More P12, Canjo Pics

As per my last blog, here are a few more photos from the Project 12
opening week and also of my new 2 string slide instrument (a “canjo”
or “canjoe”).

The “neck” is about 26 inches from an old discarded mop handle, hand
sanded with 60 grit. Simple as that. Bridge-to-nut scale is 20 inches.

Black Bean can because I play blues on this one. It’s named the Black
Bean Special.

So many think they can do little or nothing with basic junk… and it
ain’t true! The fact is that building a 1 or 2 string guitar you can
learn to play in about an hour (if you’re truly un-gifted… otherwise
you’d likely learn to play this in about 20 minutes) with a slide
(mine is made of copper pipe… you can buy fake slides like this (and
the parts for the tuners) at Home Depot, Menards or Lowes building
supply places or any hardware store for about 70 cents per piece).

The fake tuners are (each) made of a 1/4 x 3 inch eye bolt, a flat 1/4
inch washer and a 1/4 inch wing nut. Simple. You might need a
screwdriver or needle-nose pliers through the eye to tune when really
tuning the string(s) up high and tight, because these tuners truly
bond into the wood no matter what you use for a neck.

I often use thumb or carpet tacks for “fret” position markers, but on
this one just put a black permanent magic marker dot in 4 spots and
the P12 students kindly created their art around those dots. Very
cool.

There is a bolt in the can with a little groove I cut in the neck for
the “bridge” and I did the same for the “nut” as well as put a couple
wood screws in to use as string guides. The strings are about .052 or
.054 (low E, wound) and a .013 unwound string, both electric but
acoustic would also work fine.

And yes, that’s a handle on the neck. A little “flair” idea I had 🙂

You can hold it like a regular guitar, down in your lap or on a table
top. You can use any slide object, your fingers or a pic to pluck the
strings, or use a slide for the pitch (positions) and a pencil or
larger dowel or even lighter drum stick to bang the strings rather
than pluck/pick them.

Rhythmic, melodic fun. Creativity R Us! 🙂

-Glenn

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