two latest cigar box guitars

Here's the promised photos of the two new builds. They didn't hang around long, gone to a new home already. The white one is a Cuaba box, one of the prettiest I've had so far. The bridge is made from an allan key, the soundhole cover is a mounting from a wardrobe rail. The Partagas guitar started out as a fairly boring and too-new looking box. I aged it by creating a few dings and scratches then rubbing it with stain which deepened the colour. I wanted it to remain fairly simple and primitive looking so I created the soundholes to look as though they were burnt through but in fact they were drilled and then burnt with a soldering iron. The bridge is a nice rusty old nut and bolt.

So what's my next plans? I'm hoping to have a break from building any new guitars in order to finish a few projects. I want to get into fretwork. I've got the wire and a special fret-saw. Nice to see the saw is made in Sheffield - good old English manufacturing. I'm going to practise on some guitars I've had for a while. The first attempt will be to convert a 3-string fretless guitar into a "dulcitar" - basically a cbg with frets at certain positions that produce a particular scale when played, rather than at every semi-tone position. When I'm happy with my technique I'll fit frets to my half-built "special" that'll contain JuJu's hand-wired magnetic pickup. Maybe build another batch of tobacco tin amps and what I really want to do soon is make a simple wooden case to carry a cbg. It will get the SMOJO treatment to make it a cool box. I started a case months ago but it was too ambitious, with built-in amp and velvet lining. It's half-way there but it'll have to wait a while longer yet.