Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Weekend Projects – License Plate Guitar”.
Hi I’m Mike Sinisa executive editor would make and make volume for Ed Vogel showed us how to make an electrified DIY guitar out of a cigar box a few years later, and make volume 21 Mark Brown Felder, dressed it up with a traditional, high-quality, neck frets and Tuning machines in this weekend project we’re going to turn this make classic build up to 11 with Matt’s Tulsa’s license plate. Guitar you’ll need these parts to complete the project head over to your local Radio. Shack where you can pick up all the electronic components needed for the build. You’Ll also need the following tools: you’ll need an entire weekend to complete this, build.
It’S not particularly difficult, but you’ll be winding. Your own electromagnetic pick up building the sound box out of an old automobile license plate and adding various electronic components that will help create that classic electric blues sound we’ll start by building the guitars body. It’S a basic woodworking project that only requires a few miter cuts, corner, clamps and glue. The overall dimensions should match the size of the license plate that you will be using once completed be sure to let it sit overnight to allow the glue to fully cure next. Prepare the license plate for your custom wound, picker start by measuring and marking the hole for the pickup. Once you locate the proper placement drill, a hole large enough to get the nibbler started. Now, it’s just a matter of nibbling out that rectangular hole for the pickup. You can build the neck entirely from scratch, but that’s time-consuming and fairly difficult. Fortunately, you can pick up an expedite our that includes the headstock and the frets start by cutting down the pre-made neck to about 16 inches in length, depending on the size of your guitar.
See the project page for complete details, you can really customize your guitar by modifying the headstock any way you like, we decided to go with a simple look by trimming it down to just a bit wider than the neck. Next mark the spacing for your tuning machines. You want four holes evenly spaced on the headstock drill, the holes and then insert the metal grommets through the front of the headstock.
Now you can flip the neck over and insert the tuning machines into your headstock mark and drill holes for the screws and then attach the tuners in place. Although the neck came ready-made, you still need to add a nut right at the top of the fretboard use. A pencil to mark both edges of the nut and then use a saw to cut grooves 1/8 inch deep into the neck between your lines, use a knife to clean out the remaining wood from the channel and a file to smooth it out. Once your channel is cut glue, the nut in place to attach the neck start by drilling a small pilot hole in the exact center of the end of the guitars neck next measure, the thickness of the neck and the license plate individually divided the thickness of the Neck in half and subtract the thickness of the license plate use this number to measure down from the front edge of the guitars body and drill a hole to attach the neck use. Wood glue and a wood screw to attach the neck to the body.
Make sure it’s perfectly squared up and not twisted the string holder is made of a piece of scrap wood. You cut off of the neck. You’Ll need a three-inch piece that has four holes drilled in it attach the string holder the same way you attached the neck. Now you can attach the license plate to the body of the guitar, depending on your license plate.
You may need to glue a few extra wood blocks into the body of the guitar, so you have somewhere for the license plate to screw in, to add a bead of glue around the top of the guitar screw the license plate in place and clamp it allowing It to dry now you’ll wind, your own electromagnetic pickup, for your guitar cut, the top and bottom plates out of a piece of plywood and drill for matching holes in each then drill two additional holes in the bottom plate for attaching the coil insert four machine screws Through the top plate with the screw heads facing up place, the bottom plate on the bolts then add the nuts and tighten them just flush with the bottom of the bolts. This should leave a space of about three quarters of an inch between the two plates insert the magnet wire into one of the two holes in the bottom of your pickup. Bobbin wrap it through the hole and around the outer edge a couple of times to secure it wrap the wire neatly around the entire group of four screws at the center of your bobbin. Keep your wrapping even and consistent continue winding all of the wire from the spool on to the pickup when you’re near the end of the wire loop it through the remaining hole in the bottom plate to secure it in place next place. One rare-earth magnet on top of each screw with a drop of quick-drying glue or epoxy. Now we can wire everything up. Magnet wire is coated with a thin film to insulate it. So you’ll need to remove this coating with some light sanding before you can solder to it, cut any solder a length of the two conductor, audio cable to each of the ends of the magnet wire of the pickup. The other end of the audio cable goes to the potentiometer solder.
The red wire to an outside terminal then cut another length of the audio, cable and strip both ends so out of the second red wire to the center tab of the potentiometer and both white wires. To the remaining outer terminal connect, the remaining wire ends from the volume pot to the audio jack solder, the red wire to the tip connection and the white wire to the ring connection of the jack. Now you can add the electronics to the guitar decide where you’d like to place your audio jack and volume controls on the face of the license plate, drill holes and mount the components next attach your pickup by gluing it in place making sure it’s centered in the Opening you cut earlier now you can seal up the back of the guitar with a piece of quarter-inch plywood and a few wood screws.
Finally, add the bridge and strings start by measuring 25 inches down from the nut and placing the bridge squarely onto the license plate glue it in place and allow it to dry. Now you can string the guitar, starting with the thickest string and ending with the thinnest run the strings over the bridge and then over the nut and finally, into the hole of the tuning machine when all the strings are in place. Tighten down the tuning machines evenly.
But without applying too much tension now all you have to do is tune it up and start playing. So how good does it sound? The truth is it’s based more on the skill of the player than the maker, but we think this electrified license-plate guitar is one of the best sounding DIY box-style guitars out there. What do you think? Let us know in the comments section of the project: .