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Looking for Arsenio boxes

Posted by Don Goguen on August 1, 2010 at 5:03pm in Building Secrets, Tips, Advice, Discussion
As the title says, I'm looking for a quantity of say 6-8 of these thin Arsenio boxes for purchase or trade. 

Anyone have or know of someone with some of these?  I checked a couple of advertisers on the home page and even searched Ebay but didn't find much.


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  • Don Goguen August 2, 2010 at 8:26pm
    That is curly maple. I picked up a long piece of rough stock that looked like it had a very interesting grain. The problem was I was fighting with it to get it to mill up without too much tear out. I re-sawed a bunch of it and put it through the planer very slowly and only taking very little off. Still had some issues that only abrasive planing seemed to resolve. Long story short, I ended up with a bunch of it but was getting tired of blonde curly maple finger boards. So I took some scraps and experimented with different stains. The grain in this goes every which way. So I used some pre-staining conditioner and then stained it dark walnut. The open grains took way too much and other parts too little. I worked it a bit and ended up with what you see. I love experimenting and am having a bunch of fun learning some of the traditional craft applied to CBG's. I first made some solid body 3 & 6 string guitars and a 4 string archtop style but am finally moving on to cigarbox bodies. I picked up a decent supply of boxes but wanted these particular ones as a style experiment (various headstock, fingerboard binding and inlays)

    Next up I purchased zebra, purple heart and leopard wood. I won't have time to mill it for a couple of weeks but I can hardly wait. I'm thinking both fingerboards and a headstock veneer with the zebra and leopard wood.
  • Bear August 2, 2010 at 11:09am
    Say, what is the fingerboard wood on the right one? Burled walnut? Very unique looking, very pretty.
  • Don Goguen August 2, 2010 at 6:34am
    Completely understand.

    I've been picking these up one at a time from a couple of local smoke shops. My new job has me too busy to make my usual rounds so I am hoping someone out there has collected a few. These are a little smaller than most but for making electric CBG's with magnetic pickups they work for me. I have collected many other boxes but am currently making a number of these.

    Thanks for the compliment. Binding work is not really hard. You just have to move quickly as the glue dries very fast. All it takes is binding, glue and masking tape. Gives the neck a great hand feel.
  • Bear August 1, 2010 at 10:03pm
    Well, here's ONE...

    http://cgi.ebay.com/Casa-Fernandez-Arsenio-empty-cigar-box-/2805403...

    Finding quantities of a particular cigar box isn't too easy, I suppose because it requires a lot of people to smoke up the cigars first! There are lots of similar-sized boxes out there you could try. You can go crazy if you get hung up on finding a bunch of the same box. I even thought once about a trip to the Domincan Republic to the factory to arrange a supply of a particular box I liked. 'Course I had no $$$ to do that, but anyway, I do understand. Good luck!

    P.S. Those are fine-looking guitars! Bound fingerboards... WOW!
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