John's latest kinda-sorta hobby, cigar box guitars. I saw a tv show a couple of weeks ago called "make" where the guy built a guitar with a cigar box, a piece of wood for the neck and some eye bolts for tuners with some nylon/poly strings. Really crude but what got me was when he made it electric by adding a piezo transducer from radio shack for a pick up. I was hooked, I had to build one! Since seeing the show I've been checking out cigar box guitars, or CBG's on the web and found out they are pretty popular in the blues scene. They are mainly used as slide guitars depending on the way they are built. There are alot of fairly decent ones people are making with from one to six strings nylon or steel. Some have actual guitar necks built in with real pick ups and sound awsome! My first one seen here is just a really basic crude version like the one I saw on tv just so I could learn some do's and dont's while building it. My plan is to build another nicer one with three or maybe four electric guitar strings and actual guitar tuners. I'm even building an amplifier out of a large cigar box I bought today, should be neat. From what I've read, these guitars have been around a long time. Some of the old original bluesmen from way back built these because they had no money but wanted to play music. Just a fun hobby for me.
That's a cool three stringer!
ReplyDeleteI have a blog that has a bunch oif info on them...come check it out when you have some fre time
http://www.3-string-guitar.com/
hope to see you build many more!
WOW how cool is that..i want to come over and hear it!! Maybe this Sunday??
ReplyDeleteYeah...I wanna hear it too! Perhaps you could play the first few bars of 'Have a Cigar'. I think it's only fitting.
ReplyDelete