Sponsored by C. B. Gitty, the cigar box guitar parts superstore.  www.CBGitty.com

Gary Herget created this incredible folk-art upright bass for his daughter as a Christmas present.   The instrument's body was made from Maple laminate from Lowes.  The finger board is walnut, bridge is maple, the tailpiece is spalted maple.

"Low End Instruments" video 

Miku is a cigar box guitar builder from Poland.  He recently posted this inspiring video of his craft. 

FREE FIDDLE PLANS DOWNLOAD:  Cigar Box Nation has free downloads of these historic cigar box violin plans:

Build a One-String Cigar Box "Jazzolin" Fiddle (1920) (links to PDF)

Build a Vaudeville Fiddle (1949)

A blind street musician from Monrovia, Liberia plays some of the greatest music on a primitive gas can guitar.  Note the clothes hanger frets.

Ed Stilley built some of the most radical folk art guitars, often stuffing the insides with springs, metal saw blades and other found objects to make them sing better.  This short documentary is inspiring.

Got cigar boxes that are too small for a cigar box guitar?  Check out this great idea...  Mat Resist of Minneapolis created this neat Edison light using standard light fixture, cigar box, mason jar and Edison lightbulb.  The volume knob switch is a nice touch.

Several builders have used these boxes to make birdhouses.  Got a creative idea?  Post it on Cigar Box Nation!

Seen on Facebook:  Cigar Box Nation founder, Shane Speal posted this funny, yet true meme.  His wife was not amused.

FREE CIGAR BOX GUITAR SONGS IN TAB   Ben "C. B. Gitty" Baker and Glenn Watt have added more cigar box guitar TAB music at CigarBoxGuitars.com.  This week's offerings include "Royals" by L.O.R.D.E., "Build Me Up Buttercup" by the Foundations and "Camptown Races" by Stephen Foster.  

Visit Cigar Box Nation's sister website, www.CigarBoxGuitar.com, the 'knowledgebase' of the Cigar Box Guitar Movement.  We are adding free lessons, plans, history and more every week.  If Cigar Box Nation is the community, the CigarBoxGuitar.com is the library.

Chisel Sharpening   Nation member, Termoking posted this video on chisel sharpening.  Another great resource found in the pages of Cigar Box Nation!

C. B. Gitty announces a "Show Us Your Bling" contest - Deadline is tomorrow!

Send in your pictures of your most outrageous, decked-out and decorated cigar box guitar.

www.CBGitty.com has just released several new gold plated cigar box guitar parts and they're celebrating by running a quick contest.  Have you ever built a cigar box guitar (or any instrument) that uses lots of gold or chrome hardware?  You could win a free C. B. Gitty t-shirt. 

How to enter:  Send a single photograph of your instrument to GittyFan@cbgitty.com along with your t-shirt size (small-2x only).  Three winners will be chosen.  Deadline is end-of-day, Friday, January 16.

Cigar Box Nation and it's sister site, CigarBoxGuitar.com are both sponsored by www.CBGitty.com, the world's largest cigar box guitar parts store. 

4-String Gold Hardtail Bridge - $18.99     This is a gold-plated electric guitar-style hard-tail bridge, but made for 4-string cigar box guitars, electric ukuleles, tenor guitars & more! It took us a long time to find a source for these, but now we got 'em!

3-String Gold Hardtail Bridge - $17.49   Unlike it's 4-string sibling, These bridges are "top loading" style, which means that the strings are fed through the back plate of the bridge, then up and over the saddles. No drilling through the instrument required!

"Gold Toaster" Mini Humbucker Pickups by Foundry-Tone Matching pair for just $27.99   This is a pair of matched gold mini humbucker electric guitar pickups, with the classic retro "Toaster" cover design.  Rated by the manufacturer at 8.49KOhms each, these can either be used together in a single instrument, or can be split up and used in two instruments. The "guts" of these are the same as our "Snake Oil" mini humbuckers, and have a great growly tone to them and lots of volume.

Gold Jack & Plate Just $5.99
 

Without a jack plate, standard jacks don't always have long enough threaded shafts to reach all the way through. This jack/jack plate assembly removes the worry and makes it easy to mount the jack to your guitar, cigar box guitar, amplifier or other special project.