Cigar Box Guitar

 Last winter my friend Nels made a cigar box guitar in our Az. shop and it sounded really good. So I thought I'd try a hand at it - learning a lot from Nels along the way. To start, I needed a cigar box and my friend Michael in the park is never without a cigar and he donated a box to me. I did all the work in my home shop where I have my own machines for cutting metal, etc.
 
 The box is just held together on the corners with paper so I added some 5/16" box elder wood for a liner. The neck is made from sycamore. When I went to the wood room looking for a piece long enough , this 1 1/2" thick sycamore board said " pick me, pick me" ! 
 The fret board is Brazillian rosewood and the nut and bridge are made of African blackwood. The marking dots in the fretboard are maple.
 
 I wanted it to be along the line of a Fender guitar so I slanted the top end of the neck and almost screwed up with the top tuner right at the top end. This project took a lot longer because of setbacks. The right hand tuners came in left hand , the first Humbucker pickup came with a big dent on the edge of the raised portion, and the pickup volume and tone potentiometers had no knobs. I turned the knobs out of black nylon with a white nylon dot insert. I also made stainless steel grommets for the bottom of the neck where the strings are secured.
 
 It is tuned to G-D-G and finished with Danish oil and satin lacquer
 
 Cheers, Jim
 
 I took a few shots in progress along the way and of Michael - the cigar box donor...He signed it too: