I am making my second cigar box guitar, which I plan to solely use as a 4-string electric instrument. The question is, whether the sound will improve if I cut a sound hole in the box and if so, where would it be better to do it (close or far from the piezo buzzer). Also, I have a question regarding ways to attach the phone jack plug to the box. My box has a 1/4 inch thickness wall After drilling a hole for the jack I found out that the thread of the jack (which I got at Radioshack) does not stick out far enough to place the nut to fix it in place. I have not been able to find a jack that has a thread longer than 1/4 inch... I thank any comments and suggestions .

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  • just to add on purly electric if your using electromagnetic pickups i sugest adding wood to the lid and skipping the cut out on the neck. to give you less feed back.
  • Les Paul did not think you needed holes in an electric..
  • Esteban Celis said:
    I found one way to solve the problem It may not be the choice for many, but it seems that it may work well and avoid problems such as bad connections. I used an RCA wire connected to the piezo and a wire that has a female RCA in one side and a jack for the amp in the other.

    Sure, that works -- the only downside is that you can't use just any old male-male 1/4" guitar cable.
  • I found one way to solve the problem It may not be the choice for many, but it seems that it may work well and avoid problems such as bad connections. I used an RCA wire connected to the piezo and a wire that has a female RCA in one side and a jack for the amp in the other. Take a look at the photos.

  • Hey Estaban. I asked the same question about the jacks at the Handmade Music Clubhouse site. I got turned on to these bad boys and now I'm just waiting for them to come in the mail.

    34851.jpg

    http://www.fullcompass.com/product/336794.html
  • On the jack-fitting question, I have used a larger drill-bit to counter-sink the hole on the inside of the box, so the body of the jack socket sits in it nicely. Be careful not to drill too far though!
  • There are solid-body electrics, Semi-hollowbody electrics, and hollowbody electrics. They all have distinct characteristics, and I suppose they might translate to the CBG electrics as well.
    Hollowbodies, like the big Gibson "jazz boxes", have a nice, mellow tone but do tend to feed back when played at high volume. Some artists have used this to their advantage, notably Ted Nugent.
    The semi-hollowbodies, like the much-liked Gibson 335 and it's variants, try to be "the best of both worlds". They are popular with jazz artists.
    Solid-body instruments have less tendency to feeding back as a result of acoustic "loops", and can be made in any shape or style as the body lends very little to the sound.

    Experiment!
  • I'm with Shane on the sound hole deal.Mostly I put sound holes on most of mine because it makes the customer feel better about the "custom built" concept.
    I just finshed an autotag CBG ,didnt put a sound hole but DID stick a piezo in it.
    It would have been too quiet with OR WITHOUT a sound hole unless it was lectrified,,,,,,,
  • A sound hole is not necessary for electric...OR ACOUSTIC cigar box guitars. Soundholes merely add acoustic bass response and a little bit of volume.
  • If you plan to use it solely as an electric, I would skip the sound holes.

    As for the jack, Stewart Macdonald sells a jack with a long shank on it. Or you can drill a big hole in the box that the entire jack will fit through, then put a wooden plate over it with a hole for the jack itself.

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