Making a Stella Bolla Wine Box Guitar

[Steve Black]

HI Everyone,

I don't consider myself a luthier, although I have done a fair amount of heavy duty repairs including neck resets and rebracing archtops without removing the back or top.

These days I make pickguards, pickups and piezo systems which don't require preamps and "plug and play" guards for vintage archtop guitars that don't require drilling or cutting the top.

Here's a photo of a Bo Diddley type guitar that I recently finished using an old Stella folk guitar neck.

Scale is 24-1/2 inches and it plays pretty well for a neck with a non adjustable truss rod.

It was a learning experience for me, especially setting the neck.

There wasn't enough room for a proper joint, so I used hardware, shims and glue.


It is small and plays well for it's size (not great above the 12th fret).

Bridge pickup is my own design, a P90 without pole screws and alnico rod magnets, surface mount which sounds more like a Telly lead pickup than anything I can think of. It is not a humbucker and grounded well for low interference.

http://reverb.com/item/117637-stella-bo ... 3-mahogany
Some of my other stuff is here:

http://www.pinterest.com/indigomoonjazz/pins.

Setting the neck so it is adjustable before gluing it was useful, as I could check it by putting strings on and tightening them up.

This is probably not politically correct but I've done it on old Kays and Harmonys with great results.

Once the neck is set properly, it can be glued and actually the hardware could be removed if desired but it is much stronger with metal inside, like a pin in a broken leg...

[Randy Roberts]

Steve,
don't know if this will be of any help, but your welcome to any of the ideas in this one...

http://www.mimf.com/library/Randy_Rober ... -2010.html

[Steve Black]

Thanks, Randy.

Very nice work and I'm a big fan of your music as well.

[Randy Roberts]

? Music?
You might have a different Randy in mind.
My only music was a lullaby I made up for our infant son 30 years ago and instead of putting him to sleep, it made him bawl his head off every time I sang it.

[Steve Black]

Sorry about that; I was thinking about Randy Roberts of Firefall and The Flying Burrto Bros.

Thanks anyway.

Funny story.