(Optional) Getting Electrical

The black cylindrical object on the bottom corner of the cigar box is the piezo pickup's input, seen here attached to the box by velcro. The red disc is the piezo pickup itself, still waiting to be attached to the underside of the fretboard. (Photo by Mark Feuerborn.)

This post is for builders interested in making their cigar box guitars electric. If you have not ordered a piezo pickup by this time, it'd be best to skip this part.

The sound the guitar will give out electrically is entirely dependent on the placement of the piezo pickup. You are free to place the pickup anywhere you would like on the guitar, but the following has been where I have had the most luck:

Take your piezo pickup and lift up the fretboard out of the cigar box. Place the wire from the input to the pickup in the corner of the backside cut that you made earlier in the cigar box, specifically where the fretboard is placed. This particular placement of the pickup works best if you cut a small wedge out of the corner to place the wire in, allowing it to fit in its own spot while still letting the fretboard rest snugly in its original cut out spot. Utilizing the velcro included with the pickup, use the adhesive on the velcro to attach it to the side of the cigar box guitar. This will be where the input rests on the guitar.

Attaching the pickup itself requires more accuracy. You can either choose to remove the adhesive cover on the piezo and permanently attach it, or use tape on the red side to affix it temporarily. Take into account where you placed the bridge on the lid of the cigar box, as this will determine where to place the pickup. You will want to place the pickup in the middle of the underside of the fretboard, slightly closer to the middle of the cigar box than the bridge sits.

This placement of the piezo pickup should provide a well balanced sound plugged into any regular guitar amp. One thing to watch on the amp itself is high gain level, however, as this can produce unpleasant feedback, Always set any amps used to low gain.

Bridge and Nut Placement

The bridge is the black piece of wood seen here attached to the "Java" label on the cigar box. The nut is the piece of wood attached just before the headstock begins. (Photo by Mark Feuerborn.)

Bridge and nut placement is a seemingly simple part of the cigar box guitar creation process, but keep in mind that accuracy is key here. The bridge and nut are two mechanisms that raise the strings to their appropriate place, and keep them locked in so to allow them to follow a straight path down the length of the fretboard before guiding the strings into the tuning pegs. Depending on how the bridge and nut are placed, the tone and playing of your cigar box guitar could be entirely different.

Two key factors are determined by the bridge and nut: Scale length, and action. Scale length is the distance between the bridge and the nut. With longer scale lengths comes longer strings, and greater string tension, which can affect sound and make bending strings while playing more difficult. Action is the height of the strings raised up from the body and fretboard of the guitar, which can also affect the ease in playing the guitar itself. Action is determined by the height of the bridge and nut, which prop the strings up to their resting height.

When crafting my bridge and nut, I generally take a 1/4" wooden dowel and cut it in half with a coping saw. Be careful doing this, as cutting objects as small as these is very difficult. The dowels cut in half give me flat surfaces to attach the bridge and nut to the guitar with, and rounded ones on top to make carving the guides for the strings somewhat easier.

If the dowel method is one you find too dangerous, or you would prefer a more rustic look, you can also use an eye-bolt and screw for your bridge and nut. Keep in mind, however, that this usually gives the cigar box guitar an extremely high action, and generally renders it good for only slide playing.

When placing either the dowels or bolts, use wood glue. Attach the nut first, at its rigid location of 1/2" below the beginning of the headstock. You will now have to determine your desired scale length. Any larger than 24" is usually too long for cigar box guitar strings to handle. I generally set my scale length at 21". Upon determining scale length, take a ruler or tape measure and measure out your determined scale length from the nut to the area on the cigar box where you will place your bridge. Make a small notch with a pencil for accuracy, and proceed to attach the bridge.

Congratulations, you have just finished one of the two most complex steps in creating the cigar box guitar! In our next post, we'll look into installing the piezo pickup system.

Making Your Own Fretboard: Part Four

Remember to make sure the bottoms of the pegs don't get in the way of each other. (Photo by Mark Feuerborn.)

In this post, we will now proceed to affix the tuning pegs to the headstock of the fretboard. This is a fairly straightforward process, as it's just a matter of lining up the tuning pegs with their proper holes and making sure the square bottoms of the pegs don't get in the way of each other.

