Hi all! I'm setting out to build my first cigar box instrument. I'm a mandolin player, and want to build a four string electric.

I am thinking I will use this basic design:

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/photo/albums/my-1st-build-step-by-step

Instead of a floating bridge, I want to use something like this:

https://www.mgbguitars.com/guitar-parts-bridges-4string-roller-chro...

And maybe a pickup like this:

https://www.mgbguitars.com/guitar-parts-electronics-pickups-4string...

The cigar boxes I have are fairly thick and sturdy (see pics). I have limited experience with luthiery, but can set up an instrument, have made my own compensated floating mandolin bridges, and have refret an old mandolin banjo. I want to give it probably 20 frets, with the 15th at the neck/body intersection and a small fretboard extension. Does anyone have experience with the specific parts I mentioned? Would you recommend anything different? I would appreciate advice on the design, and any other help.

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When I made this paired string dulcimer(to sound like a mando) I did not use a truss rod It has six strings and has not showed any signs of bowing in 3 years, not that it won't.It has a flat top and a murphy style bridge. What I did do was use good hard maple with proper grain orientation. I glued two 1x2 together and selected lumber that was flat sawen so that when glued together the grain was perpendicular to the fret board.

 I attached the neck the using 2 hanger bolts( a lag screw on one end and threaded 1/4-20 on the other).

I only have one on this one but you get the idea.I think you'd get a truer mando sound using a regular mandolin tail piece and two of those pickups offset to cover four paired strings. Good luck and I can't wait to see it done.

Thanks Frank! I'm not after a true mando sound. I used to have a four string electric Mandobird, and regret selling it. I eventually want to make a nice solid body four string too. I got all the parts in the mail the other day, just need to find the time to put it all together.

Well, I'm making progress (and lots of mistakes!!!). I have basically shaped my neck and fit it to the box. I still need to cut it down so the box closes, and fit a cross piece where the bridge will go. The cross will go in the space I cut from the neck inside the box. I have a pre-slotted fretboard from LMI, so after I finish getting the neck situatated, I'll glue that on and fret it.

Looking great Thomas!

Nice! Thomas, I like your headstock design. 

Thanks! I pretty much wanted to stay within the dimensions of the 2x2 piece of wood I had, but couldn't get it to look right. So I ended up adding a small non-structural wing to get a decent shape. I'm a CAD designer, so having AutoCad to use helped a lot.

Nice!

I would consider angling back the neck by a few degrees. In my experience this is even more important with short scale instruments like mandolins. Otherwise you'll have a real problem using a decent mandolin bridge and still having a playable action. Plus an angled neck puts more down pressure on the bridge which results in more volume and better sounding strings...

It's an electric, and doesn't have a floating bridge.

Sorry, Thomas, I should have read through the thread before babbling something about string pressure on the bridge... A back angle in the neck also helps with getting a nice low action on electric instruments though. Ever since I started putting a 2 or 3 degree angle on my necks I don't have problems with high action at the high frets anymore. And it's easy to do.

Hey Hans your advice is useful to me as I am constructing an acoustic version but I'm wondering about the back angle in relation to the bridge height. As I'm building on flat topped cigar box I'm thinking a lower bridge would be better. Tell me more about back angle,string pressure and tone. Thanks Ken

There are lots of people here on CBN who could explain this much better, actually understand the physics of a guitar, and know what they're doing, Ken, but I'll tell you what I know:

Angling the neck back by a few degrees has two major effects:

  1. It makes it much easier to achieve a nice low action because the course of the strings is more parallel to the fret board. 
  2. It allows for a steeper angle of the strings at the bridge (and for a higher bridge) which results in higher tension and more downward pressure from the strings onto the soundboard. And a soundboard that vibrates more produces more sound. The volume gain can be pretty spectacular in my experience. (This also has a downside, of course, because more downward pressure makes it more likely that your soundboard collapses - so if you're working with a flimsy box lid you should aim for a low bridge and/or brace it...)

I first angled a neck by a few degrees when I built a mandolin a while ago. I didn’t plan to do it, but then it turned out that I couldn’t fit a mandolin bridge under the strings without getting an unplayable action. So I put some shims under the neck to angle the neck back about 3 degrees and, lo and behold, not only could I use a mandolin bridge and have a good action but the mandolin also got a lot louder. Ever since then I angle the necks on all my instruments.

There’s even an online calculator to find the perfect neck angle:

http://www.tundraman.com/Guitars/NeckAngle/index.php

Hey Hans I tried out the neck angle calculator, have a look at the screen shot. The suggested angle is a bit over 6 degrees, that seems quite a lot. Do you think this is correct? My finger board is a bit under a quarter inch thick, scale length 13 5/8 inches and my bridge is just under three quarters. I plan to use the disc sander to put the angle into the heel and use threaded inserts to bolt the neck to the box. I made the maple bridge according to plans on the Murphy method sight Thomas linked me to. Any advice welcome.

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