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You've seen bits and pieces of this over the past few months. I won't say it is finished but I've learned to play it enough so I'm not completely embarrassed. Here's the Cello Bo. (Don't worry, I'll tell you what a Cello Bo is after the video.)

The Cello Bo is a home made instrument made in the spirit of the cigar box guitars, except it doesn't have a box! It is unfretted and can be strung with 3 or 4 cello strings. (The neck scale is 27.5 inches, hence cello strings.) It is entirely electric. I can be played sitting, as shown here, or standing, except, well it is too short.

So it's not really a diddly bo, it has too many strings, it's not really a cello, since it can't be bowed, and it's not really a cigar box guitar since it doesn't have a box, but I guess that's the closest thing it is. 

I learned to play after it built it. Ok, I played cello years ago and that's why I had some strings sitting around. It is using the top three cello strings, tuned to GDG.

Here's some detail shots.

It is made from maple, finished with 3 coats of tung oil. That was applied about 2 months ago and it still isn't dry completely. The back piece rotates so the neck is free to move while you are playing. Still, it is hard since you don't have anything to hold onto. I'm not sure I'll do this design again.

I'm using a rod piezo pickup. There are rivets through the "body." I messed them up pretty bad. I didn't want them loose so the hole is small which meant I pounded them in with a hammer, which scarred them. There 5 holes so it can be strung with either 3 or 4 strings. The strings go through the body, then back up again. I did this to shorten the length that the body had to be. I then used a drilled nickel to hold the strings.

If I do this again I'll certainly do something else. If the body were longer here then the standing configuration would be better, currently, the standing configuration is too short to be playable by me.

I route the wire from the pickup through a copper tube to both protect it and add some style. The copper is super glued to screw eyes.

This is the other end of the tube. You can see where the jack from the rod piezo goes into the guitar jack, which is attached to a larger screw eye.

The fret lines and markers are wood burned, both on the neck and the top side. I drew them with pencil and then hand burned the lines.

The head has 1 bass tuner and 3 guitar tuners. If I had to do it again I'd use 2 bass tuners and 2 guitar tuners. (The 2nd thickest cello string is a little thick for the guitar tuner in my opinion.) You can see the bolt "nut," and the 15 degree scarf joint. 

The wooden pegs are decorative, I had screwed the pieces together while glueing and those screw holes needed to be hidden. The pegs are awful actually, that's why I later bought a drill press.

Note much going on at the rear of the head except I put the guitar tuners too close to the edge so I couldn't put half the screws in!

The other mistake is that I wanted this to be the front since it had more interesting grain, but oops.

This is the back where you can see where the strings come out, then go up through the body again to the nickel. I used a grommet there to ease the strain on the strings. 

You can see the lynch pins that hold the horizontal bar, plus one of the two additional pegs that are used when the cello bo is used for standing. 

I had intended to be able to transport the cello bo with the horizontal bar attached but I messed up the pegs so they don't work.

Here it is in the standing configuration. It is too short for me to play. I could have made the horizontal bar longer, but then it would have been too wide! The solution is to have the body be longer, but, well, it was already cut!

Thanks for reading this far!