Cigar Box Octave Bass Guitar DIY Build

[Williethump]

Above are the components of my 4-string instrument thang I am building. 4-string like a tenor guitar but tuned E A D G and not tuned like a banjo. Octave bass?

These cigars must have been giants.

I’ve named it Old Handsome Joe. I just now carved and glued in the hardwood nut I fabbed up out of scrap, walnut maybe. Here’s the clamp setup. UK-cramp.

I cut the nut extra tall and will lower it with a random orbital sander. Nut might be walnut. Or maybe oak.

This shows how I grafted a Rogue baritone ukulele headstock to my homebuilt hardwood neck (ash? maple?) Thanks to my ancient daddy who is giving up woodworking because of advanced age, for the wood, clamps, sandpaper, screws and tools.

I glued the headstock to the neck with white dairy glue and screwed it down. Later I replaced the screws with wood dowels and sanded. More sanding needed to blend headstock and neck.
The rest of the parts needed. I want to use the stainless steel sink strainers for sound hole covers.

I’m unsure if I will paint the bridge, modified from a guitar bridge I found, or sand it down to bare wood.

The inside is so pretty its a shame it will never be seen.
Not too much left to do: cut down and attach the neck to the box; grind down and cut nut and bridge, and attach bridge to box top; install strings. Tune up, troubleshoot. Go a busking. Profit $!

Or else, you know, just play it.

Not counting all the free stuff from daddy this is a cheap flea market and recycled Rogue baritone uke project:
Cigar box- $8
Strings- $5
Screws, glue, etc
___$3
$16 total

Unless note, all text and images by todgermanica.com.

 

[RichterScale]

I'm smitten with ceegar box guitars.
I am 100% building one as soon as I get a chance.

 

[Jeff Siddall]

Cool project. I should do one of these too, but I gotta get several other projects done first.

Not sure if it matters to you but that nut is red oak. The neck doesn't look like maple to me, but it's not ash either.

 

[Williethump]

@RichterScale
I know fretless is not much of a guitar thing but for simplicity I'm going to just mark or scribe fret lines on the board to start with and see how playable it is. If not, I'll try toothpick frets maybe. Or mono fishing line.
Cutting it to scale (probably 25") and marking it, are my next tasks after whittling down the neck. Then I'll stain it.
@Jeff Siddall
Red oak. I should have known. I cut it out of a piece of 94 year old daddy's wood stash and he likes oak. Hope it stays glued in, maybe I'll pin it with a screw. Wonder what wood that dead white neck is. Daddy can't remember. Thanks for the info.

 

[RichterScale]

I know fretless is not much of a guitar thing but.....

Don't really need 'em anyway if you plan to play mostly slide.
I've never really learned to play guitar and never played a CB.
But I've always wanted to make one and play it. They look like a hoot.

 

[RichterScale]

Also, that neck looks like it could be silver maple. A little softer than hard maple, but still pretty hard.
What area are you in? Do you know if the wood stash is all local stuff?

 

[Williethump]

@RichterScale
I've got a slide but don't know how to use it. I'm an elderly student bedroom bassist so it's just me and my drummer, Roland Cube. So I'm playing lots of un-basslike riffs, lead/melody/thrash Jazz Fantasy. I'd like to hear it in guitar octave on an instrument I built since I already know how to play it.
That neck timber is pretty hard and silvery but daddy built things up until last year (Adirondack chair) so provenance is unknown. Lucky I found it though since good straight timber like this is very scarce.
I've got tons of toxic tung oil for finishand restor-a-finish

 

[Williethump]

...and such poison. Is there a cheap, available organic neck oil or some such finish? Shoe polish and Johson's paste wax? I just don't fancy fondling an ax rubbed or finished with toxic stuff. Ideas?

 

[Jeff Siddall]

Is the tung oil pure? If so it is a tree nut oil and thus natural. Unfortunately, many things labelled "tung oil" actually contain little to no real tung oil and could be any manner of other things. Also, tung oil can be thinned with solvents that are possibly toxic, though those generally evaporate early on and thus aren't around in the dried finish.

