4 Can Canjoe/Diddley Guitar

Can’t help myself… or on the other hand, this is for me, part of my music therapy 🙂 !

I’d made a much larger slide guitar like this with regular-sized green bean cans, also a 1 stringer “diddley bow” but in that my wife and I love to use chipotle peppers and the sauce for our chipotle mayo blend (on everything but ice cream or cake…) I end up with these little cans on occasion. Hmmmm?

Considering the most simple construction possible and taking great care not to cut fingers when assembling meant pre-drilling 2 holes in each can side-by-side at the point they’d be wired together.

I used 55 lb. test stiff wire, a needle-nose pliers to lace the wire through and then twisted it tight inside once back into the first can. The cans of course became the resonator/s.

Pre-drilling in the middle of the 2 cans the neck would go into I then also slightly drilled into the neck and carefully screwed it down tightly.

Sanded the stick where the hand and especially palm slides up and down, 1 plain (unwound) “B” .016 guitar string, s bit more “starter” drilled holes for an eye-screw for bridge anchor and simple larger, strong cup holder screw and there we go, no true “nut” or “bridge” as on regular guitars needed!

It’s played with some sort of slide -oh, and in the vid clip I said “brass” but it’s actually copper.

I often try out several sorts of slides or slide material to hear what I think sounds best on the particular guitar, and this one liked copper.

So here’s a quick vid clip as we approach Christmas 2021 🙂

If interested, have a look and hear.

And as always, thanks for stopping by! -Glenn

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