Back on the cigar box guitar wagon

It's been a while since I did much building  in the cigar box guitar world so i haven't written much here. Other things have taken priority for several months. One of those was building my own solid-body 6 string reso which I absolutely love. The knowledge gained from that has made me re-think my cbg building ideas. I really like playing with three strings in open tuning but want a bit more quality from my instrument than I previously had. I want frets and a decent sounding pickup now so my next build will have to incorporate those. I also decided I'd like to have a crack at making another conventional 6 stringer but on my own this time.

So I decided it will be a Les Paul junior - cos there cool and simple instruments. So I headed off to John Boddy timber yard to buy some wood and while I was there I found a small plank of pippy/burr oak. It has a swirly, knotty and cracked grain which is loved by wood turners for making decorative items. I figured it would make a cool solid-body, cigar box style, three stringer which would be a good practice project before attempting my LP junior. So that's me back in the land of CBGs (OK it's technically not a cigar box guitar but who cares - it'll fit in nicely with my collection and should sound and play damn fine).

I started on the body yesterday. Cut the plank down to a cigar box size first. The plank had a big curved crack in it, which I didn't mind, but when cut to size was going to leave a piece flapping about. I decided to let the wood dictate the shape of the body by hacking it off.  Then I hacked away with a gouge chisel all around the other sides to create a really rough looking plank and just lightly sanded it to take off the splinters. It now looks like a piece of driftwood. The wood has various ink stamped markings on it which I am leaving on. Next job is to make a template to route out a neck pocket. I think it'll have a single humbucker with a volume control and keep it really simple. I'll post a photo here soon.