More cigar box guitars

[CarveOne]

I found a local source for real cigar boxes recently, so I purchased three of them. Then, found all the information I needed online to design the necks in Aspire. These are 1x2 by approximately 30"red oak. The fret locations are scribed 0.030" deep with a 60 degree V-bit, the fret markers are pocketed with a 1/8" end mill, the rest of the shapes to lower thr peg head and fit the other end to the boxes are done with a 1/4" down spiral router bit. The fret markers are fired small pistol primers made of brass. They fit snug, and are set flush with the surface. One of the necks has a bocote fret board. These will be three string guitars with piezo pickups inside. The boxes will still open when finished. The fret slots will be cut to depth by hand with a fret saw using the scribe lines and a small Xacto miter box. The frets are flat. The necks will be shaped a little on the back side.

CarveOne

[zeeway]

C1-

These will be elegant when done. Can we expect a concert at McGrew's next Spring...

Angie

[CarveOne]

LOL, only if you or someone else plays it. I can only play pseudo-random noises on one. I haven't improved at all since I was 4 years old. I ordered a twin speaker 2.5 watt battery powered amplifier from the CB Gitty website along with frets, piezo kits, and other stuff yesterday.

These are fun to build, and can sound pretty awesome in some of the videos I found online. I need to start learning to play them. Seems to be more complicated than CNC technology though ...

CarveOne

[mikeacg]

These are great! I'll teach you to play if you'll teach me to make them!

Mike

[CarveOne]

Mike,

This particular neck is designed as a 23" tuning length with 19 frets. This is determined by using an online calculator on the stewmac.com website. There are calculators for string spacings and string height info is on various sites. Then it gets more complicated. The choices of fret widths and heights, string sizes, and hardware to use can be mind boggling. Fortunately, cigar box guitars shatter all the rules and makes it easy. Just use what is called "found hardware". Go buy a book called An Obsession with Cigar Box Guitars by David Sutton and you will be hooked.

The box you use will determine how long the neck material you use, due to the length of the box. These two are about 9.5" long, so I have two files that are identical other than at the box end and the added thickness of the fret board.

Teaching me to play might be your life challenge.

CarveOne

[CarveOne]

The .crv3d file compresses to around 400kb, so I can post them here if anyone who wants them speaks up. I can also save them as .crv files for the newer version of Vcarve Pro users. Note that the cigar boxes you buy can be slightly different in dimensions from the ones I bought. Of course, you can make your own CNC boxes. There are no rules against it. A neck through a Paradise box might be an interesting display piece, although it might be too heavy.

CarveOne

[martin54]

These are great, my son actually has one that he bought years ago, have to make sure he doesn't see this or he will have me making more of them for him

[CarveOne]

That's the way these things work. Show them to someone and they just have to have one. There is a lot of history about them online but last year was the first time I had heard of them.

Carveone

[CarveOne]

Quietly waiting for CBG supplies to arrive tomorrow or Thursday. (Sound of fingers tapping on the desktop) Meanwhile, the necks have been shaped and a small red oak scrap wood heel added to both necks. They mostly hide a small gap where the lower part of the cigar box meets the underside of the neck. The heel is glued only to the neck so that the box can still be opened.

CarveOne

[scottp55]

MAY make a nice shield

[CarveOne]

Hold one by the tuner end of the neck and they'll make a good cigar box themed mace. Especially with a brick inside the box. I would rather learn to play the things than to fight with them.


CarveOne

[signmarketingman]

i am speaking up.. for the files.. Thank you.

[CarveOne]

Here ya go.

Both necks are included in the zip file. I used 1x2 lumber (no profile cut for the shape), but with some modification the neck can be cut from a wider board if you prefer. One file is for no fret board, the other has a 0.140" thick fret board. The fret board I used is a 3" wide by 36" long piece of bocote I found at a Woodcraft store. Dimensions for the neck need to be adjusted for any changes you make in whatever you use. The tuning length is 23" and the zero fret is the second v-groove down from the top end of the neck. The top two v-grooves indicate where to place the "nut". There is some extra fret board material above these locations that was left for beveling (or to radius) the fret board into the peg head area. If you don't want the top most v-groove just un-select it and recalculate the fret grooves.

These take 15 minutes or less to make each, with no waste material the way I have them configured. If you want to change the scale length, there is an online calculator on the http://www.stewmac.com web site that will generate the fret spacings numbers to use. The VCP/Aspire Offset tool was used to place copies of the fret vectors with precision based on these numbers.

CarveOne

[mikeacg]

Thank you for your generosity Richard! I can't wait to try these out!

Mike

[CarveOne]

You're welcome Mike.

I exported the vectors to dxf files only to find that they grew in size dramatically from crv3d format. Zipping them made very little difference. I'll try .crv format later today.

CarveOne