While stumbling around on the internet I came across a lovely old instrument called a Cigar Box Guitar. It apparently has a long history among american blues musicians, many of whom first learned to play on homemade cigar box stinged instruments. Some of these legends include Blind Willie Johnson, Lightnin' Hopkins, Charlie Christian, Jimi Hendrix, Albert King, Louis Armstrong, Big Bill Broozney, Eddie Lang, Sleepy John Estes & Carl Perkins. There are more but I'll spare you...

I was a little surprised to have not seen one of these before. The blues, especially old country and delta blues/gospel, is my favorite type of music and a music that I studied extensivly in school.

I can honestly tell you that the first stringed instrument I ever played on, when i was 5 years old, was a Macey's shoe box with a broom handle shoved through it and three rubberbands stretched across a hole in the top. Not that I am anything like the people I mentioned, but I too felt a fascination at a very young age with plonking away at those rubberbands for hours, mezmerized by the gentle thwomps they produced.


My goal in this project was to make a working 3 string slide guitar that I was proud to play, for less than $10.
After a little more internet research I sketched out a parts list and went at it.

Supplies
1 Cigar Box ($2.00)
1 Piece of Wood (1X2X3) ($5.00)
1 Eyebolt (1/4 X 2 1/2) ($0.59)
1 Bolt (8/32 X 1 1/2) ($0.35)
Tuning Machines

Tools
Wood File
Saw
Drill
Sandpaper
Glue

First to aquire a cigar box I went down to Haight St into random smoke shops until I found one with a few extra boxes lying around. I found a nice big one with a cool white label and a pretty crest in the middle. "Arturo Fuente" Handmade in the Dominican Republic. Classy.


Then I went off to the hardware store to buy myself a 1x2x3 to use as the neck, and a couple bolts to act as a bridge and a nut at the end of the neck. I was able to salvage three old guitar tuners off of a slide guitar that I made a few years ago. Set on hardware.


The first step in the construction involved cutting out a groove in the neck 1/4inch deep approximately the length of the box, so that when I cut out end holes in the box the lid would fit snugly and the neck would be held in place. This proved to be very labor intensive. I decided to use a wood file and just slowly work the area I needed down. This proved very time consuming but it has the advantage of increased depth controll so I was able to make a nice snug fit.


After that I cut out end holes in the cigar box the size of my neck. I Meassured out the middle point of the box and then 3/4in out in each direction. Using a hand saw I cut down the sides and then chisled out each side. I got two nicely shaped neck slots.


The final steps in crafting the neck were drilling three tuning-peg holes in the headstock, sanding out a little nut groove at the top of the fretboard and shaping the back of the neck with sandpaper to be more hand friendly. After that it got a nice coat of wood stain to give it a beaten down driftwood look.

Once all my primary pieces were constructed I glued the neck into the body and put the tuning pegs into the headstock. I decided that I wanted some soundholes in the front to project the sound a little bit so I drilled 6 holes at the top and bottom of the box on the neck side and superglued little metal eyelets into them to make it look pretty. (Add $1.99 to my bill, bout up to $10, damn that stupid expensive wood)


Just to be ambitious and so that I might get some more serious use out of this little guy, I figured that I might as well make it an electric. This wasn't such a big deal since I had a 1/4 phono plug laying in my drawer and plenty of shielded 2 strand audio cable.

A quick trip down to radio shack and $1.29 later I have a cheap Piezo buzzer (model 273-073a) that works perfectly as an acoustic instrument pickup. All you need to do is solder one piece of wire to the center and one piece to the outer metal ring. The Center is soldered to the "hot" end of the plug and the outer ring wire is soldered to the ground plug. Voila! a very very inexpensive pickup. These little buzzers produce a signal when vibration passes through them so you just tape it onto a guitar or drum or your face etc.., and it can be sent out to any amplifyer through a guitar cable.


I delicatly pried the insides from its frustrating plastic housing, heated up my soldering iron and made some connections. I drilled a hole for the cord jack, and then strung it up.

I put the eye bolt over the box lid as a bridge and the machine screw in the little groove i made at the end of the neck, busted out some grungy old guitar strings and my work was complete.

Initially the two higher strings didn't want to rest nicely over the nut, they were 3-5mm above where I needed them to be, so I got an extra screw and a washer and made a little brace to hold them down (much like the highest 2 strings on a Stratocaster). That did the trick perfectly and in no time at all I was sliding away.


I have played and owned many many guitars over the last 13ish years of my life. From the $79 beater variety up to the thousands of $$ piece of art variety, and I can tell you honestly that none of them were more fun than playing on this little guy. It was very disorienting at first to not have any frets but I have quickly adjusted and I can't put it down. Playing this just puts a huge smile across my face. It is very functional (I was surprised), it sounds great (even more surprised) and the best part is that I did it all myself for hardly any money at all.

I recorded a couple audio samples of the sound it makes both unplugged and plugged. And since I was in the spirit I capped a quick video just messing around as well. Not really performance quality from me, but it gets the feeling across i think.

All that is left for me now is to sit out on the porch with a little sippin whisky and get the blues out

Look & Listen...
More Pretty Photos, Audios & Videos!!!
**EDIT** Video doesn't want to upload right now, so it's HTMl time...