If you are using the NEWEER pegs, keep in mind that of the six you receive, three will be constructed a different way than the other three so to allow for the pegs to stay uniformly placed regardless of whether they face outwards on the left or right side of the headstock.

When putting the screws in that will fasten the pegs in place, you can either drill small pilot holes for the screws to go in, or just attempt to screw them into the wood.

Making Your Own Fretboard: Part Three

I have a custom carved headstock on my fretboard, and the backside of the fretboard is sanded into a round shape. You'll find that for making a smooth, naturally glossy finished product, fine-grade sandpaper and very fine-grade steel wool are your best friends. (Photo by Mark Feuerborn.)

In today's entry, we'll try to kill three birds with one stone. This is an optional post, as your need to follow these steps is entirely dependent on the design you are aiming for with your guitar.

If it interests you for the design for your guitar, we'll carve the headstock into a custom shape. There really aren't any guidelines for this step other than to use a good knife to carve your shape, and routinely stop carving to sand the shape up closer and closer to the desired result. For the Feuerborn Guitars signature headstock, I aim for a shape similar to a knife blade, where one side curves inward to meet the other curve in a point. Rough sandpaper is great to use to shape the wood, but to get a very smooth finish on the shape, end by using fine-grade sandpaper. Be careful when shaping the headstock so that you don't carve off all of the space between the tip and the tuning peg holes.

After the headstock has been carved and sanded down into your desired shape, we'll carve and sand the fretboard itself. You are welcome to keep the fretboard's edges if you prefer, but carving up and sanding the back will allow for smoother movement and better comfort when playing the instrument. Be sure to check both sides of the fretboard as you go to ensure you don't sand the back of the fretboard into a lopsided shape. You also only have to sand the part of the fretboard that sticks out from the cigar box guitar, as the fretboard's edges in the area beside that are necessary to attach it to the cigar box. However, it's a good idea to slightly sand the edges of both the top-side of the fretboard and the back end where the strings will be inserted, so they aren't as pointy.

Once the fretboard is shaped up, we'll move on to painting the entire fretboard and headstock, which is also optional. Generally I prefer to paint my fretboards to a color that matches the cigar box, however with some cigar boxes the natural color of the poplar wood fits well. I generally use spray paint, the Rustoleum brand specifically, for a solid color. However, you are more than welcome to crack out a brush and put mutliple colors and designs on your fretboard. With either spray paint or brush paint, put some newspapers under the fretboard, start with one side, and then let it dry. After the paint on one side dries, turn the fretboard over and repeat the same process for the other side. If using spray paint, you'll want to apply two coats on both sides.

Once your paint has been applied to both sides, let it dry for a night. Before we begin the next step, take a moment to check your paint to make sure it is oil-based. If it is water-based, do not do the next step, you are finished. If it is oil-based, we will take very fine-grade steel wool and polish the paint with it. Polishing the paint with the steel wool works just like sanding, but be slightly gentler when you press.

Afterwards, you should be left with a high quality fretboard. The only steps left in preparing it are attaching the tuning pegs and nut, and painting on frets if you would like, which we will explore in a later post.

Making Your Own Fretboard: Part Two

The holes at the top of the fretboard will be where the tuning pegs are inserted. (Photo by Mark Feuerborn.)

It's time to take a look at the fretboard again, and make some additions to it. For the first part of the building process, we will be using a drill with a 1/4" drill bit to start, and for the second part any drill bit smaller than 1/32" can be used. Keep in mind that these instructions were based off of a fretboard built with the NEEWER tuning pegs shown in a previous post on supplies, and that different tuning pegs may need bigger or smaller drill bits.

First, place the fretboard against a hard surface, preferably one low to the ground so we can place some pressure on the side opposite where we are drilling. The most important thing to remember when drilling the tuning peg holes is the large square bottoms on the tuning pegs. If the holes are made too close together, the square bottoms on the tuning pegs will intersect with each other, and could cause some serious problems with one's build, potentially even requiring the creation of a new fretboard altogether.

