Why NOT?- Fresh Diddley Bow

Others might say “WHY?” Here’s what I say…

WHY NOT? Diddley Bow

So my creative brain and a few moments of time brought me here once again. All fun, simple. Coulda made it cooler… so many ways to decorate or make these “more” but there is a simple satisfaction when you’re a simple person w/o a ton of time you think (me) should be given to such things.

On tour with Wendi often means Cracker Barrel Restaurant breakfasts regardless the time of day, and that’s cool though it ain’t HER cookin’! Well, you can take the Southerner out of the South yet that cookin’ expertise resides in my Babe- but I digress 🙂

Had this cut piece of wood for a couple years, never finished a guitar with it so decided to sand the edges, place a tiny Cracker Barrel Mint tin (the grandkids enjoyed ’em) which Wendi gave me after it emptied out, and mostly squeezed a piezo pickup element and 1/4 inch input into it. As I was simply building yet another 1 string slide git it was truly quick.

Years ago a pastor friend in Florida (Thanks Mark!!) gave me a load of stuff including a -lot- of mostly wound acoustic guitar strings. These are often put to use in just this way.

Bit of drilling, some packing tape to shield the pickup and jack from the metal inside the tin, a v-cut of the tin for the jack, an eyebolt and wingnut and a tune/stretch string, made a few pencil marks after adding the bolts for bridge and nut, and yahoo, she sings nicely!

One more continual diddley-bow addition to a stable, always thinking about light, small gits like this to take on flights. I may even cut an arm off an old shirt and add a drawstring for a carry bag. Oh- the little tin (roughly the size of Altoid Smalls tins) is only held in place by the string tension. One of these days I’ll cook up a recipe and do a repeatable “mobile pickup”. I like that idea w. full sized Altoid tins but would love to do it with the Smalls versions… cuz I’m a low-carb guy as well as the fact how dinky those tins are.

So- this diddley bow is called “Why Not?!”, to be played with some sort of slide, is 26 inches long, 1 1/4 inches deep at the pickup and just at 2 inches wide. It is super light and sounds cool especially via an amp. I’ve also begun using my L.R. Baggs ParaAcoustic D.I. with guitars loaded with piezo pickups as the tonal and boost qualities are massive with that little item! And the two tiny holes at bottom and top of the guitar are where I’ll thread a small 3-strand string as a “strap”.

This one will sometimes be making appearances with me at solo shows like many that I build do.

WHY NOT?

As always, thanks for stopping by! -Glenn