My Daughter recently gave me another small Crayola Crayon Tin. This one came from some lip gloss she had. I thought it would make a perfect match to the one string Diddley Bow I made a while back. This time, I wanted to make it a 2 string diddley bow with the strings tuned in an octave like one pair of strings on a 12 string guitar.
I scavenged the parts bins and found some leftover hardware from some Cigar Box guitars. These parts would be perfect for this Diddley Bow. I found a piece of wood from a pallet for the neck. Im not exactly sure of the species but it smells like Elm when you cut it. After cutting it down to 1 1/2″ wide, I marked out the location of the neck on the Crayon Tin. Using a Dremel and a Cut Off disc, I cut some notches in the tin so the neck could fit inside. I had to fine tune the fit using a file and sandpaper. Then I cut a couple shallow recesses in the neck to allow the lid to close on the box. While the neck was still flat, I drilled pilot holes for the tuners and string ferrules. This would help with alignment later on.
Next, I glued on a piece of pallet wood Walnut for the fretboard. After trimming it flush with the rest of the neck, I sanded the contour on the headstock. Now I could go back and drill the final holes for the tuners and ferrules. Using a simple homemade jig and a fret saw, I cut the slot for the nut. I had a small nail hole to fix in the fretboard. This was super quick and easy using some Starbond Black CA Glue. I really like the convenience of using colored CA glue, and this Starbond Glue is awesome. (get some here). Now I sanded a slight radius on the fretboard. This is a step I didn’t do on the previous Diddley Bow. This should add to the comfort of this neck. Now its time to carve the neck shape.
I used a combination of files, rasps, and sandpaper to carve the neck into a comfortable shape. I then applied a couple coats of guitar finishing oil to seal it all up. Now I could just press in the ferrules, install the tuners, screw the box to the neck and string it up. I used a bridge from a Cigar Box Guitar to complete the Diddley Bow. This thing sounds cool. I like the octave sound of the pair of strings. We found that is sounds exceptionally great when played with a slide.
This was a quick and super fun project. These simple instruments are great fun to play and don’t require a whole lot of time to make. Check out the build video below.
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