Experienced cigar box guitar builders know that studying traditional & conventional folk instruments is a great place to pick up new tricks and methods for building CBGs.
These free plans are for a 3-string, triangle-body Russian instrument known as the Balalaika. They were written by James H. Flynn, Jr. in the early 80’s and some time ago he made them freely available. This version of them are listed on www.Luth.org, the site of the Guild of American Luthiers.
Click the image to the left, or click here, to view the full how-to guide in PDF format.
John, if you click the image in this article, it should download the PDF version of the free plans for you, which you can then print out.
I have spent quiet some time in Russia and have never been able to walk past anyone playing one of these instruments.
I have spent my life involved in music, i taught for fifteen years which was the most wonderful thing to be able to do, you can see the one,s with a natural telent.
As the son of a master carpenter and joiner i had a very front line education though sometimes over perfected idears of his trade, he did thoughtout this manage to teach me a lot, and i do enjoy working with wood, to me its a way of making a bit of would be firewood into something that will outlive me.
So far i have made a couple of guitars and seven or eight harps, all i am informed going strong with little on no tuning problems.
I notice that you information says that i can get a set of plans free, which i find impossible to leave without asking for a copy of same for this three string instrument.
I await your reply with
Great interest
Yours very Sinserely
John Laccohee-Joslin
Thank you for letting us know, the link has been updated.
Same. Balalaika plans not found…error 404 comes up a lot on this site. Thanks for your help.
Allen.
http://theguitar-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Building-the-balalaika.pdf
This link should work, and I believe it is the same plan as published here. (I thought I would post it cause for me the link here does not work anymore.) @Ken Sheets
Looking ro build a balalaika. The plans you had on this site are no longer available. Was wondering if you could.please post them one more time? Thanks.
Glad you can find some use of the plans!
I love the Blues and woodworking is my hobby – this is perfect!