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Permalink Reply by Kirk on April 3, 2018 at 2:03am

Love the video!

So cigar box guitars pretty much ceased existence, for quite a few decades, didn't they?  Until you revived it as a hobby? 

I'm only 4 years into this hobby, my understanding is you found old plans for them, started gigging with your own builds, started selling them, and started a yahoo group, which developed into festivals, and clubs, and gatherings?  Is this the correct narrative?  If so, you don't give yourself enough credit. 

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Permalink Reply by Cigar Box Nation on April 3, 2018 at 3:02am

Yeah, it was pretty much a dead art.  The simple fact was, I had no idea it was mostly extinct.  I thought everybody knew about cigar box guitars.  I thought I was doing normal stuff!    Although Ben says that I didn't have plans when I started, that's not true.  I had the Guitar Player article from 1977 that I used as a starting point.   (I agreed with Ben without thinking.  The camera was rolling and we had to keep talking fast!)

After the first one, I refined my design a bit using the 1x2x3 poplar.  Once I got the instrument I liked (somewhere around 1995), I really haven't changed my style since.

Matty Baratto and John Lowe were also making cigar box guitars in the mid-to-late '90s.  None of us knew about each other until I started posting stuff on the internet around 2003.

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Permalink Reply by Korrigan on April 3, 2018 at 4:12am

Well I'm glad you started posting stuff online and didn't keep it to yourself. For two reasons, the first being that you sparked a revolution, the second... when my wife starts getting on me about sawdust all over the kitchen I can tell her, "This is all Shane Speal's fault you know."

(Apologies in advance for any hate mail she sends your way.)

  :D

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Permalink Reply by Cigar Box Nation on April 3, 2018 at 6:15am

Everybody told me to sell the plans.  I had more fun giving them away.  

Don't let your wife meet mine.  They could form a counter-resistance that could destroy us all...

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Permalink Reply by Keith Rearick on April 3, 2018 at 7:33am

Was told that the Boy Scouts use to make them. Wonder what years that was, and what plans they were using.

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Permalink Reply by Cigar Box Nation on April 3, 2018 at 8:04am

The original 1884 cigar box banjo plans were written by Daniel Carter Beard, the man who would go on to start the Boy Scouts

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