Monday, November 30, 2009

Looking Back On It...

While building the guitar, some problems arose.
  1. The first time the backboard was cut, we made it too small, so it had to be cut again.
  2. The red wire of the piezo element was accidentally cut off while trying to secure it, so another piezo element had to be bought.
  3. It was difficult trying to loop the guitar string through the PVC pipe and into the machine tuner.
  4. Looking back on it, putting frets on the neck of the guitar would have been useful for better playing. Also, notches could have been put on the guitar for a neck strap for easier handling.

In the end, however, everything went pretty smoothly.

String It All Together

In order to install the guitar string to the PVC pipe, first, a wedge was sliced off of a single hole rubber stopper so the stopper would lie flush against the pipe. The string was fed through this hole. The purpose of the stopper was to keep the entire string at a uniform height above the PVC pipe and to make sure the string does not touch the piping at any point, which would distort the sound of the guitar if it did. One end of the string was then fed through the hole in the machine tuning shaft so the string could be tightened or loosened for tuning. Each end of the string was fed into a previously drilled hole on either end of the PVC pipe. The string ran along the rubber foot on the piezo element, so the pickup could "pick up" the vibrations of the string. At this point, the guitar was finished.

Installing the Piezo Element

The piezo element is used on the electric guitar to convert the vibrations from the guitar string into electricity. In order to install the piezo element, or "pickup" as it is also called, the plastic casing on the pickup was cut away, and a rubber foot was attached onto the center of the element. A hole was then drilled in one of the PVC pipe caps, and the plug was cut off of the audio extender cable, which was then fed through the hole in the cap. Next, a cable tie was fed through the non-notched hole out the bottom of the pipe. The cut end of the extender cable was then taped to the cable tie and pulled through the non-notched hole.
Piezo element's 2 wires: ground (black) and signal (red)
Extender cable's 3 wires: ground (bare copper), left and right (both insulated)
The website provided a useful tactic to determine which wires were which. When the extender cable is plugged into a set of speakers, the left speaker makes a buzzing noise when the Left wire is held, and right speaker makes a noise when the Right wire is held. When the ground wire is held, so noise is made. The piezo ground wire was soldered to the extender cable ground wire, and the L and R channels were soldered together to the piezo signal wire.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Attaching the PVC Pipe to the Soundboard

A centerline was drawn down the back of the soundboard, and four evenly-spaced 1/8" pilot holes were drilled along this line. Placing the PVC pipe string side down, the body was clamped on top of the pipe along the centerline with the tuner side of the pipe facing away from the body. Four lag bolts were drilled in the four holes of the body and into the PVC pipe to attach the pipe to the wooden soundboard.

Installing the Tuner Piece

On the side where the string hole was made 3.5" from the end of the pipe, another hole was drilled 90 degrees around the pipe. The shaft of the tuner was put in this hole, and the piece was screwed into place using a wood screw that came with the tuner piece. This tuner piece is used to tighten or loosen the guitar string, adjusting the sound the string makes when it is strummed.

Preparing the String Anchor

**The following steps for building the guitar were done at Kyle's house over Thanksgivingbreak. He relayed to Madison everything that was done, so a blog could be created on the creation process.

A 1.5" PVC pipe was cut to 44" using a hacksaw. Using two vices on either side of the cut PVC pipe, the guitar string was clamped to the pipe as a guide to draw a straight line down the pipe. Two small holes were then drilled on either end of the pipe. One hole was drilled about 2" from the end of the pipe, and the other hole was drilled about 3.5" from the other end of the pipe. The hole nearest the end of the pipe was carved to create a notch toward the center of the pipe. This was done so that the ball of the string would fit in the hole and would be grabbed by the notch when the string is pulled tight.

Making the Soundboard Body

Once Nick retrieved his dad's jigsaw (and some gray paint and sandpaper), the wooden soundboard was ready to be made. On Saturday, November 21, Nick, Kyle, Ryan, and Mike got together to make the body. First, a pattern was drawn on the 1" x 12" x 2' long piece of wood. The pattern was cut out using a jigsaw, and the edges were sanded down to give it a finished look. Several layers of the gray paint were applied to the nifty-looking soundboard to give it a little bit of color. The body of the instrument and the other materials were given to Kyle so that he could build the rest of the guitar over break.

Getting Started

On Thursday, November 19th, Ryan got the group together to talk about how we should go about doing the project. He drew out a plan of everything that needed to be done to build the guitar, using the website that Kyle found as a guide. Since Thanksgiving break was coming up the next week, Ryan decided that at the very least, the soundboard should be made before break began. Since Nick lives so close to campus, he was responsible for getting his dad's jigsaw so the wooden soundboard could be made prior to break.

We Have the Materials!

On November 17, Nick scoured the Dayton area for the materials needed for the project. Nick was chosen to get the materials because he is from Dayton and knows the locations of the best stores to get them from. After going to a Radio Shack, Sears, and Home Depot, Nick was able to find what we needed. He did not have to get mini speakers and plug-in chords; Kyle said he had those at his house. One afternoon and about 15 dollars later, we had what we needed to get started.

Roles

The roles for this project were as follows:

Madison Robinson: Blog about project and upload images/video
Nick Gilyot: Find someone to play the instrument for the concert and purchase the materials needed for construction of the electric guitar.
Ryan Kellner: Project Manager. Coordinate when certain tasks should be completed by contacting the group members to make sure everything is running smoothly.
Michael Moriarty: Help with the research and find out how exactly to build the guitar
Kyle Wenker: Build a majority of the instrument

Monday, November 16, 2009

Materials List

List of materials:
  1. Guitar string
  2. Guitar tuner
  3. PVC pipe (4' long)
  4. PVC end caps (2)
  5. Pine board (for the body of the instrument)
  6. Spray Paint
  7. Silicone sealer glue
  8. Piezo element
  9. Rubber stopper
  10. Rubber feet
  11. Cable ties
  12. 1.5" Hex lag screws
  13. Speakers and chord to plug into wall

Eureka!

On October 22, Kyle found an instructional website on how to make a one-string electric guitar out of PVC pipe and some other simple materials. The website is http://mirror.iprimus.com.au/mediarss/MakePodcast/strungout.pdf, and our group decided that this would be the best, and potentially easiest, electrophone that we could make. The building materials should not be that difficult to find.

Brainstorming

In early October, our group signed up to do an electrophone for our instrument. Our group members are Madison Robinson, Ryan Kellner, Mike Moriarty, Nick Gilyot, and Kyle Wenker. We brainstormed in class, thinking about what kind of instrument to make, but we could not think of anything. Research was essential to find a conceivable idea on what to make for our project, because making an electrophone is not an easy instrument to make. At that point, we just decided to research for an idea.