Canjo Upgrade

I decided to replace the disc piezo pickup on the inside of my Kodakaster 3 Canjo with a Flatpup4 U hand-made by Elmar Zeilhofer in Vienna, Austria, and specifically designed for the bridge position. This is my third flatpup from Elmar and each one is a vast improvement over a piezo electric pickup with warmer tones, more punch, and, since piezo pickups work by picking up vibrations (sound waves), no annoying handling sounds from touching the metal surface of the old film cans I use to make canjos as they are played.

The Flatpup 4 (meaning flat pick up) is that copper-colored rectangle glued to the top of my canjo. Most conventional humbuckers are much thicker and require a hole cut into the instrument's surface to mount under the strings, while Elmar's flatpups are only 4mm thick and are easy to attach using glue, or a few small screws if you purchase one in a frame. Humbuckers are a type of electric guitar pickup that use two copper coils to cancel out the electrical interference commonly picked up by single coil pickups, Being magnetic, they capture mechanical vibrations of steel strings through the magnetic field produced by the humbucker, and convert them to electrical signals that are then amplified or recorded.

The Flatpup4 U design is a new configuration of Elmar's flatpups that, while more difficult for him to make, take advantage of its position near the bridge on the face of the canjo. If you want an explanation of the physics behind why this happens, please contact Elmar. He builds them and I merely use them because they sound so great on my canjos.

For more about Elmar and his flatpups, go to his page on Cigar Box Nation at:

www.cigarboxnation.com/profile/ElmarZeilhofer

Kodakaster 4 - Sapele Gold

I saw this 35mm bulk film can for sale on eBay a few weeks ago and had the thought that the gold color might be a nice color contrast with Flatpup humbucker that I wanted to try with my next canjo build. So, I went online and bought the gold can (the buy now option), and the hand-wound copper wire humbucker made and sold online by Elmar Zeilhofer in Vienna, Austria.

The film can arrived here first and, since I already had stained and polished the dark red, mohogony-like sapele wood neck from C. B. Gitty, I began assembling my next Kodakaster 3-string electric slide canjo, my fourth attempt since I began building them 6 months ago.

The humbucker arrived here in Asheville from Austria a few days ago and the first thing I did was glue it into place on the top of the film can under where the strings would be strung above it. The glue took about 72 hours to cure and since we have been having thunder showers almost without stop for about three weeks, I figured I'd better give the glue a few extra days to harden because of the unusually high humidity we are experiencing in the Blue Ridge Mountains this summer.

This morning, I wired the pup to the electronics, installed the strings, plugged it in and fired up my newest Kodakaster through my little Fender Rumble 15 bass practice amp. It really sounds great with a more full-frequency spectrum from the humbucker than from the other piezo pickups that I used for two of my first three Kodakasters. It amplifies the slide chords without any hum or feedback and has a very clean, bluesy tone.

And, I think my Kodakaster 4 looks pretty cool, too.

Live and learn, eh? Onward!

Kodakaster Take 3

My third version of the Kodakaster Film Can 3-String Canjo has taken shape. This time I used an oak neck, gold machine/tuners, gold ferules, with gold bolts for the bridge and nut. I've also installed another piezo electric pickup attached inside the can with a guitar cord jack and volume control. I keep thinking that I will become faster at making these but I learn something building each new version and try to make each new model better than the last. So, as my Dad used to say, slow and steady wins the race.

The next Kodakaster I will build (#4) will feature a sapele neck (a beautiful dark-red African hardwood similar to mahogany), gold fixtures and two new elements. Instead of the shiny silver metal 35mm film cans that I recycled from my collection for the first three Kodakasters, I will be using a gold colored, matte finished film can that I purchased on eBay for $1.90 (shipping was $8). In addition, another new variation will be the addition of a guitar-style pickup, called a Flatpup, that I found online that I think will be a perfect addition to the next variant of the Kodakaster.

Hand crafted by Elmar Zeilhofer of Vienna, Austria, these beautiful humbucker pickups are only 4mm thick so, unlike conventional humbuckers which are much thicker and would necessitate being installed through a hole cut into the top of my canjo, Flatpups can be glued to the top of my film can on the outside with the small wires entering the body of the canjo through a small hole underneath it.

As I have found out, there is a perceptive difference in the sound gathering properties between piezo and magnetic guitar pickups. Piezo pickups can sound more harsh in the mid and higher frequencies while magnetic pickups like the Flatpup Humbuckers made by Elmar Zeilhofer generally produce a more aggressive, pleasant, full spectrum sound than a piezo pickup without equalization.

So, now the waiting begins until a small package arrives from Europe with my shiny new humbucker. I can't wait to glue it onto Kodakaster #4, plug it into the closest amplifier and crank 'er up!