This is the one that started this crazy hobby of mine. One day I spotted a Make Magazine article for making a cigar box guitar. I had never made anything in my life, and didn’t even own any tools. In fact, I bought my first set of power tools to make this guitar. I went to a cigar store and got this box, and for some reason had a scrap 1×2 that I used as the neck. It was simply gluing the stick to the box, the simplest way to make a guitar. The article calls for making your own tuners out of bolts, so I did that. It also has the strings made from twine, so I did that too. This wasn’t a guitar to be played, it was to be displayed. And so it stayed, for a number of years. Once I got really hooked on making instruments a few years later, I went back and added real tuners, real guitar strings and a piezo (contact mic). It is played with a slide since there are no frets on it.
The finished product Back of the guitar At one point I tried to make a fancy bridge that would transfer the string vibrations directly to the box… …and it didn’t work The reason there are so many holes is that I initially drilled them on the wrong side. As the saying goes, measure never, cut twice! Tuners made from bolts Look at these two… …I mean, look at that face Original bridge with twine for strings. Those screws poking out like that can’t be safe… It was a complete coincidence that the box and neck matched colors
