Diddley Bow With Screw Eyes

The Diddley bow is a kind of monochord and one-stringed zither. .Some might call the Diddley bow a primitive or minimalist guitar.The Diddley bow is also related to similar instruments found in West Africa. Diddley bows are typical of the American South and are often used to play blues music. There are no rules for playing the Diddley bow. One may “percuss” the string using a stick, such as a drum stick or pluck the string while using fingers or a slide in the manner of an electric guitar.

The most basic diddley bow consists of a wood board, two nails, a length of wire and an object such as a rock, bottle, jar or shell serving as a bridge. An instrument may be two, three or as much as six feet long. Some people have used the side of a house instead of a wood board. Often, the builders and players used whatever they had available. The string of a Diddley bow may consist of broom wire, baling wire, screen door wire or a guitar string.

The following is a variation of some Diddley bow designs. Instead of nails, I use screw eyes. In my humble opinion, screw eyes give you the option of adjusting string tension, at least to some degree.

NB: The diddley bow featured in this tutorial is two feet long. In addition, for the purpose of demonstration, I have used 12 inch long and 16 inch long pieces of wood for steps 1 through 4.

You will need:

Materials:

A wood board: two or three feet long. The board used in this example is two inches wide and three quarters of an inch thick. Also, I used a cedar board here. There are other options, such as maple or oak. This all depends on what is available, as well as your own preferences.

Two screw eyes: I find 10 # and 12 # work pretty well. These are about one inch and one-and-a-half inches long, respectively. Even though I have used one of each size, possibly two of just one size might work quite well, too.

A coil of wire or a guitar string. The wire may be broom wire, picture wire or something similar. Broom wire seems to be quite popular when it comes to building Diddley bows. Picture wire is easier for me to work with and the instrument I show in this tutorial features picture wire. This is also stainless steel wire.

Two ten-penny 3” nails

Something for the bridge. I used a pint sized paint can. The lid is unnecessary. Alternatively, you can use a glass bottle, jar, wood block, shell or some other hard object. Just please be sure to observe caution when working with glass objects.

Optional: a pickup:

Parts:

1/4 inch stereo jack

single coil pickup

plastic or metal project box to house the jack.

Tools:

Hammer

Drill: I use a rechargeable battery operated drill.

Drill bits: Having a whole set is helpful. Drill bits may range in size from 1/16 to 1/2 inch.

Optional: scratch awl

Metal cutters, tin snips or wire cutters.

Ruler

Pencil

Optional: hot glue gun with glue sticks

small files

Useful for assembling and adding a pickup: Soldering iron and appropriate materials, such as resin core solder or at least solder and flux, a desoldering braid as necessarily, desoldering tool, etc.

For playing:

A dowel or stick for a drumstick/beater

Or:

Guitar pick

metal, ceramic or glass slide (useful)

Use a drill or scratch awl to make a small hole about an inch from each end of the board. I used a 5/64 inch bit to make the holes. If you use a drill, a shallow hole (about 1/4 inch) is enough for the purpose. Insert screw eyes in the holes and twist the screw eyes into place.

Cut off a length of wire an inch or two longer than the distance between the screw eyes. Insert one end of the wire into one screw eye and wrap around the middle two or three times. Repeat with the other end. Please observe caution while cutting and wrapping wire around the screw eyes.

Insert the can into the space between the wire and the board close to one of the screw eyes.

You will most likely need to use nails to keep the can from rolling. Make a pencil mark in the space between the can and the board opposite the screw eye. Basically, you are tracing the edge of the can where it rests on the board.

Remove the can for now. Use a hammer to drive two three-inch long (ten penny) nails into the board, on the line you drew and approximately equidistance (such as a quarter to a half inch) from each edge of the board.

Make sure the nails are firmly in place but avoid driving them all the way into the board. There is no need to have sharp points sticking out of the wood.

Replace the can.

If need be, you can twist one or both screw eyes, thus inserting them further into the board. This may keep string tension from pulling the screw eyes over and possibly yanking them out of the board.

You have the option of making your Diddley bow electronic but I play mine as an acoustic instrument. The paint can serves quite well as a resonator. Then again, I also attached a pickup connected to a stereo jack. The jack itself is enclosed in a plastic project box I hot glued to the end of the wood board. In addition, before closing the project box with screws, I created a small groove on one side of the box with a small file so the wires would fit snugly without being pinched off or otherwise damaged.

How you play your diddley bow is really up to you. There are no rules here. You can “percuss” the string with a stick, pluck the string or use a guitar pick. You may make up your own rhythms and songs. This is totally subjective. The idea is to have fun and enjoy.