Next, take a pencil and mark where on the fretboard the tuning peg holes will be drilled. For a three string cigar box guitar, two of the tuning pegs will protrude outward from the same side, while one peg protrudes from the opposite side. Make sure the tuning peg holes are not too close to the sides of the fretboard. The two tuning pegs facing out on the same side should be spaced two inches apart. The two should also not be drilled parallel, as this will cause the guitar strings to intersect. For the odd tuning peg hole out, the only precaution is to make sure the hole is drilled in a spot where its bottom does not intersect with the other tuning peg bottoms. If needing better accuracy when drilling, it also helps to start drilling with a smaller drill bit to make "pilot holes" and progressively drill the same holes with bigger bits.

With the tuning peg holes complete, we can move on to create the string holes on the bottom of the fretboard.

The string holes are best spaced 1/2" apart, and parallel on the end of the fretboard. (Photo by Mark Feuerborn.)

Any drill bit smaller than 1/32" will suffice for this part. Simply mark out three holes for which to lace guitar strings through. The holes should be 1/2" apart from each other, and preferably parallel.

Good job on drilling those holes. This is a relatively easy step in the building process, but one that takes precision. Getting sloppy with drilling can result with a small drill bit snapped in half, or an unusable fretboard.

(Optional) Ordering Parts to Make an Electric Cigar Box Guitar

This is an optional step that cigar box guitar makers can take if interested in making an electric model.

A common piezo pickup with a 1/4 inch input. I have used many of these in my cigar box guitars with great results. (Photo courtesy of niceEshop.)

Electric guitars, in their simplest form, utilize a pickup system that uses vibrations from strings that are plucked to produce sound. These pickups typically are fed through a 1/4 inch input that is standard in audio technology, or more rarely an XLR input common to microphones. The input is connected via a cable of matching input type to an amplifier that allows for the electric guitar's sound to become exponentially louder.

Thanks to Amazon.com, piezo pickup systems are easily obtainable for very reasonable prices. The type pictured above is a common generic piezo pickup with a built-in 1/4 inch input. Piezos are disc-shaped contact microphones that utilize any and all vibrations they pick up, and therefore have a variety of uses. The acoustic Southbound String Co. strings will also easily work with these piezo pickups. The model depicted above costs about five dollars here.

If interested in making an electric model cigar box guitar (Especially after seeing how easy it is) go ahead and order the piezo pickup. We will install it later as we get closer to finishing our cigar box guitars.

In our next post, we'll begin preparing to drill some holes in our fretboards to prepare them for tuning pegs and strings.

Focusing On The Cigar Box

Here's how the cigar box should look when we're done with it. The fretboard should be able to fit snugly through the rectangular hole and rest under the lid while allowing the box to close. (Photo by Mark Feuerborn.)

Now that we have our strings and tuning pegs on their way, let's focus on taking care of preparing our cigar box for the fretboard.

The cigar box acts as the body to our guitar, wherein the resounding chamber is found. This hollow area of the guitar is what accounts for the volume of the guitar, and can be greatly affected by size and type of wood.

To make the cigar box into the body of the guitar, it needs a few holes. First, we'll need a hole saw and a coping saw, both available at your local hardware store. Once purchased, we will work towards making necessary holes to allow the fretboard to fit snugly inside of the cigar box. Using the coping saw, make a rectangular hole that matches the dimensions of the fretboard - 1 & 1/2 inches by 3/4 inches - so the fretboard can fit through on both sides of the cigar box. Do not compensate for the lid, as the indent cut that was made in the fretboard will allow it to snugly fit inside of the box. It's alright to make a cut that is slightly too large (1/32 of an inch room for error) if you are aiming to make a model that allows for the box to still be opened.

Next, we will utilize the hole saw to create our resounding chamber. This is a relatively simple task and the size of the hole for the resounding chamber is entirely up to the designer's preferences. The one rule is that the hole must not be placed in an area where the fretboard will exposed from the lid. Personally, I prefer to make as big a sound hole as possible without interfering with the fretboard. In my latest build, I am making two sound holes on opposing diagonal sides to see how it affects the sound the cigar box guitar will give. Some cigar box guitar makers even go as far as to create F-holes for their soundholes, though I have not tried this yet. Feel free to experiment on later builds.

The next post is an optional step that can be taken to make the cigar box guitar electric. If you are looking to make an entirely acoustic cigar box guitar, skip the next blog post.