The How-To Repository for the Cigar Box Guitar Movement!
How to Build and Play Cigar Box Guitars and other Homemade Instruments
How-to articles and videos related to preparing the neck and headstock for your cigar box guitar.
No fancy tools required to make this awesome headstock for your cigar box guitar
By Glenn Watt
Thanks to craftswoman Farley Andresen for the demonstrating the work 
Cigar box is in the name, but the neck is what turns the box into a cigar box guitar.
And the headstock – the part of the neck that anchors your tuning pegs – is a critical component to getting, and keeping, your CBG fully functional. Continue reading “A Step-by-Step Guide On How To Make a Straight Headstock”
In the video below, Shane Speal shows his technique of reinforcing internal bracing on neck-through cigar box guitars with extra wood. He also shows how to use a Forstner bit to route out the cavity for a mini humbucker pickup. (Note: the pickup used is a C. B. Gitty Toaster Bucker mini humbucker.) Continue reading “Cigar Box Guitar Building Tip: Neck Reinforcement with Humbuckers”
Fretting directly onto a guitar neck is a great option to showcase the natural beauty of the wood you have chosen for your neck, rather than using a fretboard. However, this does make using a traditional nut a bit more challenging. This article shows you one way you can install a bone (or hardwood) nut blank onto your fretted cigar box guitar neck.
Fretting directly onto a guitar neck is a great option to showcase the natural beauty of the wood you have chosen for your neck, rather than using a fretboard. However, this does make using a traditional nut a bit more challenging. Continue reading “How to Notch a Fretted Cigar Box Guitar Neck for a Nut”
In this video how-to, Glenn Watt walks you through a great way to add fret position markers your cigar box guitar fretboard using wooden dowels. While a lot of folks are happy with just using a Sharpie or woodburning fret marks into their fretboard, using inset fret markers looks really good and definitely can give a build a more professional look. If you’ve consider it but thought it too hard or too much effort, think again! Glenn shows you just how quickly you can add this great feature to your next build.
Glenn Watt recently created a great how-to video walking you through how to create a scarf joint on a cigar box guitar neck. A scarf joint is a special angled cut which, when glued back together, angles the headstock away from the fingerboard surface of the neck at a specified angle (usually about 15 degrees). Having the headstock angled like this makes it easier to get the strings to stay tight against the nut (this is referred to as the “break angle” of the strings).
So check this video out, and give a scarf joint a try on your next build. It does take some care and attention to detail to make one, but it is well worth the effort!
This video by cigar box guitar craftsman Glenn Watt shows you a good way to notch your cigar box so that the neck will fit into it, for a standard neck-through style cigar box guitar.
In this video, Glenn Watt walks you through notching/recessing a neck so it will fit properly into a cigar box guitar.