Newest Frankenstein! (Diddley Bow Guitar)

Look, I admit it’s a disease… but a good and fun one!

Today, a quiet Sunday afternoon, before my turn at the grill I decided to do what I had been thinking about for quite some time.

I had gotten a small clipboard, slightly bent, and put the metal part back into correct shape.

For the longest while I had dreamed of building a 1 string (diddley bow) slide guitar with a clipboard backwards (as you can see here. It had to be little enough to fly in a small plane, so had to fit diagonally in a compact carry-on suitcase. And it would need a piezo pickup with a 1/4 inch jack because I didn’t expect it to be very loud without amplification.

Drilled a few holes, one for a screw in the middle to hold the neck in place, and in that the hardwood throw-away “neck” was already flat on two sides, just sanded it where I would be moving my hand up and down, put it at a slight angle and drilled, screwed it together. The bottom of the neck is flush with the metal clip piece.

Then I added a little more solidness to the neck by drilling four holes, two on either side, near the end of the “body” and also at the bottom and secured it a more with 2 zip ties. One more hole right through the metal clip and down through the neck and out the bottom of the clipboard for a wound G acoustic guitar string, stretched and tuned to “E” with the ersatz (eyebolt/wingnut) “tuner”. A flathead screw was put in place for a “nut” to feed the string into the eyebolt.

I then found a good spot for the piezo and got out the packing tape (what else… I like it a bit more than duct tape sometimes…) and it was plug-and-play time.

Blues baby!

HA! So there, top that!!? I know you can.

The thing is very small, actually sounds quite good plugged in and even somewhat loud acoustically. All this and only 24 1/2 inches long. The scale (nut to bridge) is 20 1/2 inches, and I can play a full two octaves on it with ease. Got a glass bottleneck and small copper slide for her.

Might put a smiley face on the back of the clipboard because this sort of thing makes me want to grin.

I named it “Paid For”. This one comes with me to Sturgis Bike Rally next weekend.

This lil’ git and some ribs will do me just fine 🙂

As always, thanks for stopping by! -Glenn

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