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This thread is a little bit of a placeholder as I have some footage somewhere of me and a mate building our diddly bows. His is made out of a skateboard with bass strings. Rad. in the mean time here's a pic of mine below. I'm sure other have made diddly bows on this forum....post pics or vids!

Nice.

I thought a diddle bo was a string attached to a wall, though, and what you've made is basically just a simple two-string electric guitar.

I've been meaning to do something like this for ages.

Could you show the other end, with the tuning pegs?

Dave, what stings did you use, or did you go hardcore and just use some wire found lying about?

A diddly bow is one of the things on my list to do/make. In fact I need to make two, one for myself (and the kids) the other for my hip hopping blues crossover mate.

Me and my mate joe built a self playing diddly bow and got to fuck about with it in the World Museum in Liverpool.

(It was a motor controlled by an Arduino for you nerds.)
warning, pictures are massive and a bit crap.

Wowsers Sean, that's immensely cool, especially impressed you build a giant dinosaur skelington to go with it!

RPS – the only wire I had to hand was old guitar strings! Probably a G and an A or E for a bass and treble action tuned to octaves.

Paul - Not sure what is the exact definition of a diddly bow in that, yes, they were often hammered right onto ones porch, but the accepted tradition also seems inclusive of free standing planks. I'll grab you a pic of the other end tonight and post. Maybe the video too, if time allows. My bow needs a slight upgrade actually – a less wobbly ‘nut’ and better tuners, also there are triangular bottles that would work better as a bridge than the round one on there.

I’ve got a knackered violin I’m going to turn into a diddly bow for the lulz.

BacchusPaul wrote:Could you show the other end, with the tuning pegs?

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