How to Make a Cigar Box Guitar
Perhaps on the television or live, you have seen a musician or it is someone at your college playing guitar. Now you want to buy one but do not have enough money as you are a student. Asking for money to buy a guitar from your parents would be like belling the cat as you know about the possible outcome. There might be many things lying useless within your house that you might have never thought can be used differently. Such an item can be the empty wooden Cigar Box that was probably in use of your grandfather in the 60s. You will jump out of chair upon knowing that the useless wooden cigar box can be used to make a guitar.
Things Required:
Protective eye-wear
cigar box made of wood
3 feet long and 1 x 2 inch piece of wood
wooden clothespin
Drill and drill bits
saw
Guitar strings
one eye lag for each string
Wood Glue
Instructions
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1
Place all the listed above items on the top of a table or a floor in such a way that you do not have to look for them every now and then.
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2
First of all, open the box and mark the wood where you want to make the grooves in such a way that the box closes comfortably over the 3 feet long and 1 x 2 inch piece of wood.
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3
Make sure that the end where the box closes and attached to the neck of the guitar is atleast 2 inches from the bottom of the box.
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4
Now putting on the protective eyewear, make grooves in the 1 inch-by-2 inch piece to match the point of closing of the box with the help of saw.
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5
Depending on the number of strings you want in the guitar, make hole using the drill for your strings to go through, starting from two rows of holes.
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6
For making sound holes into the wooden box, simply drill a few small holes on the top of the box on each side.
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7
Now fix the piece of wood to the wooden box with wood glue and wait till it completely dries and becomes rock solid.
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8
Discarding the metal hinge out of the wooden clothespin, fix one side of it on the to the top of the wooden box using wood glue keeping around 1.5 inches from the bottom to make the bridge.
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9
Thread a string down one drilled hole and up the other at the bottom of the cigar box, making knots to hold the strings firmly.
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10
Pulling the string over the bridge and bringing at the top of the guitar, roll it over the nut threading the string down one hole at the top of the neck and up the other hole.
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11
Finally wrapping the string around an eye lag, screw the eye lag into the top hole in a way that it could be adjusted for tuning when required.
