True Blue: What's in a Cigar Box Guitar?

Well, somtimes not much as I discovered when I disassembled my first Cigar Box Guitar, a gift from a Blues Festival that my Aunt Patricia and Uncle Corky attended almost a decade ago. The mysterious, electric powered, one-string wonder amazed me and I just had to find out what made it tick. So off I went and broke into it as carefully as possible with a small screw driver. To my surprise, when I opened the lid, I found.....well....nothing. Yep, nothing. Just air and a dollars worth of primative looking gizmos from Radioshack that I did not recognize.

Hmm, so what makes this thing so great to play and how does it put out so much sound. Better yet how does it emit sound when plugged into my amp? It creates a very bluesy, creepy, dronal tone with signifigant sustain. Well, as I know now after building a few hundred of these incredible instruments, that time spent, and materials types are the 2 main factors in level of sound quality.

Instead of a technical walk through of the inner workings of the Cigar Box Guitar, just play this video and get an idea of what is possible when one that is well made finds its way into the right pair of talented hands.

Shane Speal "King of the Cigar Box Guitar" plays a Reddog CBG

A simple "CBG" (thats what all of us Cigar Box Guitar Builders call a Cigar Box Guitar) can be built for about $20 (directions and parts list available here). High end CBGs can bring thousands of dollars easily, the guitar in the above video runs about $1200.00 US dollars. I usually go middle of the road with my builds and have good success. I usually invest about $100 to $300 in a typical build and sell it for double the investment cost which means there is little or no profit margin. It takes between 20 and 200 hours to make a single instrument.

CBGs can come in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and up to 12 string models. Most are fretless and played with a bottle neck slide (or chromed Dunlap slide) or a Stevenson Bar. Some are fretted and some will sport production necks. Lower end models get fitted with internal piezo pickups and 99 cent output jacks, higher end models can have custom hand-wound, gold-plated humbuckers with volume and tone controls, genuine buffalo horn nut and adjustable OEM bridge work as seen in this Macanudo Gold Series below:

The art of building CBGs can be quite satisfying. It is a very habbit forming hobby due to endless types of possible designs and an aquired ability to visualize uses for recycled materials for CBG building. You can make a CBG out of almost anything. You don't really even need the cigar box, you can use a different type of box, or make the box, or leave the box out of the equation completely. Yeah, that's right, you dont even need the box, and it will still work with just a stick and strings. That would be called a diddley bow. So I was going to go into some complex instructional on how this is all done but that info is already available here. So I have decided to just celebrate the CBG with some photos of past works as it tells the story better than I ever could. Most all of the wood you see in the following photos comes from tables and chairs that were thrown out, or scraps from cabinet makers dumpsters, part of the unwritten code among CBG makers is to try to never buy wood. Even the "real" guitar hardware usually comes from broken and scrapped guitars. Recycling is a large part of the CBG equation, it seems the less you spend making a CBG, the better it sounds. Every CBG maker has seen the inside of many a dumpsters...

The following photos are some of my creations in the past 2 or 3 years. My entire family has also enjoyed a lot of great experiences in the making of these guitars and brought us all closer together. I have learned about patience, self dicapline and acceptence. I have also created many new friendships in customers who buy guitars and fellow guitar makers who helped me learn new techniques or assisted me in finding strange parts. This makes these guitars priceless, I wish I still had them all. These Guitars are so very hard to give up for sale after you complete the construction process. When you play the first notes on an instrument you construct from scratch there is an above average amount of satisfaction and pride flowing inside your brain. See somone else play your instruments at a professional level in a studio or on stage is also very rewarding and lightens the load when selling a favorite piece of work.

Here are some of my favorite photos of my favorite Cigar Box Guitars

I hope you enjoy them and please leave comments.

4 String Partigas box w/African Sapele wood neck, camel bone and mohagany bridge work, Egyptian inspired headstock design, internal piezo pickup system and was later retrofitted with a single gold plated Seymore Duncan Humbucker (hand wound, Seth Lover Series - retrofit depicted in later photo).

Mohagany and bone bridgework

Shipped in a handmade crate with hay for packing material really adds to the nostalgia of receiving one of these guitars in the mail.

Costa series with the humbucker installed

3 string Aroma De Cuba w/one single coil pickup (Fender Noisless) in the neck position. Volume and Tone controls, custom carved Ditch-Digger headstock w/all gold and brass hardware. Every Bluesman that plays this wants this. This guitar is now covered with the signatures of the 2010 Blues Award winners and Blues Hall of Fame Inductees. One unique feature is the replica pool queue design of the neck (A Super Chikan trademark) and the original scoop shape of the headstock. Here's a few shots of the neck (maple/cherry)

Pool Cue Look

The Scoop Headstock

Louisianna Red jammin' on that 3 string. He played it at least 4 times for hours

Sonny Payne poses for a shot just prior to being inducted into the Blue Music Hall of Fame.

Way to go Sonny, you deserve it!

The retrofit humbucker I spoke of earlier.

Jeremy Thomas Band (JBT) Custom triple pickup in a Don Thomas Box. Modified Stratocaster neck with 6 strings. Nickel Humbucker in the bridge position, two vintage blade style pickups in middle and neck position. 5 way switch and Strat OEM Bridge with tremelo fully lit with powder blue LED lighting powered by an internal 12 volt power supply. Used for nightly gigs by Jeremy Thomas and the Jeremy Thomas Band (JBT).

Punch 1750 Relic with P-90 pickup in bridge position and camel bone nut and cleat-shaped saddle/bridge. 17 piece laminated neck in maple and red oak. Single Volume and tone controls, paddle style headstock with Ping tuning machines. Design inspire by the wreck of the 1715 fleet off the east coast of Florida. Looks like she just washed up on the beach.

My personal guitar now signed by the 2010 Blues Music Awards winners and Blues Hall of Fame Inductees. Has been retrofitted with single nickel plated Humbucker in the neck position and a single volume control. definately the most pleasurable guitar I have ever played.