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It's tacky, it's 4 string, 20" scale and fretless :)

hushnel

hushnel

Jun 5, 2002
385
652
Wellborn, Florida
#1
I made this a few years ago, kind of to replace an Ashbory I traded for a ukulele. I wanted "something different" so I smoked all the cigars, reinforced the top and back, hacked out a piece of curly mahogany, ordered some modified tuners, K&K bass transducers and polyurethane strings cut for the 20" scale.

To frame the tackiness so there would be no mistake I cut the inlay out of mother of pearl I'm particularly proud of the headstock inlay :)

I've had a lot of fun with this little sucker, I carry it in a padded tennis racket bag on the Harley, something I can't really do with the full scale bass.

After you smoke all the cigars you acquire and assemble some of the parts.
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Do a mock-up assembly to check the artistic balance.

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Hack out the neck to the best of your feeble abilities :)

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Design and cut some fine esoteric inlays.

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Install the inlays into the overlays and body.

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Install the transducers.

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Then finally display the finished classic cigar box bass so where ever you go people will point at you and talk behind their hands :)

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add a lame slapped together sound file and last but not least have it Demo'ed at the Newport Guitar Festival by a professional bass player through a huge sound system.

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#2
Pretty sweet!

I've seen several of the cigar box guitars on the net... and I wondered about doing the same with one of the cigar boxes passed on to me a few years ago.
You've done it--and tacky it may be, you pulled it off nicely. Great Job.
 
#9
Thanks guys, it does have a funky up right type tone to it. Most are pretty surprised by it's solid tone, I attribute it to pure luck.

Though the same thing happened with my first attempt at bass building. This one was made back in 02 or 03, that's back when I first registered on TB and was so full of pride in my lucky accomplishment. It's still number one.

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#15
Cool!!! I hope i can find some purpleheart that sweet. I've been wanting to try it as a fretless fingerboard. Most pieces, you have to get close to tell its purply instead of just some funky shade of brown, but that, you could look at it from a mile away and be overwhelmed with purple!!! Where did you get that piece? Did you seal /finish/treat it with anything for it to get that amazingly purple?
 
#16
Purple heart really only looks that way a few days after it's cut, exposure to sun light and it starts to turn brownish. The fingerboard on the cigarbox is a bit darker now.

Sittin' in with Albert Castiglia and Graham Drout of Iko Iko at Tobacco Rd. in Miami.

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Same night, I sat in for 2 and a half hours :) You can see the fingerboard is getting darker.

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#18
hushnel said:
Check your computer speaker setting. The volume has never been a problem before.

Hey Tom, how's it going buddy? You still making basses now and then?
Click to expand...

Yes it became full time a couple years ago. More fun as part time. But it is OK. That is a cool little bass I can picture the look on my guitarists face if I showed up to play with one. :eek: We play a lot of country so it might be great. Get in touch if you ever head up this way...t
 
#19
Full time is cool, I may be heading that way myself. My job may be going away, it sucks 3 years from retierment and all. Over the last few years I've been buying up guitar and ukulele sets, acquiering tools and skills. Making some strange little linstruments out of gourds, so I wouldn't screw up expensive sets, I've got a stack about 4 feet high, plenty of spruce and redwood tops, and matching sides and back sets. Everything from rosewood to mahogany, sinker redwood, strange black walnut. I plan on starting on the ukuleles then building parlor size acustic guitars.

Things just never seem to go exactly as planned and it turns out that there is quite a bit of interest in the primitive gourd instruments.

This one is a soprano scale banjo ukulele.

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This one soprano with a spruce top. Sound file.

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