Wired Science

Play Music with your own Custom Guitar

Have you ever wanted to build your own guitar? Forget Gibson and Yamaha - you can create your own custom design in a single afternoon with less than $20 and a cigar box. The only remaining challenge will be finding a place to throw a concert for your friends and family. Watch our very own GeekDad Dylan Tweney as he and his friend Ben build a guitar out of a cigar box.  

Get ready to rock out!

INSTRUCTIONS:

To build a Cigar Box Guitar yourself, you'll need:

• Eye protection
• A cigar box (wooden or cardboard)
• About a 3 foot long 1”x 2” piece of wood
• Two small pieces of wood about 2 inches wide
• At least 10 feet of thin twine (such as number 15)
• A drill with multiple sized bits, three wood screws
• Three eye bolts or eye screws
• A wood file
• Wood glue
• Scissors
• A hack saw
• A marker or pencil.

Follow the simple steps below or click HERE for instructions from CigarBoxGuitars.com:

1. Safety First: Put on your eye protection! 

2. Preparing the Neck and the Body: With a small saw, cut corresponding notches in both the cigar box and the 3 foot piece of wood. The notches in the wood should be flush and at the same height as the notches in the top of the cigar box. They should fit snugly together.

3. String Holes: Before gluing the wood to the box, you’ll need to drill holes for the strings. Carefully drill six holes at each end of the piece of the wood. The holes should be in rows of three.

4. Sound Holes: Drill a few holes in the lid of the cigar box in order to let sound out of the body. You can punch a few normal holes, or do something fancy, like “f” holes.

5. Attach the Neck: (the long piece of wood) and the body (cigar box) using wood glue. Make sure you can still open the lid of the cigar box.

6. String it Up: Cut three pieces of twine that are each 3 feet in length. Using one piece of twine at a time, lace it down through one hole and back up through another. Make a simple half knot around the screw and tighten the screw in the hole. Do this at each end for all three pieces of twine. Note: be sure to use the wood screws for the end of the wood nearest the cigar box and use the eye bolts or eye screws for the other end. The eye bolts will act as tuning pegs.

7. The Bridge and the Nut: Using the two small pieces of wood, you will create the bridge and the nut. The nut should be slightly smaller than the bridge. Place the bridge and the nut under the strings and draw three marks on either side of the string. Using those lines as guides, cut small grooves into each. Do this for both pieces of wood.     

8. Placing the Bridge and the Nut: Place the bridge between the strings and the cigar box. Slide the nut in between the strings and the neck up towards the tuning pegs. The strings should rest in the grooves on the bridge and the nut. 

9. Tune it: You might want to use an electric tuner or a pitch pipe to get the guitar to sound right.

10. Now, start jamming! 

Alternate Improvements: Visit our Related Links or watch the GeekDad video for ways to trick out your new guitar. You can add frets, real guitar string, real tuning pegs or even amplify it. It’s all here and more on WIRED SCIENCE.