STUD STICKS

Look out Les Paul, guitar pick-ups are pretty easy to make and cheap too. In DIY audio we learned that an electric “guitar pickup” can be created by spooling copper wire around a sewing machine bobbin. A magnet is then placed in the inside of the bobbin. I placed my bobbin pickup on a wooden stick, just below a metal guitar string, strung up the length of the stick. When the guitar string vibrates, the copper wire and magnet create an electric signal which is sent down the length of the copper wire. I soldered the wire to an 1/8 in connector which I then plugged into a mini amplifier. The result was a surprisingly loud and rich timbered stick guitar! Stick guitars are a great fix if you need an electric guitar in a jiff. They can be used in performance, but are the most fun to just play and jam out. The total cost of one of these guitars is only a few dollars and if one string isn’t enough, it wouldn’t be too difficult to rig up five or six more!