 

[Williethump]

I think it said toxic on the can. Plus all my scavenged and inherited wood finishes are too old. I'd consider keeping the neck and headstock sanded smooth and bare.
Except the cigar box is a nice tobacco brown and the neck/grafted on headstock is so shockingly white. Would show dirt too. But then so what, it's a box gitfiddle, probably should be dirty. Remove two screws and sand it again easily enough.

 

[pie_man_25]

I'm smitten with ceegar box guitars.
I am 100% building one as soon as I get a chance.

Do it. Please make a thread as well.

 

[Zoffy]

Great job; I love projects like these!

 

[juancaminos]

When, oh when, do we get to see the finished product?

 

[Low Down Brown]

Nice! Looking forward to seeing it when its finished. There's a guy a couple of towns over that makes cigar box guitars. I had a nice vintage Garcia Vega box with an '82 Fender Bullet neck and DiMarzio humbucker that sounded fabulous. Then he made me this...

Pine box with walnut top and 5-piece maple/walnut neck, rosewood top at 30" scale. Currently strung with Martin Phosphor Bronze strings and it growls like Steve French, er...a really big kitty.

 

[landrybass]

Hell yeah I love me some cigarbox guitars. I have an Autographed one by Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band and (while not a cigar box, serves the same purpose) Shovel 3 string by Justin Johnson. They are too much fun.

 

[klejst]

Very cool, great build!

 

[40Hz]

I'm going to just mark or scribe fret lines on the board to start with and see how playable it is. If not, I'll try toothpick frets maybe. Or mono fishing line.

The flat leg of those heavier bobby pins work well for CBG frets too. Cut them to length, buff the edges so the corners from the cuts aren’t sharp, and superglue them onto the fingerboard.

 

[RichterScale]

Which do you guys think is better, a precision cbg or s jazz cbg?

 

[Williethump]

Far OT but also fun: Leonard Milholland's Legal Eagle UL aircraft. 1/2 VW engine. No license needed.

Part II of my cigar box tenor bass build. Sanded down the neck and also the new red oak nut. This is before finishing with tung oil.

Daddy gave me all manner of sanders, rubber sanding block, various grades of paper and crocus cloth so the neck, board and headstock are very smooth. And hopefully level.

Daddy also gave me these planes and shaping tool to make it easy to plane down the overly thick neck at the base. Vintage, quality tools. Sharp too. That’s how you know it’s not my tool. Yet. Thanks, daddy.

Rummaging in my hoarder’s garage I found this unopened can of Hope’s pure tung oil, no petroleum thinners ($11.19 USD!). Looks like clear honey. Beautiful stuff. Alleged to be non-toxic.

Here is what one coat looks like. I’m liable to do more coats. Nice result, silky smooth.

The sharp vintage planes made short work of thinning the base of the neck. Next step after one or two more tung oil coats will be to cut down the neck to correct length and then cut notches into the cigar box to fit it in.

Unless noted, all text and images by todgermanica.com.

 

[Williethump]

This is so calming, Humboldt County.

It’s finally looking like an instrument as I fit my home made franken-neck on to the carved up cigar box. Nerve wracking.

First you find the center of the box and then the center of the neck on the box lid. Line them up and trace down where you’ll be cutting. Leave extra wood, like I didn’t. See next pic. Then measure, mark and cut the body of the box similarly.

Subtract the width of the box top thickness before marking. I used a coping saw and X-acto knife.

Putty and paint make a carpenter what he/she ain’t.
I ran a line of the dairy glue inside all in corners and edges, these boxes are much more fragile than normal instruments. Feel like I’m beating it to death with my ham fists like the clumsy oaf I am. I ought to beat my brain out.

Here is the ugly way you make space for the box top to vibrate. Cut handsaw kerfs across, then chisel work, finally sureform or rasp is good enough, it will never be seen. Only critical part is the two ledges, one on each end that position the neck level with the box top. In my case more or less level.

I need to finish the buttstock end, drill four holes in it for strings, then measure and mark my fret-lines prior to another coat of tung oil. Undecided if I will put the oil on the box itself, or not. Anyhow, it looks like it’s all downhill from here so I’ll just leave the horses in the wagon.

Nice that it finally looks like a cute little instrument you might want to pick up. Even more so when I install the tiny machine heads.
Unless noted, all text and images by todgermanica.com