Kodakaster Duo Pup

The 6th canjo build is my latest attempt to find the best use for some old film cans that my wife and I have been moving from residence to residence since my college days in Hollywood so many years ago.

The tailpiece, the metal etched box anchoring the strings to the can on the lower left, was really made for a mandolin. The metal bolt next to it serves as a bridge for the electric guitar strings and transfers tone vibrations of the strummed strings to the can. It sounds pretty good un-amplified, but the two copper-colored Flatpup pickups really "light it up".

The metal hex bolt serves as a nut on the zebrawood neck at the headstock.The chrome-plated C.B. Gitty closed tuning machines are quite well made and relatively easy to install.

I happily just put the final touches on my new 4-string canjo build. I call it the Kodakaster Duo Pup since it's made from an old Kodak bulk film can. The copper colored rectangles on the face are called Flatpup Humbuckers which make this canjo really loud and rich sounding (without any hum like some electric guitar pickups). They are handmade in Vienna, Austria by a young man named Elmar Zeilhofer and are quite an improvement in amplifying my canjos with cheaper piezo pickups.

I think one of the most interesting aspects in the looks of this canjo is the patina of etched finger prints from 50 plus years of handling that adorn the outside edge of the front of the instrument.

The Kodacaster Duo Pup also sports a Telecaster-style selector switch to play each pickup by itself or both together with tone and volume controls to boot.

I play it with a metal, glass or ceramic slide on my left ring finger while strumming or picking with my right hand. Plugging it into an effects stomp box produces some diverse and really massive sounds.

But mostly, building these contraptions gives me a great appreciation of real luthiers and their art.

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

Canjo Gig Bag

 

A few weeks ago I was visiting the Acoustic Corner Music Shop in Black Mountain, NC. They are always worth a visit when Anita Gayle and I make the 15-minute drive from Asheville to shop in Black Mountain, which is a wonderful place, BTW.

This particular day I was looking for a new brass slide to use with my cigar box guitars. As always, Acoustic Corner had a few nice ones to choose from so I picked one up to take with me. On my way to the cash register I noticed a blue banjo gig bag hanging on the wall so I went over to check it out.

One of the interesting things about cigar box guitars is that, by nature, they are "non-standard", which is part of their charm as hand-made, rather rustic instruments. Because of this fact, I have been looking for a gig bag that would fit and protect my funky stringed creations that wouldn't have to be custom made and therefore, expensive.

Well, as my fortune would have it on this particular day, I had my three-string Kodakaster 4 Film Canjo in our Big Red Jeep in the parking lot so I went out, got it and brought it in to the shop. To my happy surprise, it fit perfectly, even where the neck sticks out of the bottom of the film can. So, I snapped that baby up faster than a bee-stung stallion and took it home.

Not only does it protect my canjo, it's well-made with a luggage-grade nylon exterior, soft no-scratch interior lining, has a number of roomy zippered pockets on the front, a water bottle holder, and removable back pack straps for hand's free carrying. It's a Boulder Alpine Series Deluxe Banjo Gig Bag. You can find them online from various suppliers, but if you're anywhere around Western North Carolina, I'd head on over to the Acoustic Corner in Black Mountain. They've got a great selection of most kinds of stringed instruments (except cigar box guitars or canjos) and the folks working there are nicer than your grandma with a glass of ice tea.

Sho' nuff!

Riverwood Pottery Guitar Slides

Ceramic Guitar Slides from Dillsboro

Anita Gayle and I recently spent a few days in Dillsboro, NC to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary and found a great pottery shop in our exploration of this beautiful little mountain village, Riverwood Pottery.

Brant and Karen Barnes, along with their daughter, Zan, produce amazing purpose-driven art like kitchen and tableware. The talented, inventive trio also produces decorative and functional vases, oil lamps, face jugs, and much more.

