BellyJelly Cigar Box Guitars - Everything is an option.

What is a Cigar Box Guitar?

In a word, freedom. A cigar box guitar can be made out of anything. It can be crude or finely crafted, made in 5 minutes or 5 months. Everything is optional and there are no rules that apply to making a cigar box guitar. one-string, two, three, four, it doesn't matter. Frets, only if you like. Finish, doesn't matter. Woodworking skills, sure they help, but it wouldn't stop me (and it hasn't).

More importantly, cigar box guitars, to me, are the answer for teaching the art of lutherie. I have worked hard over the past year to expose guitarists and potential guitar makers to this idea. It's an evolutionary process that will take time. Guitarists look at the world with blinders on and it's difficult to get them to consider a new idea, even one so simple as building a guitar from found objects and a simple wooden box.

Specifications

If you can imagine a specification, a cigar box guitar can be built with that. You may not break the laws of Physics, but you can try.

Photos and MP3's

The 13" Ukulele/Mandolin scale is one of my favorites. With smaller cigar boxes this is really where their tone shines. They have a brilliant tone and a chime all their own.

Red Haired Boy

A 25.5" Guitar scale favors the mellow sound of a cardboard box. They have to be reinforced more to take the strain, but the result is well worth it.

Red Haired Boy
Oh Susanna doubled, so it sounds like a banjo army.

A custom dulcimer (strum stick) made for Henry Clay. Finding a box with his name on it was an extra special touch. Simple construction uses poplar for the neck and a hair comb remnant for the nut.

There's something steam punk about mixing chrome and brass hardware with these old cedar boxes. The Corina Larks from the 1930's and 1940's is a particular favorite of mine.

I've also experimented with short-scale Guitar lengths from 18" up to 23". Which one is best? It depends on the box.

Little Endian played on a 18" short scale.
You're gonna miss me (down at the crossroads) played on a 23" short scale.

The small addition of a piezo electric pickup, or one-string pickups wound on sewing machine bobbins can give these 4-string guitars a monsterous sound.

The Urge available on Masters of the Cigar Box Guitar, Vol 3.