess.
after cleaning I put it all back together strung it up and wow the neck is gorgeous so playable and feels like an expensive neck. The body is plywood. big solid heavy plywood. Now I'm not a believer in saying a particular material is better than another for making a guitar body out. don't get me wrong, I'm sure a rubber body would be pretty awful but some people would have you believe that the best wood for tone is swamp ash or mahogany and anything else is rubbish. this is such a contentious issue. My opinion is that the material a guitar is made of gives it it's own unique tone.
Anyway back to the Marlin. It has a humbucker with big fat bars in it in the bridge position and two Alnico (yes Alnico) single coils in middle and bridge. It also has a mini switch that puts the pick-ups in phase or something.
Sound wise it's just great. it sounds a bit fender but also a bit Gibson but not really you see it has it's own unique sound and I love it. especially in the bridge middle position with the phase (or whatever it does) switch on.
It's not all rosy The machines are rubbish but I will change them when I next change the strings which is a bit of a shame as the retaining lug is not in the standard place so I will have to drill some extra holes. also I find the neck although beautiful to play is not that stable. Some days I pick it up and it plays like my dream guitar then a couple of days later the strings are hitting the frets! I can put up with this as I'm not going to gig with it.
Click HERE for a very good article about the Marlin Sidewinder.
Here's some pics. notice the industrial pickup selector switch!