Of particular interest to me were beautiful ceramic guitar slides made by Karen that I use while playing my home-made 3 and 4-string canjos, one of which is the background of the pic above. I now own three of karen's slides and those babies work "real good". Hand-made to provide some beefy weight, but covered with a pretty glaze, they come in different sizes to fit the finger size and use requirements of any slide player. But, each one is a bit different which appealed to me as a crafter myself, and they will likely be around longer than I will.

If you ever get the chance to visit Dillsboro, don't miss stopping by Riverwood Pottery on the Craft Circle, a small group of artisan shops just a short walk over the bridge on Scott's Creek from downtown Dillsboro. Brant will likely be "throwing" pots on the wheel in his studio attached to their shop and, besides being a real kick to talk with, he might even give you a demonstration on the art of pottery that he knows so much about.

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!

The John Fred Prazen Canjo

The John Fred Prazen, My First Kodakaster Electrified

The addition of a piezo pickup complete with volume control and 1/4 inch guitar cable jack to my John Fred Prazen film canjo seems to be a success so far. It works!!! I plugged it into my DigiTech RP 1000 Guitar Multi-Effects Pedal and and my little Fender Rumble 15 practice amp and, oh my, what a unique sound came from just a few sliding chords with my brass slider.

I put it back together, attached an old camera case strap with nylon chord and, presto! I got me a funky, rustic, three-string, electrified chord banger.

Enter the Canjo

A couple of weeks ago, my wife Anita and I traveled about an hour from Asheville to the 22nd annual Summertime Arts and Crafts Show presented by Mountain Artisans at the Ramsey Center on the beautiful Western Carolina University campus at Cullowhee, North Carolina, which I mention in my previous post.  When we first arrived at the show, we were greeted by what sounded like banjo picking music.  Upon investigation, we found the mountain music was emanating from a booth hosted by Alice and Henry Hoover, a very nice couple from Allardt, Tennessee.

Alice was alone "manning" the booth and it was her that was playing the simple tune on what appeared to be a stick with an empty Spam can attached and one banjo string running the length.  

But, as we found out, this is no ordinary stick.  

I was intrigued by the design simplicity of this rudimentary instrument and the quality of the rather loud banjo sound it produced. During our short initial conversation with Alice, she related that her husband, Henry, had worked on the Polaris ballistic missile program, was quite smart, AND a very good father.

We decided to wander the rest of the craft show for a while and told Alice that we would return on our way out.

When we returned a few hours later packing some nice goodies from the craft show, we found that Henry Hoover had joined Alice in their Canjo booth.  And, of course, Henry was also playing away on another Spam-can-sporting stick.  

I asked Henry for some details about his invention, which he proudly and happily related. 

I believe he told me that he only uses one of four different hardwoods to make each canjo and explained the reason and specific resonant qualities of each. This man is actually some kind of Spam-ish luthier, I realized. After a few fascinating minutes, I asked Henry which one of the many canjo models displayed he thought was the best for me and he choose a beautiful oak canjo that, as you can see from the picture above, has a nice reddish color.

As I mentioned, this is no ordinary stick with a banjo string attached.  It is a perfectly fretted musical instrument made with pride by no less than a rocket scientist.  As far as I could tell, each canjo is a hand-crafted original based on a very functional but economical design, and finished with linseed oil.  The single banjo string, attached to a tuning machine up at the head end of the neck, is tuned to the key of D, but Henry told me that you can tune it to any key you want.  Versatile, too, eh?

I've already used my Canjo for a simple track in the new theme song for Anita's Diabetes Menus DVD Number Two that Anita and I are currently producing.  I am so happy to have met Alice and Henry Hoover and to be one of the newest proud owners of a Hoover Canjo.

Henry and Alice Hoover a-pickin' and a-grinnin'

To get your very own Hoover Canjo, contact Alice and Henry at alloutdoorz@yahoo.com

or 913-879-9955 or 931-397-9596

Or Henry Hoover

     P.O. Box 94

     Allardt, TN  38504