The Diddley Bow

By David L. Williams Jr.
Category: Music
Difficulty: Moderate

Build the elemental slide guitar, from just a board, a wire, and a jar. Maybe you saw Jack White playing one in It Might Get Loud; now make your own for pennies.

About the Diddley Bow

After reading Alan Lomax’s excellent book The Land Where the Blues Began, I developed an interest in the diddley bow, a primitive one-string guitar rarely heard outside the rural South. Shane Speal, founder of the current cigar box guitar movement, suggested that I get the CD One String Blues, which featured nine cuts by diddley bow master Eddie “One String” Jones. The performances were stunning — raw, percussive, and deeply compelling.

After just one listen, I knew I needed to build and learn to play this instrument. On the first track of the CD, Jones described how he had built his diddley bow; a drawing of his instrument and two photos were included in the CD insert. With this information, I built my first traditional diddley bow.

In the South, the diddley bow is considered an informal practice instrument, built from found or recycled materials. Here’s how to build a stable, good-sounding instrument in about 10 minutes.

Traditionally, the string is struck in a rhythmic manner with a finger or a stick or some other implement, and the pitch of the string is altered by using a slide made of glass, metal, or some other hard substance. The diddley bow is slide guitar stripped down to its most elemental level.

WARNING: If you build a diddley bow, be aware that the wire is of unknown tensile strength and is being brought to unknown tension; in addition, the board and the glass jar bridge are both under compression. Use face and hand protection when tensioning up the diddley bow. Please use good sense when building, tuning, and playing these instruments.

Materials and Tools

Wire for the string. Get a couple of pieces.

Board, about 3′ long for the body

Short piece of pipe, or a sturdy, straight-sided glass jar or some other fairly rigid object, for the bridge. Do not use a baby food jar — they’re too fragile.

Scrap of wood for the nut

16-penny common nails (2)

6-penny finishing nails (2)

Flat glass bottle, half pint for a slide

½” stick about 6″–7″ long to beat out a rhythm on the string

Saw

Hammer

Side-cutting pliers

Combination (half-round) rasp These are round on one side.

Permanent marker

Steps

Step #1: Choose the right wire.

The main criterion for the wire is that it should not stretch much when put under tension.
The traditional diddley bow string is broom wire, the wire that holds the straws onto the handle of a discarded broom. The rust can be cleaned off the wire with Nevr-Dull polish.
Music wire from an old-fashioned hobby shop that sells model trains and planes (0.032", 0.039", 0.047", 0.055", or 0.056") is a good substitute; I used it to make the diddley bow for this article. Hobby shops carry 36" lengths good for about a 27"–30" instrument; for longer diddley bows, you can order 72" lengths from smallparts.com.
Guitar strings, which come in a variety of gauges, are a reasonable alternative, but are shorter than the music wire. Note that the larger diameters of wire are difficult to bend and cut (try heavier pliers or a Dremel), but sound better.
Galvanized fence wire from the hardware store is a poor substitute, as it stretches as you play, which causes the pitch to drop.