Some truly outstanding instruments in this video. About half of them seem buildable. I have no idea why they stuck an accordion in there.
@Taiwan_Luthiers The rotating armonica is probably most interesting. I can see a simple, hand rotated version being buildable for 1000TWD materials, and two hours of workshop time.
This is easier.
You could have one person rotating the dowel while the other plays.
Maybe it’ll take more hours of workshop time. I don’t know how tough it is to punch holes in glass bowls. I guess I can see a lot going wrong.
Stand out clips here are the japanese fan dude a the start, and the Carnyx, around 3 minutes. Sounds pretty Game of Thrones:
Do you think we could get a shovel guitar built in 2 hours of workshop time? If we can get the build time reasonable, I can maybe sell these, either in Taipei or the Philippines.
I can bring all the parts, and the shovel, in a bag.
I figure it’s about holes and gluing, right? Or holes and nuts.
I suggest coming during a weekday. There is a screw shop near me that will sell screws. I have a bunch of spare tuning pegs that you can use. As for the metal thing, look for some angle iron.
I’ll see what I can do during the week. A guy in a hardware store told me a shovel was 700. It was a little small. A fair sized black one might be closer to 1000TWD.
Any idea where to buy a good pick up from? Any recommendations? Maybe humbuckers might be better to soften the sound, but I don’t know.
I figure we easily have the skills for this.
Later, we can start adding two pickups and a volume control. But lets start simple. A double jack might work. One for a pizeo pick up (for atmospheric tones) and a regular one.
I just want to make sure I have all the parts before I come round.
Nothing worse than building a guitar and being one part short.
You can ask a music store about pickups. They’ll have cheap/shit ones and expensive ones. Make sure you know what you’re getting (so you aren’t spending extra thousands you don’t need to). You’ll need volume pots and jacks and stuff.
As for strings are you using nylon or steel? This is important because magnetic pickup don’t work with nylon.
I’ll also need some time to solder everything together.
Steel strings for a bluesy sound. A nylon shovel guitar is kind of intriguing, though.
Will get a name brand but fair priced pickup. TBH, the iron body gives a kind of amazing sound.
I guess a volume pot is a good idea on the first build.
What do you mean “and stuff”?.. it’s the “and stuff” which worries me lol. If I forget something, it’s a long MRT journey and wasted time.
So lets make sure we get a finalized list of all parts before I come round.
How long do you think soldering might take? I don’t want to rush anyone, or do a hack job. Just interested in how long it might take for the average guy to solder the jacks etc.
Could start selling these in kit form, if we wrote a very clear doc in two languages.
Im most interested in building these for myself, but it might be fun to sell a couple.
Nice. 30 to 60 minutes is good. You can teach me to solder too. I haven’t done it since technology class at school. Most people don’t know what type of solder metal mix to buy, for a long lasting solder.
250k pots, will remember that.
If we can brainstorm any custom mods, it’s interesting. I keep feeling I want to build parts out of glass.
Maybe a glass string raiser? That might be way better than a metal one, and impact the tone significantly. Could use a store-bought glass slide.
An octave switch might really take it to the next level.
I guess if I can find a schematic, and buy the parts, we can solder a simple octave switch on the 2nd or third model.
It’s looking like the total build price on this is 2 to 3 grand, which is in my price range.
I don’t know how octave switches work. That sounds like some computer type thing. Simple volume control is simple. All you need is just a pot between the pickup and the jack.
When we do that, I’ll do all the research, and bring the parts round. I doubt I’ll get it done on the first build.
The easiest way for basic soldering is a breadboard, r something,… right? Cna’t remember the name.
I realized that 80 to 90% of luthier time is spent on the body and neck, right? Once you take care of that with a shovel body, you massively reduce build time. That vid sounds amazing, and has 16 million views.
Yea, for acoustic guitars body and neck is pretty much everything. Actually not so much on neck because neck can be made pretty quickly once the necessary assembly work is done, but body takes forever (I have to check the humidity level during assembly to ensure the thing won’t fall apart on me). Electronics is pretty simple in comparison.
But know that shovel guitars are pretty unconventional. Also that most pickups out there are designed for 6 strings, not three.
