Red “Punch” Cigar Box
This was built for a friend who helped get me started building cigar box guitars. As I was just cutting my teeth on learning to play, and contemplating my first build, he gave a box full of all the older parts he had upgraded in various guitars over the years, as well a handful of guitar speakers. Thanks Carl!
This guitar features a quartersawn maple “core”, creating what is essentially a through neck. The box serves primary as the enclosure for the electronics (and for looks of course!). She is equipped with a popular ’59 Les Paul Neck Pickup replica, and a TOM bridge, with 500k pots, and a 0.022 uF cap. The volume pot is a push-pull, allowing the non-adjustable portion of the humbucker to be turned off, extending the tonal possibilities. The four strings from the middle of a standard pack of strings are used, which combined with a short scale (20.707″) allow for a handful of open tunings. The guitar was set up for open G, consisting of D, G, B, D.
“The Forge”
Built throughout 2017 and 2018, “The Forge” was built for a friend Pat. He wanted something “ES-335” like, but left all the details up to me. Knowing his passion for blacksmithing, I added abalone “Anvil” inlays to this hand carved, maple and mahogany piece. Equipped with Seymour Duncan Blues Pick Ups, and a blue Nitro Lacquer finish, this guitar is ready rock.
“Gisbert 3 String Cigar Box”
I started collecting cigar boxes for guitar building. These square Gispert ones are actually pretty good. The whole box is wood (as opposed to fiberboard) and are fairly well constructed to start. This little guitar is actually a ton of fun to play. Basically consider it tuned to G. Barre away!
“Rebel Spirit” aka “The Red Guitar”
Starting with a sketch in the margins of a notebook, it was a lot of fun to bring this guitar to life. Small bodied, with a 25″ scale length, it handles beautifully, and packs a punch.
Thinbody OM