It's all in the details at this 3 string Recycled Box Guitar. Smooth lines, a simple design. But when it should look simple, the details get important. Angled frets, fretmarks made out of aluminium tubing filled with beech, a "fretboardless" neck, "fado" style tuners, knobs made with copper tube and some hardwood, a special designed tailpiece and adjustable bridge made from a brass bolt, a "humbucker" pickup. All that placed at the same angle. It plays very well with a slide....

The work on the Teres Angulus goes faster then we can photograph. It's just those moments when you are in a flow and progress is going quickly. The first few coats of wax are on, the tailpiece and bridge are made, as well as the knobs. All combining aluminium or copper with wood. There's still a few coats of wax to put on, but it won't be long before the assembly.

Yes, the design and fabrication process of number 3 in the the Fab Four series is on the way. A smooth, "fretboardless", angled fretted, "Humbucker" equipped RBG completed with "Fado" style tuners. So we call it The Teres Angulus. The neck is made out of "Mogno" (the Portuguese word for mahogany).

And we came up with our own quick and dirty offset fretsaw solution...

To get a little bit of stylish "wow" we designed new fret-markers, aluminium and beech...

Time do do some shaping and getting the fret's on the neck, no room for mistakes because there's no separate fretboard.

The Kiwaidae, a recycled box guitar. Ingredients: An old beech box with plywood front and back, a piece of .. vitae, 3 tuna cans, a piece of beech from an old bed for the neck, some threaded rod, nuts and washers, recycled tuners from some broken Spanish guitar, two 38 mm and 2 two 14 mm piezo's, some wiring and a few old potentiometers left over from a guitar repair. Combine all with a bit of creativity and see here; a tri-cone resonator RBG!

Yes, we came up with a name for the tri-cone tuna can's RBG. "The Kiwaidae", named after a 6 legged crab  and Kiwa is a male guardian of the sea in Maori mythology. All this because of the re-used tuners that have more or less the shape of a 6 legged water creature, that we copied (in a simplified form) thru out the whole guitar.

After the last coat of lacquer dried, we started with the assembly of the tuna can's. They are on 3mm threaded rod, held in place by ex-ballpoint pen springs, so they are "floating" in the sound holes.  Now it's time to do the wiring of the 4 piezo's and components that came out of an old guitar. Wish us luck.... 

Finally the "fretboard" is glued on to the neck. It took a while to drill and place the dot's, glue the nails and get everything smooth... but it's done. Now it's waiting for the glue to dry...

Slowly every thing comes together. The part of the neck that runs thru the box and the inside of the box were painted black, so when looking alongside the tuna can's into the box, all will look nice and clean. The plywood top and back were sanded down to have a distressed look. We started on the fretboard, which in this case isn't a fretboard because we went back to the good old nails. It means a bit more filing, but it beats original guitar fret's on a build like this. Today we were designing a pattern for the "nailboard" dots, it had to be inline with the re-used tuners, which have some kind of a  "crab" shape. In the end we simplified it to a big circle with 6 around it, and used it on the sound-hole on the body. Now it's just matter of drilling the holes in the right place on the "fretboard", we'll see....

Now that took a whole day. Adjusting it to fit in a shallow box with 3 tuna can's. The neck will have to lean back because of the high bridge. But after a lot of chiseling, sanding and measuring... it's done!

While working on the number 3 and 4 of the Fab Four, we came to the conclusion that the the boxes were a bit to high. So we did put new front and backs on them, without using the lids. This means there's material for a number 5!

The boxes number 3 and 4 are ready. In the pile of old broken furniture we got from out neighbours, we managed to cut a few neck's out of a beech bed.

Number 5 is going to be made out of the 2 lids that were left over. They to are out of beech but with beech plywood front's, which will stay as they are. We put some materials together for the design... 3 "tuna" can's, a strange kind of hardwood (which makes green sawdust while sanding) for the fretboard and some small parts, some 3 millimeter threaded rod, some nuts and washers, a beech neck and a "triple" tuner from an old guitar that was left after replacing them because one side was broken. In the end... well let's see what we can make of it.

I'm not a guitar-player, but still wanted to answer some questions asked by other builders and let you hear how it sounds...