new cigar box amplifier

Just finished a new cigar box amp. Powered by 9v battery, it has on/off switch, power on LED and volume control. Up to about half volume the sound is pretty clean. Turn it up and it gets progressively distorted providing a nice dirty sound ideal for some mean slide playing on a CBG. You can see/hear it here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oajIBEUfHQU

cigar box guitar building rules

I'm always looking for new angles on cigar box guitar building. I like to experiment, try new methods or materials in the hope of further improving the looks or playability and also for the fun of it. Sometimes they work - sometimes not. The last experiment was using classical guitar style machine heads requiring a slot to be cut out of the headstock. It resulted in me slicing a chunk out of my finger. Entirely my own stupid fault and I'm not sure it was worth it. I was hoping it would avoid the need for string trees giving me a steeper angle onto the tuner spindle from the nut. I found the angle was OK improving the pressure on the nut but due to the narrowness of the neck and straightness of headstock, there is a tendency for the outer strings to jump out of the threads of the bolts I use for nuts and therefor requiring some sort of string trees to guide the strings. My next experiment will be making nuts from aluminium bar with deeper slots to hold the strings more secure.

Another area for experiment is the bridge/saddle. So far I have tried using eye screws like many CBG builders but wasn't happy with the result. Most of my CBGs have saddles I make from hardwood like oak or mahogany, a sort of inverted T shape with shallow grooves for the strings. I was reading a posting on a forum about using banjo type saddles. They are narrow with feet at the ends which sit on the banjo skin and in fast look like the name suggests - a bridge. I got to the point on my latest build where I needed to make the saddle/bridge and rummaging through my scraps box, I found an odd thing which gave me inspiration. It was a broken slice of bamboo. Some time ago I bought some large diameter bamboo poles with the idea of making some percussion instruments. I had cut a slice off a piece but it had snapped in half forming a shape like half an onion ring. It struck me that the banjo type bridge could be made from a similar piece.
Using my bandsaw I cut a new slice about 6 mm wide then cut a piece about 1/3 of the diameter off it. I sliced a few mm off the outer curved edge to form a flat top. Then cut a narrow groove across that to hold a narrow aluminium saddle I made from some scrap. I think it looks and sounds good, I have fitted it to my latest CBG which you can see in another post.

My advice is, don't limit yourself to set ideas. By all means keep it in when when you find something that works well but try something new now and then, that's the fun of building these things, as someone said about CBG building "the rule is - there are no rules"

Great value drum kits

A drummer friend of mine is supplying great value drum kits and accessories. If you're interested in getting into some percussion and don't fancy the idea of a suitcase bass drum but prefer something more traditional, you might want to check out his site. Look at this "rhubarb" coloured kit, it's so yummy I could eat it! If you still want a beat up suitcase for a bass drum then he has some bargain priced quality pedals.

Click on the title of this blog to go there.

the weirdness of cigar box guitars

I had a weird experience. I was Googling CBG blogs and clicked on one of them to find "yours truly" embedded in someone elses blog. It was one of my Youtube vids and the guy was talking about it in very complimentary way. (Thanks whoever you are Chris). It set me off on a thought train about this whole CBG thing and how weird it is finding myself out there in cyberspace playing a guitar made from a cigar box for the world to see. I've never been one for wanting to attract attention but I got a weird sort of buzz from it. How did I get to that point and all the other stuff it's led me into. It's like one of those conversations you start off on one track and it goes here and there and ends up on another subject and you suddenly think "How did I get here What did we start out talking about"?

So back tracking to two years ago it all started for me when I was idly looking at old guitars on Ebay and I found a CBG for sale. Fell in love with it and had to have it. From there it was having a go at making my own which meant searching for boxes, machine heads, wood for necks etc. Then designing logos, writing up this blog, building a website, learning how to make short videos and putting them on Youtube. Now I'm making amplifiers from cigar boxes and a custom made case for the guitars. Making a bass drum from an old suitcase - it just gets weirder and more exciting all the time. I have people looking at my stuff from all over the world and e-mails from strangers who have become cbg buddies. Brilliant but bizarre when you stop and think about it and all this from a casual mooch on Ebay.

