Cigar box guitar and variations

How hard is it to build a cigar box guitar, ukulele, banjo, or other string instrument at home?

I found a cigar box in my basement, doing a very important job (it's seriously the only place in the house that our hole won't go walkabouts).  Later that day, I saw a huge pile of cigar boxes in an antique shop.  They must have cost more than they did when full of cigars, but that shop is well known for over pricing most things.

Perhaps, this is a sign from the universe.  With my recent interest in string instruments, I decided to ask the font of all knowledge, my library.



That was unexpected.

Pleasantly unexpected.

The creativity in these books is amazing.   I feel like I could even make one.  There are cigar box guitars, tin ham can ukulele,  briefcase, even olive oil cans.



Some of these sound pretty nifty, not like I expected at all.



I had no idea this world was so vast.  It lowers the bar to enter stringed music to anyone who can upcycle. Even strings can be made from upcycled materials, apparently.   Bailing wire was mentioned.  

Instead of sounding all the same, each instrument has a unique voice.

We won't be sacrificing/upcycling the family cigar box any time soon, but I now know what to look for and have an idea or two tickling my brain.

Thank goodness you included a picture of your cigar box doing its very important job... You had lost me completely until I saw 'the hole' - technically it's a thing that makes a large hole into a small hole - and I recognize its value and importance.

Big business has taken over so much of our lives, we tend to forget that huge areas of music were developed from upcycled, homemade instruments. It tended to be looked down on because the wealthy could afford pianos or to pay people to entertain them. But many instruments had very basic beginnings - horn instruments made out of animal horns, flutes made out of long bird bones, and more recently, instruments hammered out of the tops of metal shipping barrels.

I was going to call it a timbit, but not sure who would get the reference.

If I ever do make something like this, the hole would make a good template for the sound hole in the guitar.  It amuses me as this little plastic hole was one of my favourite toys as a kid.  It was such an important part of music in the house.  

Earlier this winter I made a small gourd instrument, the first instrument I’ve made that actually works well—a gourd back, birch bark front, with the neck being seasoned beech wood saved from the firewood, a cherry fingerboard, and an ash spike, a floating maple bridge, and strings of nylon fishing line. The instrument is three-stringed and fretless, and uses hide glue. Tuning pegs are also maple.

I would say it is the most soulful instrument I can remember ever playing and on most days I tend to prefer it over anything not homemade. My friend also says it feels better than other string instruments she’s held, and attributes it to the materials. I feel like there is something magical in making something that may not have a name, may not look like any other instrument in the world, but definitely has a soul. I can’t say where exactly this soul comes from, but it could be that all the materials except the strings are of this land. Another part could be the fretless nature, as it doesn’t push notes to being one or the other but lets them be fluid and in the middle.

There are lots of unexplored materials—just because they haven’t been used before doesn’t mean they can’t be.

Does a gut bucket count as a stringed instrument? My husband made one with a piece of paracord, as stick, and 5 gallon bucket.

Here's some instructions on how to make your own: https://www.cbgitty.com/news/5gallon-bucket-bass-a-simple-onestring-bass-builders-diary/

Gut bucket with just string, a bucket, and some sticks

My husband's is even more simple than that. I'll see if I can find it....

absolutely counts.

One of my parents friends when I was a kid used to play the wash bucket broom stick string thing (as I understood it when I was quite young).  She would play it around different music festivals.  

To make a cigar box ukulele (or guitar), it looks like I would need to find

- a box
- a stick
- something for a bridge
- something for a nut (top of stick where strings go)
- tuning somethings
- strings

Did I miss anything?

I made my cigar box guitar back in 2015. I asked a friend for the cigar box. The neck is a piece of oak that a cabinet maker gave to my Dad. We had a small stack of them when I was growing up and we always used them as swords. Anyways, it goes all the way through the body, being screwed to the top of the box. The bridge and nut came from a bolt that I cut in half. They were glued in place, but the glue has broken loose so now they float under the strings. I took the tuning machines from a 1/2 size kids guitar that was coming apart. I disassembled a Radio Shack piezo element for the pickup. But I don't plug it in very often.

There is a need for some way to attach strings at the lower end. There are multiple ways to do this:

1. Have some form of tailpiece where the strings attach, which is similar to banjos, mandolins and violin family. In this case you could make a very simple bridge:



2. A spike goes all the way along/through the instrument, narrowing at the tip, such that strings can be looped around—early banjos and citoles have this sort of string attachment, and so does my homemade gourd instrument. This seems like the easiest in my opinion.

On ekonting, this goes over the gourd and is secured in place by the skin—the bridge straddles this papyrus stick. In my instrument and in banjos, the spike is attached separately to the neck and passes under the skin/sound board.

Their bridges are also quite simple, and look very much like their namesake.

I do not know why this style of string attachment is not more used! It seems very secure as far as I have seen.

3. Have a bridge that is firmly attached, like guitar and ukulele, and the strings are tied or pegged to that. This will be the most familiar to you.

4. Some invention I don’t know about, whether you make it up yourself or I just don’t know about it!