Had a busy weekend working on the van and finishing off another cigar box guitar, it,s surprising how much room you can create in a small space with just a little thought It took the best part of three years to decide what I wanted to do inside the van to make it a home and at last its just starting to take shape .Hopefully I will sell all the guitars over the summer and then I will be looking to change the layout in the shower room the shower tray has been designed to fit nicely but without any thought put into the draining of the waste water ( two drain holes on one side) meaning I have to find a place thats or the camper of the road runs away from the curb the drainholes are on the driver side. Other wise I spend more time mopping out the shower than I do having a shower.
Great news for me I have just sold the slate guitar which came has a great surprise now do I make another one the same or stick to my guns and only make one. My plan is to make only one guitar in each style this is really making each one unique also trying to keep them in the home made it gives them a look give them unique look and feel.
Just finished a bit more work inside the van its starting to look more like a home now, a few more thing s to get now new light fittings some new carpet and a narrow arm chair .
I will also be able to use the bench for sitting on again the work i have done has given me much more space and leg room it really does make a big difference to how you feel when your in the motor home for a extended amount of time.
I have near finished revamping one side of my motor home this meant removing the sitting bench and loosing the under bed storage I have put some tongue and grove on the wall still not choose a colour to paint it yet.
I have ordered a new gas fire insted of going down the wood burner route the fire is a calor gas bottle type
Provence 3 kw calor gas bottle bottom sides and front are cast iron and I think the back will be of mild steel .
Features
3 Adjustable heat settings to 3kW max
Very authentic design
Integral spark ignition
Flame Supervision Device & Safety Oxygen Depletion Cut-off Device
Fitted with 4 Castor wheels for easy movement
No flue or chimney required
Solid cast iron
Real flame gas fire
Capacity for gas cylinders up to 15kg
Supplied with hose & Calor Gas butane gas regulator
Its a good looker and will make a big difference to the look of the van inside i,am also so on the lookout for a wall mounted fold down table or breakfast bar and the right side arm chair
Slate Cigar box Guitar Finished.
I have started to revamp the inside of my motor home in order to make it more open to do this I deeded to remove one of the benches along with all the cushions .
this also means I will loose the underneath storage area which was quite a large and very useful 6ft x 3ft like I have already said every advantage has a disadvantage.
I would sooner have the open space inside for comfort when finished it will allow me to have a chair and a table and hopefully a fire of one short or another and not
relaying on the blown air heating .
I,am not holding out much hope of having a log burner due to the vans layout and Constitution it would not be very piratical unless i can get a balanced flue that will allow me to run the -
chimney out though the floor I believe that the Trauma 1800 floor flu ed gas fire which is now out of production was fitted to caravans at one time .
If you think about it the blown air heating is used with a balance flue that has an exit on the side wall I do have a very effective gas fire fitted now but it lacks the living flame
and theirs nothing nicer than looking at the flickering flames of a fire on a cold night.
On another note I would like to thank one of my blog subscribers Alex for helping me short out a wifi issue I now have good wifi in my van 24 7 no more running up and down to find hot spots.
Hi all sorry for not putting up any Videos for the last few days I,ve been a bit busy ripping out one of the benches in the motor home .
the reason for this is to make a breakfast bar /table put in a armchair and hopefully fit a log burner or some sort of fire, up to now i have taken out the bench and all the wood work now I will insulate and clad the wall and secure the opening that used to be one of the lockers.
this locker was six foot by 3 foot deep so I'm loosing a lot of storage space but gaining a bigger living space everything comes at a cost.
A bit more work on the Gurkha box
I'm sat in a lay by at the moment with the wind running at bout 50 miles a hour and the rain coming in horizontal so cannot get outside to do any sanding and to top it all ,the shaft on my dremel has just striped itself of thread so is now useless. Will be replacing it with another soon they are good little machines for drilling the dot markers on the necks and for marking the pilot hole for placement of pickups and sound holes. To me there a must for any tool box no matter what your hobby is.
Its a shame that the manufacturers all seem to use a soft alloy for a lot of the threaded parts on items nowadays I have only had this one for about 3 months and its not been over used by any means.
Just a few necks and boxes for this years projects
I'm now Smoothing the frets on the neck for the slate guitar project that I'm working on next thing will be working out which pickup i will be placing in the box I could cut into the slate and put any pick up on but I'm thinking of trying a bridge Pizeo. You will see the small hole on the lid in the last video, I do have another idea which I will keep to myself just at the moment if I get this guitar right it will be a bench mark allowing me to produce quality guitars constantly. My methods when working have been a learning curve using basic tools and make shift work benches, Remember the rule is no rule when making these wonderful instruments and that's what makes them your own.
Sea Breeze Blues Guitars.
cigar box guitars handmade on the move by Steve Sheldon email bricktorubber@gmail.com
or text to 07866874556
One of These boxes is out of the chicken bone john kit, the other is from else where I'm using the necks from the kits for the two guitars that are in the making for this year I got the kits for these from Chicken Bone John, as normal the quality is very good like all the items he sells. The kits are good the box is a very good size but the quality to me is poor having said that they are budget kits with a bit of bracing the boxes will be made sturdy enough.
I am making all the guitars to sell on but find buying them in kit form an expensive way to go it does however cut out a lot of mess and reduces the work load for me also not having the space to work indoors is very limiting. Carrying a good tool box is out of the question this is where the kits with all the pre cuts is a god send. You can easily alter the necks to suit another box size if need be, this is something i will be doing with one of these kits
While cutting out the neck hole on one of my first projects last year I made a school boy error of only measuring once and then cutting out the hole .Big mistake I should of measured twice the cuts were misaligned by about 5mm so the neck was offset and twisted.
I did not throw the box away but put it in cupboard and forgot about it until last week on looking at the box again I thought about rectifying the mistake and reuse the box for one of this years projects.
