I was originally inspired by this thread to try to build my own cigar box guitar. Here is what I came up with this summer:
This was more or less a proof of concept. It's not particularly pretty, but it works, and it has a piezo pickup mounted inside the box.
I wanted to try to build a nicer one for my brother in law. He plays professionally, so it would have to look and sound nice. I set out toward that goal with one stipulation: build as much of the guitar as I can with the simplest tools possible. This meant I sourced and soldered the circuit myself, as well as building the pickup from scratch. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out the best way to build the string mounts, so I ended up buying a combination mount and bridge setup on ebay. It's intended for a bass, so they're slightly oversized for this application.
I used a drill for the tuner mounting holes and for the knobs, and I used a dremel to hollow out the space where the pickup resides. Pretty much everything else was done by hand.
I started with an oak 1x2 and added standoffs that would eventually become the head and the neck bolster. I put probably close to 6 hours in on the neck after that, filing and rasping away enough wood to make a comfortable curve. After that I mounted the neck to the underside of the lid:
I stained the top of the neck to imitate the two-tone look of a rosewood fretboard, although the stain came out darker than I intended:
The pickup was made from 1/8" thick birdseye maple slabs, which were sourced from thirdeye. The posts are 3/16" dia. neodymium magnets. The pickup contains a few thousand feet of 43 gauge wire. (If you've never played with 43 gauge wire, don't. It breaks at the drop of a hat. I had to wind the pickup 3 different times before it worked right. Soldering the main pickup leads to the 43 gauge wire was a bit nerve-wracking as well.) This was wrapped in twine, then the whole shebang was dipped in wax. This is to try to eliminate as much air as possible from the setup. After that, I wound some electrical tape around the edge. This protects the wax/twine barrier, as well as gives it a much cleaner look:
The nut was cut from some of the leftover birdseye. The finished product will have 3 strings. Only one tuner was installed at this point for the testing of the pickup and wiring.
The pickup is currently clamped in place, drying. After the glue sets, I'm going to do a coat or two of polyurethane, install the fretwire, and string it! More pics of the (hopefully) finished product tomorrow!
This was more or less a proof of concept. It's not particularly pretty, but it works, and it has a piezo pickup mounted inside the box.
I wanted to try to build a nicer one for my brother in law. He plays professionally, so it would have to look and sound nice. I set out toward that goal with one stipulation: build as much of the guitar as I can with the simplest tools possible. This meant I sourced and soldered the circuit myself, as well as building the pickup from scratch. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out the best way to build the string mounts, so I ended up buying a combination mount and bridge setup on ebay. It's intended for a bass, so they're slightly oversized for this application.
I used a drill for the tuner mounting holes and for the knobs, and I used a dremel to hollow out the space where the pickup resides. Pretty much everything else was done by hand.
I started with an oak 1x2 and added standoffs that would eventually become the head and the neck bolster. I put probably close to 6 hours in on the neck after that, filing and rasping away enough wood to make a comfortable curve. After that I mounted the neck to the underside of the lid:
I stained the top of the neck to imitate the two-tone look of a rosewood fretboard, although the stain came out darker than I intended:
The pickup was made from 1/8" thick birdseye maple slabs, which were sourced from thirdeye. The posts are 3/16" dia. neodymium magnets. The pickup contains a few thousand feet of 43 gauge wire. (If you've never played with 43 gauge wire, don't. It breaks at the drop of a hat. I had to wind the pickup 3 different times before it worked right. Soldering the main pickup leads to the 43 gauge wire was a bit nerve-wracking as well.) This was wrapped in twine, then the whole shebang was dipped in wax. This is to try to eliminate as much air as possible from the setup. After that, I wound some electrical tape around the edge. This protects the wax/twine barrier, as well as gives it a much cleaner look:
The nut was cut from some of the leftover birdseye. The finished product will have 3 strings. Only one tuner was installed at this point for the testing of the pickup and wiring.
The pickup is currently clamped in place, drying. After the glue sets, I'm going to do a coat or two of polyurethane, install the fretwire, and string it! More pics of the (hopefully) finished product tomorrow!
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