To fret or not to fret

A while back, I built this seven string vihuela from a Padron cigar box and some pieces of wood. It was my second cigar box instrument and I wasn't confident enough to add frets.

But, recently, I've been building some instruments with frets - made by gluing flat toothpicks to the neck. It's been working well, so I decided to try on it on the vihuela.

While I have the strings off, Rebekah has also touched up the flower art on the top - adding a resin coat to protect it.

Well, the frets are on and sanded. I put the top string on last night - a piece of 20lb test fishing line - and it sounds great - in tune and everything. The rest of the strings will be a set of Augustine red classical guitar strings... as soon as I can get to the music store.

Next step will be to replace the pickup... for some reason, the piezo in this one sounds awful. The new one will be a small speaker glued under the top.

Now, why am I a doing this? (Aside from the fact that it's fun) Well, I need an instrument with frets in open D to play a couple of my songs, Hapless Fool and Slipping in Your Back Door. So I want to retune the fretted six string... but that leaves me needing a fretted instrument for the standard tuning songs - some of them really require frets.

So, if I can get the pickup working, the vihuela will be joining my other instruments on stage at the next show as my standard tuning guitar.

More on my homemade GIT-tars here.