Cigar box guitars have a long history attached to them which will probably give you some serious inspiration to build one of your own. If you lived in that time period without money and you wanted to play an instrument, you needed easy-to-find tools and supplies, along with a talent for resourcefulness. Although manufacturing has come a long way in the past hundred years, it doesn’t take much to make a guitar.
Usually cigar boxes are made from high-quality wood like eucalyptus, mahogany, and elm to store and keep cigars fresh. They’re not readily available anymore, but you can find them in specialty shops, thrift stores, and flea markets. Here’s a cool DIY project if you do get your hands on one.
All you need is an old cigar box and some pieces of wood…
Cut holes in the box as shown
Once the proper space is carved out, you can begin on the complex insides.
Look familiar yet? Each of the pickups needs to be connected to the proper tone and volume knobs.
Finally it begins to look like a guitar!!!
After installing the bridge, you’ll need a neck.
For the neck and headstock, this guy used unfinished Fender Stratocaster parts.
Make some minor adjustments…..
Shape the headstock and install tuning pegs.
Once the neck was finished, it was time to put everything together.
Strings were added and now it’s time to rock and roll!!!
A little history to share with you all….there was a saying that playing a cigar box guitar only hurt once. When mom was gone, the kids would take apart her broom and stick the handle through a cigar box. They would then take the wire that held the bristles on and stretch it over the broom handle until they could produce a sound. When mom got home, she would give the kids a good whipping, but had no way of putting her broom back together….so the kids played…..and it only hurt once.
