PVC Bass Diddly Bow

[John Sawyer]

I was doing some home repairs, and was staring at an 1-1/4 piece of PVC and thought WHY NOT??

34" Scale, Bass String, Bass Tuner, Angled headstock Electric Diddly Bow...

[BrianQ.]

I built one & the sound wavered through the pipe like a didgeridoo, does yours do that?

[John Sawyer]

I don't have that problem.  The one end with the tuner has a block in it,and the pickup takes up almost all the space at the other end...

[BrianQ.]

I think the wood block remedies that? I flattened my headstock, but didn’t think to angle it, great idea? What are you gonna do for a body? There’s a PVC Bass build video in the Resources tab, he had the same results I did with the wavering sound? Seeing yours makes me want to revisit this, thanx for sharing John, any chance of a sample?

[John Sawyer]

I need to dig out my bass amp, it's buried...  give me a week or so.  Body?   what do you need a body for?  :-)

[Paul Craig]

I made one awhile back for the Plumbers Challenge build. 27" scale 3 string Baritone. I used a heavy E string through the back inside as a trussrod and I made the pickup out of the motor coils of a old hand drill. The pickup works, but it doesn't work great.I thought it work like a tubulum or didgeridoo, but not so in mine. Maybe because of the string trussrod. IDK

[John Sawyer]

tubulums have huge pipes to get the low notes... I bet yours just resonates at a much higher frequency...

[Paul Craig]

The pickup isn't strong enough for it and I'll probably change it out some time down the road.

[John Sawyer]

Sometimes you can add a disc magnet to the pickup... It will alter the tone, but can have a dramatic effect on signal strength.

[Paul Craig]

I did that. I added several ceramic disc types, then I added a couple ceramic bar types that I had from pickup mods I did and then added the disc mags on top of those.

The bigger wire coils just don't have the same effect as the smaller wire coils.

The strings on this git pass through the center of the coils like some of the old lap steel gits. So I'm thinking of getting a set of the PBass pickups like Gitty sells and mount one under/one above.