bUGLYbLOG

I finished it….finally.. Anyway, here it is. It’s a table/bookshelf and is composed of three separate pieces. The table top rests on top of two bookshelves. I used some crappy pine (and I mean crappy - finding a piece that wasn’t warped or chewed up was more difficult than building the damn thing) from my local Home Depot. I built the pieces individually, then slapped some stain and polyurethane on each piece to finish the job. Its far from perfect - but it works great and is very sturdy.

Well, I built a Cigar Box Ukulele over the weekend (Base pic). I have no idea how to tune it, so it sounds pretty crappy. I like it anyway. I built some Cigar Box Guitars last year (1st, 2nd), but I think the Uke is a bit cooler since it has the same amount of strings as the store bought versions. I also measured the distances between the frets to resemble the real instrument.

I think the cost to build it was under $12. That includes the wood (a block of red oak from Home Depot), the strings (from elderly instruments), the cigar box, and the piezo transducer (from Radio Shack). Yeah, this one is going to be electric. The only reason it isn’t yet is because my buddy Doodle still has my soldering iron.

I wonder if the guys from Static-X need a Ukulele player….

Well, its day 10 of my 11 day hiatus from work. Here is a recap of my accomplishments over the break:

1). I have taken a nap nearly every day.
2). I removed my dog from some sticky paper our pest control guy put into the basement to catch spiders.
3). I made another cigar box guitar.
4). I visited my friend Tedward (see just-teddy.com) at his house. I was happy to see he was wearing pants.
5). I played my brother-in-law in Madden football which drove the rest of the family to seperate rooms.
6). I ate a bunch of food (probably not as much as those tankasses over on East Kingsgate).
7). I cleaned out my basement.
8). I nearly passed out at the doctors office.
9). I mourned my mom’s dog Mary (cancer got her at the ripe ole age of 13). She will be missed.
10). And I watched my beloved Raiders conclude yet another crappy season - 4-12 is no Commitment to Excellence.

Oh well, I better get back to relaxing.

So I finally built one of them there cigar box guitars. I’m not much of a handyman and I am not sure what most of the tools are even called that I used, but here is my creation. First and foremost, I want to thank Ivan for the destructions over at cigarboxguitars.com. I won’t say I followed his plans exactly, but they really helped me get going on this project. Here is a picture of the neck. I used nails with their heads and tails trimmed off. Here is a picture of the beast in all its glory - you can barely see the input jack, but it’s there - its electric. I’m hopin I can learn some Iron Maiden on it so I can rock out my employers xmas party. I can picture myself blazin a little “2 Minutes to Midnight” or “Aces High” on this bad boy. Oh well, thats all I got.

“Have we got an army, we’ll teach ya how to act like a man…”