So how much weirder can this get. Well I had this bizarre thought today. How about a giant cigar box coffin? I can just see it now, a 6 foot long Monte Christo box with SMOJO written on the side and "Baby please don't go" playing on a CBG as it slowly disappears through the curtains and on to the incinerator. Talk about "smokin".

some lessons learnt

It was Saturday. I was making two necks for CBGs. This time I had bought the type of machine heads like you get on classical guitars - you need to make a slot in the headstock. I decided to rough drill them out on my big drill press then put a router bit in it to clean up the slot. I knew what I was doing was a bit dodgy to say the least but "I'll be careful" I thought. I had a really bad week at work stress wise and I reckon my brain wasn't running properly. The bit grabbed the wood and pulled my hand onto it in a split second. I felt a sharp pain in my finger end. There was that horrible realisation that I'd damaged my finger and it flashed through my mind "how bad is it"? So you have to look - it could have ben the whole tip of the finger. Well it wasn't as bad as I expected but it wasn't good.

So lessons learnt? Don't mess with machines when you are overtired. Follow safe practises - you know it going to go wrong don't you? Don't think you know better than that inner voice that's warning you. Lastly, don't buy those type of machine heads. It's taken three times as long to prepare the headstock and I'm not entirely happy with the results anyway.

Car boot sale booty

Had a fruitful afternoon at the local car boot sale. For our friends in the U.S. a car boot sale is a bit like your yard sales except sellers load up their car boots (trunks to you guys) and meet up in a field or large space that's been organised for the event. They pay a small fee to enter and usually set up a table of some kind and spread their junk or whatever on it and around the car. Buyers come and browse the stalls and buy your stuff if they like it. It's a very popular event here and is usually going on in most towns on Sundays throughout the UK. Now for a CBG builder they can be a good source of cheap materials for your projects. It's great fun rummageing through boxes for bits and bobs and haggling down the price. They are mostly held between Spring and Autumn but there was an early one today. So what did I find?

The suitcase. I saw an idea for using an old rigid case as a bass drum. I bought a battered old pedal on Ebay a while ago and needed a case. It's got a good "thump" to it. I'm going to make a wooden base to hold it upright and stop the pedal knocking it over. It's a yukky green colour and very scratched. Not sure yet but I might part spray it a better colour then paint a SMOJO cigar box guitar banner across the front.

Just when I was getting over the excitement of this little find, I found something even better. Check out this baby. It's an old (maybe 1940's) extension loudspeaker made for plugging into an old valve (tube) radio. Measures about 12x10 inches. Look at the fantastic retro design of it. Made from bent plywood it has a cool bakelite volume control knob with the makers name embossed on it. The speaker grill has a nice old patterned cloth behind it. So what's the big deal? Well how about fitting a 1/4 jack socket and wiring it to a small battery powered amp inside the cabinet. I can fit a new volume pot but use the original knob. What a cracking little retro amp it will make for playing my CBGs through and I imagine the sound quality will be pretty rich with the heavy ply construction. It will definitley bee a keeper for me when it's done.

Here's a screen rough graphic of a possible design for the case drum. What do you reckon?

two new guitars and other CBG news

Loads of stuff to tell you tonight. Crap going on at work so I need a wholesome distraction and a glass or two of red. I Started work on two new guitars as per last post. The two boxes are both Cuban and one is the green Ramone Allones and the other is a Partagas, which is a sort of orange colour with wood grain pattern on the paper front. It'll go great with the reddy/orange grain of the pitch pine neck. The green one will get an oak neck and maybe stain it dark like the Cuesta Rey box I made last. I picked up some cheap stainless steel sink drain strainers from the Pound Shop. I thought they'd look good used in the sound hole of a guitar. Don't think I'll use them on these though, nice boxes as they are. I'll put some piccies on when they start taking shape.

The case I'm making is on hold for a while till I get some guitars done. Been collecting various pieces of foam packing material for the inside moulding so that's the next stage. I tried the lid for the stomp box idea but it didn't sound too good. I could put a pick-up in it but really wanted one to be useful on it's own. I might ditch that idea for the case and make a stand-alone stomper. I got the old bass drum pedal on Ebay which was meant to be used with an old suitcase as the drum. Haven't got a case yet but might work on that idea next. I tried the pedal on a plastic waste bin (which sounds good when used as a hand drum) but I had problems co-ordinating my foot with my guitar playing.

A few of other ideas. Photograph some of my boxes and put them on the smojomusic website for people to choose to have made into a guitar. Had a few requests for tabs for my tunes on Youtube. I might eventually try to write them down and maybe produce an Ebook with palying tips and some tabbed music but that's a long way off yet.

