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What goes into building one of our cigar box guitars? Here is a step-by-step break down of how we build most of our three- and four-string cigar box guitars. You can find a video of this build in three parts on our YouTube page.
Step 1: Pick a box. Sometimes the most difficult part of a build is picking a box! There are so many to choose from....
Step 2: Next is starting the neck. We typically use 1x2 maple for our necks, although we've used poplar, oak, mahogany, and even pine. The scale length for most of our guitars is 25.5 inches, so we cut a length of around 35 inches to leave room for the headstock and tail. We use a through-neck design where the neck continues completely through the box and is connected to the tail of the guitar. The tail end of the neck is cut at a 45 degree angle. The headstock end of the neck is "notched" using the router, band saw or miter saw until it is just thick enough to support the tuners.
To keep the neck from bowing under the tension of the strings we include a 1/4 inch square steel rod into the neck for support. To do this we use the router table to cut a 1/4 inch groove all the way down the length of the neck.
With the groove cut, the next part is cutting the steel rod and placing it in. The fretboard will be glued on over this so it's important that the steel rod fit snugly into the groove and not rise above it.
Step 3: At this stage we usually start working on the box. A notch must be cut from both sides of the box and lid so that the neck can pass through the box when it is closed.
Step 4: Depending on how the neck lines up within the box, it will be adjusted and measured for a fretboard. A piece of 1/4 inch wood, cut to match the width of the neck, is glued down over the neck. Sometimes a piece is cut to fit over the tail of the neck also to keep them both the same thickness. If the guitar is to be fretted, a thicker piece of wood may be used to raise the frets up above the top of the box.
Step 5: Shaping and rounding the neck comes next. We typically use our belt sander for this, starting with rough grit sandpaper and progressively getting finer until we have a nice, smooth neck. If we are going to fret the guitar, we would fret the neck before shaping as to use the sander to also file any sharp edges off the frets. We also use the sander to shape the headstock and tail of the guitar.
We use the drill press to cut the holes out of the headstock for the tuning machines and then touch up those holes with the sander to smooth out any splinters before installing the tuning machines themselves.
Step 6: With the neck complete, focus can shift back to the box. We like to salvage and keep any artwork from inside the box to use on the headstock or other parts of the build. After marking where the sound holes will go, we cut them out with the hole saw or scroll saw.
In addition to sound holes, holes are also drilled where the switches, potentiometers and any pickups will go if electronics are to be added.
Step 7: Wiring diagrams are essential for us to wrap our brains around how the electronics in the guitars are supposed to work. Even still, for us at least, there is a lot of trial and error involved... We typically like to test our wiring before soldering everything to make sure we've got it right!
Step 8: Nuts and Bridges are usually one of the last things we determine in a build, as they often need to be tweaked to set the string height. This is especially true on fretted builds. On fretless guitars we have more freedom with materials, and some of our favorites are just nuts and bolts!
Usually we attach them to the lids of the boxes so that they can be opened so that the electronics are accessible. A nice additional feature is adding a spring for mechanical reverb and, if the box opens, this allows for taking the spring out or changing it to experiment with different springs!
Step 9? Even though fretless guitars don't have frets, we still mark the neck in the appropriate places. This can vary from build to build, but we usually use a woodburning tool to mark the fret positions. In this build, I wanted gold markers and used masking tape and gold spray paint to mark each fret position. To determine the correct position of each fret mark, a mathematical equation is used based on the scale length.
The finishing touches are always our favorite stage of each build. Here we used the inside box art to cover the pickup and as the fret markers for 3,5,9, and 12 before stringing it up.
Final Step! At last we get to hear what it sounds like!
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