Hi, I'm Karol (like Carl) and I just built my first cigar box guitar.
All the photos I took of the build: https://www.flickr.com/photos/karolgajda/sets/72157647952681963/
Short video on instagram: http://instagram.com/p/xxq2HmDNRD/
Note: I did build a regular acoustic 5 years ago (photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/karolgajda/sets/72157623389065859/) so that experience surely helped make my CBG turn out nice. But I think it's hard to mess one of these up!
It took about 10 hours (lots of sanding and neck finishing), which is probably longer than most. But it looks great.
3 string fretless. Poplar neck with 4 coats of tung oil. Angled the headstock because I like the look and I wouldn't need string trees. Got the tuners off eBay and the box from a local cigar shop. Bolts for bridge and nut. Eye screws for the strap "buttons" and 2 old backpack straps for the strap. I've electrified it (piezo, no volume control), but don't have an amp to test if that works.
I've been playing it now for a week or so and love it. I do wish I'd made it smaller, because I'm going overseas on Saturday and it's not going to fit in my carry on.
Shout out to the books Cigar Box Guitars by David Sutton and Handmade Music Factory by Mike Orr. And, of course, YouTube. I didn't find Cigar Box Nation until I started reading the non-plan sections of the Cigar Box Guitars book a few days ago.
Happy to see such a great community!
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