Over on Shane Speal's forum he's talking about a documentary coming up on tv in the USA about CBG's. He's anticipating it generating a lot of interest in the subject and advising others CBGers to get busy making guitars and sorting out their websites. Which reminds me that I want to improve my smojomusic site. It's free webspace hosted by my ISP. I've used their own template and it's a bit basic. It will take webs made on Frontpage which I'd like to try but as with any computer software, there's a steep learning curve to get it right and it all takes up time. If my plans for semi-retirement come off in Spring I can get stuck into some serious CBG work.

I went to a guitar fair last Summer. I made enquiries about having a stall. There was no-one else doing anything with CBG's or even slide guitar playing. If I can get a dozen guitars made my June I might try a stall there. I think they'd go well due to the brilliant and cool nature of these little buggers.

I've made the decision to try put a short Youtube clip of each guitar I make so potential buyers can see they actually sound good (despite my ropey playing). Youtube has surprised me, I've had a lot more visits than I expected and some good feedback. Well that's about it for now but I'll leave you with this. Clinton and Blair thought they were being cool playing sax and a Strat but what they should have done is got themselves a cigar box guitar. We might have forgiven them a little :)

What can I say about cigar box guitars?

I'm sitting wondering what I can say next. Well I was e-mailing another budding CBG builder and telling him what appealed to me about this business. It's so satisfying for me, I love being creative in general so what's nice about this is the whole process. I like recycling so it's cool when I can find stuff to make into an instrument and I like things that are a bit different and quirky. I enjoy the woodworking and being able to design something unique, then seeing my idea slowly emerge into reality. I love making music and playing guitars so I get a new toy to explore too. I like photography and writing about stuff so doing this blog is nice. Now I'm making some contacts with other CBGers and they are a great bunch to converse with. Lastly when someone gets one of my guitars and I see the excitement and enthusiasm that it generates, I get a huge buzz.

Three guitars have recently found new homes so I need to get busy making a few more. I have two necks in the first stage of preparation. One is a piece of pitch pine. It was varnished on one side so I've left that on and just planed up the other three sides. It's got some old character to it and nice grain. I can't decide yet whether to use that as the fretboard side or the back. The other is a piece of light oak and I might give it the dark stain treatment like the last one I made.

I have a good stock of nice boxes and can't decide which to use. I've a nice green Ramon Allones box which will be one of them. My first finished CBG was one and was meant for me but a work colleague fell in love with it at first sight and bought it of me. I'm a bit possessive when I find a real good one like the Indian Tabac box shown here. I am using one to keep my harmonicas in and another is reserved for a cracking CBG for myself one day. I'll post some pictures when they are taking shape.

A challenge to all you cigar box guitar builders

Not a cigar box guitar but a challenge to your instrument building skills. Check out this baby and see if you can make one for me :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmoJj9cvOJU

Intonation and saddle position on cigar box guitars

Intonation is the ability of the guitar to sound and play "in tune" at the correct fret positions and if it's wrong, a guitar won't play good at all. Not quite so critical on a fretless instrument as you play mainly "by ear" but you still want to get it right. Here's my method for setting the bridge/saddle position on my CBGs.

The neck will have already been marked out with the correct fret positions from a template which also includes the approximate position of the saddle. As you probably know, the 12th fret lies halfway between the nut and the saddle and gives you the first octave of the same note found on the open string. So that is the important position to get right.

I set the neck in the box to place the saddle about 1/3 from the tail. Don't know if that's the absolute best place for it but it seems right to me for aesthetic and playing purposes. When the neck is fixed and the lid fastened down, I string it up and place the saddle roughly where it should be. I keep the string tension low at this point so I can move the saddle easy. I use the shaft of a small screwdriver as a "slide" (easier to see the exact position over the frets due to it's narrow diameter). Next pluck a string open and either tune it to a set note with an electronic tuner or just listen to it if your pitch ear is good. Put the screwdriver slide over the 12th fret and pluck again. Is it the same note an octave higher exactly? If it is you were lucky and job done.

Assuming it's not spot on, keep plucking and move the slide up or down the string till you find the exact spot. Is it nearer or further from the saddle than the 12th fret position? If it's nearer the saddle (above the 12th) then move the saddle nearer to the nut thus shortening the nut-saddle distance until it's bang over the 12th. If the octave is below the 12th position then move the saddle nearer the tail of the guitar. Once you've got it in the right place you can either mark it's position, slacken the strings and glue it in place or just leave it unglued and tension up the strings to the pitch you want them. My preference now is not to glue because that gives me the option of fine tuning it in the future without ripping it off the box.