Latest project - Cigar Box Guitar

John Pollman

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Messages
1,332
Location
Rochester Hills, MI
This should be a fun one. About a week ago I was checking my Facebook and saw a post from my "Nephew-in-law" I guess he'd be. ;) (He just married my niece about three weeks ago) His birthday was September 04 and he posted a picture of a Cigar Box Guitar that my sister had just given him for his birthday. It looked really cool and since my son plays guitar, I did some net surfing and found a lot of information about them. They're supposed to be pretty easy and inexpensive to build. Most of the stuff can be gotten locally very easily, but because I've never done one I decided to buy a kit that had everything but the wood for the neck. It came yesterday and I got to work. They are pretty simple and straight forward. At this point, I've got it to where you could string it up and play it, but I decided that I wanted to add frets instead of doing it fretless and having to use a slide. Now I've just got to figure out the fret spacing and get to work. That should be the most difficult part of the process. I've test cut a couple small frets on some scrap and they work out well but I just need to work out the spacing.

It should be pretty fun for him to play around with when it's finished. If he likes it and uses it much, I found that you can also make a Cigar Box Amp also. That would be too cool! I found that I can buy empty cigar boxes at the local cigar shop for $2! They've got lots of them and some are pretty nice. Here's what it looks like so far. Once I work out the fret placement and get the slots cut, I'm going to just put some BLO on the maple neck and that should work fine.

cigar_box_guitar_1.JPG
 
Very cool John! Nice and thoughtful gift!

I think Jay? Or someone else here is also into the cigar box guitar thing. :thumb:
 
Thanks Brent,
the gift angle was my first thought. I had planned it as a Christmas gift for my son. I started working on it yesterday while he was at the skate park. This afternoon, he wanted to go skating again. My wife drove him to the skate park. It was only about 2:00 and he usually skates until 6:00 when the close. They took off for the park and I had some time so I figured I'd put in a couple hours on it. I set up my work table out in front of the garage because it was a beautiful day out there. About 45 minutes later, she pulled up in the driveway with him by her side! There wasn't much going on at the park so he decided not to skate. Oh well, so much for waiting til Christmas. :)

I decided to add a piezo pickup also. I'm just trying to figure out where I want to mount it but that shouldn't take long. I can't wait to hear this thing. I have a feeling that there will be several more of these things before long. :rofl:

John
 
Cool!

I just found a fret calculator that's very easy to use. You just enter your scale length and the number of frets and it gives you the exact location of each fret. I just have to clarify one thing. The instructions in the fret guide that I got says that the scale length is from the "front of the nut" to the bridge. I'm not sure what they consider the "front". Is the front closest to or furthest from the bridge? Once I know that, I should be good to go.

I'm going to head to Harbor Freight tomorrow because for about $10 they have a 24" aluminum caliper that's got fractional and metric readings in .05mm increments so that should be accurate enough. ;)
 
John, the front of the nut will be the side that's closest to the bridge. For fret spacing and measurement, everything is based on the part of the string that's vibrating, and that edge of the nut is essentially the starting point of those vibrations. (Actually, it's the left-hand end of the vibrations, but I think you know what I mean.)

Cool-looking project. I'll bet your son will have a blast with it. :thumb:
 
Thanks Vaughn!

That's kind of what I figured. Actually I just got off the phone with my brother. He's out in your neck of the woods (Glendale). He does all kinds of guitar restorations and such and we spent some time talking about it. This is going to be pretty cool when it's done. I'm sure I'll be making more. :) As I said in the original post, I found a good source for some nice boxes very cheap.

Will post more pics when it's finished.
 
To paraphrase Frank---Folks are funny critters. Just think of the hilarious craziness to make cigar box guitars. It seems like someone (or many someones) is pretty apt to try anything.

People: sky dive, bungie jump, build log cabins, collect butterflies, shoot pumpkins from cannons, have seed spitting contests, do stuff to get into the Guiness (spelling ?) Book of Records, race lawnmowers, collect string, have races up the mountain through mud, swim the English Channel, shoot Frisbys with the cannon in a tank, throw cow pucks, etc., etc.

Enjoy,
Jim
 
Cool, I've never heard about cigar box guitars. However I find odd that they charge you for the empty boxes at the tobacco store. I used to ask for them to keep small tools or other things and they gave them away.

I must admit that this was about 20 years ago, maybe now they will charge for also.:dunno:
 
Tom,
it's a wooden cigar box and this one has three strings. I went into a local cigar shop and they have lots of different sizes and styles of some pretty nice boxes. They sell them for $2!

I built the thing to the specs that came with the instruction sheet in the hardware kit that I bought. When it was complete, it worked but there was an issue with the neck and head stock that was causing a problem with the nut and bridge. When I got the nut installed low enough for the action to be comfortable, the strings wouldn't stay in place on the nut very well. The tuning pegs needed to be lower.

The neck is normally just completely straight according to the instructions. But I decided that it would look nice if I put an angled head stock on it just like a regular guitar. So I got to work and modified the neck a little bit. Because I had already finished the neck, the joint where I glued a block to the back of the neck to make the angle is kind of visible. I think I'll make a completely new neck and be able to have the seam almost invisible. I just cut a wedge of maple and glued it to the back side of the neck and let it dry. When the glue was cured. I plugged the original tuning peg holes with a hardwood dowel. Then a little sanding and finessing, and I drilled new holes and reinstalled the tuning pegs. Now it looks and functions much better.

Here's what my mod looks like...

guitar_neck.JPG
 
Actually cigar box guitars have quite a history. They were orginally built long ago, by the poor, slaves and hobos. It was the only way they could have an instrument. They were build from old boxes, a stick for the neck and string used for the strings. Some made fiddles that way. There is quiote a bit of info on them on the internet. The ones being built are somewhat more refined.
 
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