Hey guys, I need some help in the making of my cigar box guitar. It will be very appreciated! And sorry for my english, I am french.
I put a few pictures so it will be easier to explain.
I have a 8 5/8'' lenght X 6 15/16'' width cigar box. And it have 1 15/16'' height. The top of the cigar box (lid) is 5/8''. (picture #1)
I have a 1X2 neck that I want to put through the cigar box. I am wondering how I need to cut my cigar box to put the neck inside. (picture #2 and #3)
I need to have at least 1/8'' of the neck that stick out of the box for good string action, right?
So how do I cut my neck and the box to fit it inside?
It's hard to explain because I don't speak very well english. But if you guys can't understand my problem, let me know, I will try to explain better. Thank you.
Replies
This is my new diagram, like wayfinder. I think I will use this method. But I will keep my neck already build and try as I was supossed to do. But the sad thing with this design is that I won't be able to open the lid... Maybe I will put a dog bowl for a resonator.
If you want to you can still open the box with this method,in your drawing ,you've removed ALL of the blue wood inside the box except for the tail,if you just remove enough to get your required height for an inch or so at each end,then a little bit more in between those points to give the soundboard a bit of freedom,you can still make all connections to the box top and be able to open it.I personally would have full height only enough for the tail piece,and have my bridge over an unsupported area of the top so it vibrates more as well
I don't think I will be able to open it, first the tail piece will be screw over the lid and the bottom (L shape tailpiece), and I think the neck and the fretboard will be touching the box enough tight that I will not be able to open it...we'll see
What do you mean by : you've removed ALL of the blue wood inside the box except for the tail,if you just remove enough to get your required height for an inch or so at each end,then a little bit more in between those points to give the soundboard a bit of freedom ... ? And that : I personally would have full height only enough for the tail piece ...?
And forget the blue block at the end, I will not put that.
Thank you for all your answer Darryl!
What i mean is,in your diagram,if you picture the blue wood of the neck coming from the left continuing at that height ALL the way through the box,and just stepping up enough for an inch or so at each end to touch under the sound board you can mount the neck in the lid portion of the box and still open it if you want,basically just removing the wood you don't need,which will maintain strength better,by doing that you could also taper the underside of the tail UPWARD so that the neck at the rear of the box is .only as deep as your top and not even going into the bottom of the box at the very tail
Mart, what you're trying will work fine. This 3 string acoustic of mine, Imp Hand, uses the same method in your drawing. The action could be a bit lower for fretting easily on the first fret. I use this one for mostly slide, but it's easy to fret droney chords from the 3rd fret up. If I reset the bridge and nut bolts to smaller ones the action would be best for finger playing chords.
Cheers! Have fun with your build!
Mart........don't get to hung up on the 1/4" above the box thing..........if you are making a fretless guitar then the sting action above the neck is not that critical since you will not be pushing the strings down to the neck with a slide. A lot of people build their fretless guitars with the neck even with the top of the box lid. you might check the thickness of the lid vs the bottom of the box..........sometimes the bottom is thinner and you could simply turn the box over and use the bottom as the top ;-)
Take a look at Pick's Swamp Witch guitars............his are built with the neck even with the top of the body. If you want the added height of the neck then i would do as Darryl said and cut the lid back to the top of the box where the rolled edge is and then cut the neck area away inside the box till you get the height you're looking for. Then you can add blocks to support the neck or simply glue it directly to the top. hope this helps to give you some ideas ;-)
Alright thank you Rooster. The lid is thinner than the bottom of the box and I prefer to use the lid because the bottom is not finished wood and it looks better from the lid... I know its not neccessary to have a 1/4'' gap because it will be fretless and lots of slide playing. But i would like to play without a slide too, so I will use a gap. And I will do it like you and Darryl said, cut till the round shape and make a square cut until I can fix it on a good height. And what do you think about using only a 1x2 for the neck? Without a 1/4 x2 as a fretboard? Is it okay or it will not have enough strenght? Like Wayfinder told me. Thank you again it helped me.
Well, Wayfinder is right about adding strength when you glue two pieces together. And you will be creating a weak area where you have to cut away the neck to fit in the box and raise the height of the neck above the top. If your top is say 1/8" thick and you want 1/8" above the top that would be 1/4" you would have to cut from the neck. So that would only leave you with 1/2" neck thickness at the front of the box where the most pressure will be on the neck. Also, remember that the longer the neck and scale length the more pressure it will take to get the strings in tune. I have seen guides that show building a CBG like this, but they are usually slide only and not that concerned with the neck bowing up under pressure. The two best suggestions I can give would be 1)....Keep the scale length as short as possible, say 24", and no more then 3 strings that are light gauge. 2)......And this is what I would do, at the very least consider gluing a second "heel board" under the neck that would extend out of the front a inch or two to support the area where wood was removed from the neck under the lid. Beyond that, without a fret board glued on the neck there is only one other method of building that would come to mind............attaching the neck on top of the box in a "Uncle Crow" style of building. CBGitty has a kit on the website that is built like that so you can see how it looks. Sorry I can't be of more help then that. Keep us posted on how your build is going ;-)
Great! thanks rooster. I think i'm gonna buy a new 1x2 oak board with a 1/4 x 2 poplar. I will laminate the 1x4 on the 1x2, get a support strut from the 1x2 10'' long into the full lenght of the box, sticking about 1 1/2'' out of the box and glue/screw my neck onto it. I will cut my box lid to the round joint on top and leave 1/4 the neck above the lid. No tail from the support strut, just a tailpiece for the strings and a flotting bridge. Glue a piece of the 1/4 x 2 poplar under the headstock. I will keep you guys posted. Thank you very much!
Welcome Mart,my suggestions for that type of box would be 1.cut the box top at least back to where the rolled edge finishes the width of your neck.2. I'd laminate another piece of your 1x2 under your neck from about 1 1/2 inches outside the front of the box [which you can shape into a heel if you like] the full length of the inside of the box if you intend to finish inside,or longer if you want a thru neck and tail.3 I would suggest more than 1/8 of an inch string height for a couple of reasons,the main one being to raise the strings high enough to get a good break angle at the bridge,there are a couple of ways to go about this,[more than a couple].As you've added the 2nd thickness of neck,you can remove wood from the top inside the box to raise your fretboard/neck as much as you like,even better for break angle/playability you can angle the neck inside the box so it raises about 3/16 toward the rear.4.mounting the neck is easily done by gluing small blocks either side inside the box,then screwing through them into the neck.hope i'm reasonably clear with what i said,if you want some images for example,I think Reeds Taylor and Wayfinder amongst others have som cad sketches on their pages,good luck
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