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Dead Man's Hand

I wanted to do a non-kit build for the first time (and wanted to go fairly primitive), so I mostly just grabbed stuff I had lying around.

The body is a small (about 8x5) cigar box I picked up for 50 cents at a yard sale, painted green, and decoupaged a poker hand onto.

The neck is a piece of wood I pulled off a garbage pile. The bridge and nut are a couple of "bats" ("one-hitter" pipes for you know what) that I bought for a different build that went bad. I used a violin type friction peg to tune the single string, which was just an old high E string I had discarded from a regular guitar when I changed strings on it.

The only power tool I used was a drill (for the sound holes, the string hole at one end of the neck, and a pilot hole for the friction peg at the head (I used an awl to get the hole right for the peg, but broke two pegs before I got it big enough for the peg to go through and small enough for it to have grip and hold tuning).

Yeah, it's rough. The neck is already splitting at the head, as the wood is old, cheap, and dried up from sitting around for years before I picked it up and said "hey, a guitar neck."

But hey, it makes noise. And I like it.

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Comment by Thomas L. Knapp on February 25, 2019 at 3:04am: Yeah, I may just go with a plain bolt for the nut. But if I can find or think of something gambling-related, I'll use that.

With this one, I just wanted to finish a project that wasn't from a kit and where I did as much of the work as possible, and so I grabbed what I had lying around. A one-string, fairly primitive diddley bow seemed like the way to go for that.

I think my next build will still be non-kit, but that I'll order some Gitty parts (tuners, perhaps even the neck). At the moment, I'm thinking of building a bass, but I haven't decided between guitar and stand-up format.

Comment by Uncle John on February 25, 2019 at 2:53am: That is progress and I can see the cigs would have worked for the Chesterfield box. My uncle smoked Chesterfields back in the 50s/60s. I am anti-cigarettes after losing 2 loved ones to them and having them be a factor in one other's death.

Good idea on the poker chips. Maybe just a plain screw or bolt for the nut?

Comment by Thomas L. Knapp on February 25, 2019 at 2:09am: I don't have a picture, but I've since replaced the "cigarette" bridge with two casino chips. I'll probably try to find something more thematic for the nut, too. I originally ordered those "cigarettes" for a guitar I was trying to make out of an old Chesterfield cigarette tin. EVERYTHING went wrong with that project, though. Only SOME things went wrong with this one, so that's progress I guess :D

Comment by Uncle John on February 25, 2019 at 1:40am: I don't like the cigarette, but I like the rest quite a lot. Good concept and execution. Glad you like it.