once it's cut out shape it like crazy with sandpaper/files or whatever you prefer to use to get it feeling nice in your hand. be careful not to round over the edge where the fretboard will be glued on. Fret markers: Ukes are usually marked at the 5th, 7th, and 10th frets. Pearl dots are traditional. I used a 3/8" wooden dowel. I thought about making a mold and melting plastic from plastic bags for the saddle and nut, but chose instead to destroy a few dominoes. Warning: cutting and sanding the dominoes will dull whatever you use to cut and sand them with. There is also a nasty burning plastic smell. Wear protection and work in a well ventilated area. Another advantage of a Salvage Sounds cigar box guitar is the proportion of the instruments. The most common “scale length” of cigar box guitars elsewhere is 25 inches (this being the string length between the nut and the bridge upon which the fret spacing is based). Our cigar box guitars instead have a comfortable 22.5 inch scale length (inspired by the original Fender Duo-Sonic guitars of the 1950s).

The inside of the lid must also be braced, as it will endure a lot of pressure from the vibrating strings. A light but strong wood is good for this, as it will allow the lid to vibrate but will prevent any damage. I used pine because I had some lying around. I followed Steve Miller's X-brace design, cutting out two thin lengths of pine and fitting them to the box in an X, narrowing them at the center so they overlapped. That's right, this is the end. It is time to install the tuners and strings. Installing the tuners will vary for each instrument. I took the tuners from a thrift shop guitar, so I had to cut down the metal sheet that houses the tuning pegs with the metal cutter on a dremel. If you follow this example be sure to wear protection and watch out for fire hazards, this throws a lot of sparks.Tuners (I bought a set of 3x3 guitar tuners, I figured I could use the extra 2 on another project later) Another great set of plans with beautiful diagrams. Originally published in 1920 by Charles A. King, these have been archived straight from the scan so you can see them exactly as they ran almost 100 years ago. Note about cutting on a band saw: When cutting a hardwood on a band saw, some pressure has to be applied to move the wood through the blade. I was not prepared for the moment when the wood slipped past the blade and the pressure was suddenly gone. When cutting slow down as you reach the end of a cut so the change in pressure does not whip your hand toward the blade. Video lesson on how to build a heavy metal one-string shovel guitar, as played by Youtube sensation, Rob Scallon. Uncle Crow shows how to make a simple, yet great sounding cigar box guitar in less than an hour. He includes step-by-step video instructions.

The cigar box guitar (or CBG) is probably the most commonly known roots instrument, and was the original inspiration for the formation of Salvage Sounds. Thanks to the work of Shane Speal and the Cigar Box Nation movement, more and more people are coming to know of these amazing instruments, full of character and stories to tell. Note: if you use wire for your frets, the way you sand and finish your fret board may also differ from these instructions. Set its upper edge parallel with the fingerboard, and so that the latter is flush with the top of the body, when fitted to it. As we only deal with larger size cigar boxes that fit a minimum of 50 cigars (and not the smaller 25-cigar size you often see elsewhere in the cigar box guitar market), our CBGs are guaranteed to have a warm, full-bodied acoustic sound that is pleasing to the ear. However, as all our cigar box guitars are fitted with controllable preamps, they can be plugged in and played as electric guitars as well. In a clever twist to the design that we have not seen used elsewhere (yet!), we fit the control panel discretely “hidden” to the rear of the cigar box guitar. This has the dual benefit of keeping the aesthetics clean from the front of the instrument as it is viewed by others or when displayed on the wall, while having the control system easily accessible to the player for adjustment. Les Claypool's one-string Whamola is the mutated and high voltage bastard-son of the washtub bass. Using a lever tuning/playing system, the instrument delivers globular, freak-out sounds. Just watch this video to get an idea... >> Read more...

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The positions of the frets depends on the scale length of the ukulele. The plans posted here (uke2, see below) are for a concert size. For fret position measurements, search "fret calculator" in google or go here . For a concert size I used a 15" scale length with 17 frets. Essential! The cigar box guitar plans that started the modern movement. Designed by Cigar Box Nation founder, Shane Speal, these plans were then adapted and improved by Ivan Sucharski. The article that inspired the modern Cigar Box Guitar Renaissance. These are the plans that Shane Speal used to build his first cigar box guitar… and from that first cigar box guitar, he went on to jump-start the entire modern cigar box guitar revival. For added strength we drilled a hole through the walnut support and the tenon joint and inserted a dowel so it ran through the mortise and tenon and joined them together. Because my joint was loose, we also inlaid pine to make the joint tight. Because this step is optional (and hopefully unnecessary) I will not go into more detail here. Information about inlaying wood can be found online. A short scale modification to the 3-String Pro Plans that will bring your sounds into the mandolin and ukulele range. Features demo video.