new CBG blog

The old blog domain title "smojoguitars" wasn't decriptive enough for my Cigar Box Guitars so I started this new one. I've copied and modified most of the old posts from it into here and removed them from the original one. Any new stuff will be put on here only.

I need to add some more photos yet to some of the old posts and take a picture of my latest guitar. It's another Monte Christo box with a mahogany neck. No electrics just purely acoustic. I'm pleased with it, it has a nice mellow tone. I have it tuned to open A which is a nice mid range key.

bandsaw

Been busy with other projects but I've bought myself a bandsaw. This will be a fantastic help when wanting to rip down timber for necks. I've just built a new CBG. It's going to be a relative "quickie" - no electrics or strap. I am aiming to make a few fairly soon so I have a choice to offer people. Here's a photo of some in the making in my workshop. They've all found new homes now.

Dom Tomas CBG

A friend ordered a CBG for her son's birthday. It's a Dom Tomas box and the neck is made from an ice hockey stick I was given. The stick is just the right dimensions for a neck and is incredibly rigid. When I stripped back the paint I found it is a laminate. The strips of laminate run vertically up the neck and give it a stripey effect, very pale colour. Looks pretty cool. It will be a similar spec to the other Dom Tomas CBG's I already made - three strings tuned to open A, piezo pick-up and of course my "smojo" logo burnt into it. I have strung this one very light with 1,2,3 strings of a 12 guage set and tuned it to open DGD.

I got some great feedback. He was delighted with it and said it was the best present he ever got! He didn't even play guitar but his fingers are pretty sore now.

Monte Christo Cigar Box Guitar

My favourite so far and one I'm keeping. It's tuned to open E using the lower three strings of a 12 guage set. The tuning is EBE giving an open E tuning. The lower E string is same pitch as that of a standard tuned guitar. It works well as a sort of drone when playing and gives a nice bassy back fill to the sound. The low tuning seems to encourage slow, moody, swampy delta playing. I fitted two internal piezo pickups - one under the bridge area and one under the string area near the soundhole. There's a switch (not visible here) which will select one or other or both. There's no tone or volume control (keeping things simple - you can adjust it on the amp) but I thought the twin pick-up idea would give me a simple switchable tone control as the bridge pup will have a brighter tone than the one nearer the neck. It does work to a degree but not anything dramatic. I'm still experimenting with designs which is half the fun of making them.

This is the first one I have added a strap to. I saw this webbing on a car boot stall. A huge reel of it for about £1.50 and thought it would make great straps. It goes particularly well with this one color-wise picking up the red element in the box logo. On the same score notice how I echoed that logo with the fret markers as a novelty. The fret "dots" are triangular shapes burned in with the centres painted red and the headstock looks similar to that on a Fender telecaster and the face is painted a similar shade of warm yellow as the box. These bits of colour echo the colours and design on the box front. I just love those colours, this one's a keeper for me. Photo to follow soon.

weird instruments - inersouster

Found this great blog site and it's got me inspired to make some weird stuff. Haven't got time yet as I need to make more CBG's but I started collecting items for possible instruments. We went round a car boot sale and I bought a steel bowl and some cheap bongos. Thinking I might cut the two bongo drums apart and use each one as the body for a small banjo like instrument. Have a look at this guys stuff - it's brilliant.

http://inersouster.blogspot.com/

website domains registered

This blogs have their restrictions for promoting my CBG's so I'm planning a proper website to run alongside it. Time is in short supply at the moment so it will be some time before it gets done. In fact CBG building itself is slow as most of my time is being spent renovating my daughter's new home. I have registered two domain names for future plans and redirected them to this blog site for the time being until I get around to building them. I'll keep you posted on any developments. Initially one of them will be used to promote my CBG's and other possible hand crafted instruments. Maybe put pictures of cigar boxes I have in stock so someone could order a guitar to be made from it. I'd like to put sound clips of my guitars on too. The other is for a blues related site pivoting around my CBG building. It's part of my long term plans for retirement. Eventually offering other blues related goods for sale online.

About My Cigar Box Guitars

General information:-

These are 3 stringed, hand made cigar box guitars. They’re a well made but basic instrument perfect for blues. Being small and light (and inexpensive) they are great for travelling or busking. They have a very high action and no fret wires so are designed specifically for slide work and notes cannot be played in the usual way with the left hand fingers on the fretboard. Fret markings are burnt into the wood as a guide when playing but you will need to develop a good ear for pitch and a fair degree of accuracy when hitting your notes. It’s not as difficult as it might sound as you mostly slide up or down to the note and can hear when it’s right. They may look like toys but believe me they can kick out some pretty mean sounds. They are loud enough to play acoustically, though nowhere near as loud as a conventional guitar.

They have a distinctive Delta blues sound, almost banjo like but capable of producing some cool harmonics and overtones which you can’t seem to get from a standard guitar and they’re so much fun you can’t put them down! Having only three strings can be an advantage too. It pushes you to be more inventive and make more of your technique.Plug ‘em into an amp and they can really scream some mean and dirty blues. The pick-up is a sensitive ceramic piezo disc which will also pick up any taps and bangs you make on the body but I haven’t found it to be a problem. In fact you can turn it to advantage at times, knocking out a basic drum type rhythm as a fill in. Those shown in the picture are examples only. Each guitar is unique depending on availability of boxes and type of wood for the necks (which are all made of hardwood), I have produced a useful fact sheet to go with the guitars showing tunings, playing tips, techniques etc.

What are Cigar Box Guitars and what is "Smojo"

I first saw one on an auction site and bought it and am now making them. Here's three I made. They have only three strings and are played with a "slide" or "bottleneck". The guitars have a great old time bluesy sound and are fantastic fun.

The History of CBG's :- Back in the USA late 1800's in the deep South among the black African Americans, money was too tight to buy instruments. The first primitive stringed instrument and a forerunner of the slide guitar was called a Diddley Bow. It was made from a piece of baling wire tacked across the wall of the wooden shack. You plucked it and changed the pitch by sliding something hard along it, like a knife, piece of bone or glass. Moving on from that some people attempted to make a crude guitar out of whatever they could find suitable. Before long the cigar box which was usually made from cedar, (actually a great wood for guitars) was incorporated with maybe an old broom handle for the neck and strung with some wire. Usually played with a slide too. Some notable people who started out on a CBG include Jimi Hendrix, Carl Perkins, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf. Early cartoons show Micky Mouse playing one!

"Smojo" is the trade name I have given my cigar box guitars. The old black American blues songs often mentioned mojos - a sort of good luck charm, so I have called my little enterprise "smojo guitars". The name being an amalgamation of smoking and mojo. Watch this site for much more about these incredible little instruments.