Tenor guitar No 7 with Demo. ShonKy cigar box guitar

It's been a busy couple of months here at ShonKy HQ
I've mostly been working on several commissions for solid body guitars details of which will come later. In between that I have managed to build a few cigar box instruments to sell.
One of them is this lovely little Tenor CBG
The 7th Ive made now.
I made the box on this one as had a bit of spruce doing nothing. The neck is Sapele with some unknown exotic hardwood for the fingerboard. Tenon jointed to the body.
 I decided on ovankol binding for the body and fingerboard too. Square fret markers.
Spalted Beech headstock front and heel cap add just the right amount of interest to an otherwise clean and simple build.
It's really lovely all round and sounds particularly good through an amp. Also very pleased with the F holes which I carved out with a dremel freehand.
SOUnd demo is below the pics.

Primitive Syle Diddley bow. 1 string cigar box guitar.

Here's another recent commission completed.
Its a 1 String Lefty. made in in a really primitive fashion. To get the effect The only power tool I used was a drill everything else was hand tools.
Made from a vintage solid wood German cigar box and a left over stick of maple. I used a  spokeshave to whittle the neck.
A Friend gave me some Deer Antlers that I used for the bridge, nut and end pin/ string Anchor.
I wanted to make a tuning peg out of the antler too but after spending a fair bit of time whittling one it just wasn't strong enough to withstand the stress so I resorted to using an classical guitar peg which I removed the button and replaced it with an Antler piece.
 the fret markers are roofing tacks.
to finish it was give a coat of woodstain. (Ebony and Oak thinned with white spirit.)
The last pic is of The new owner (Kev) who is very pleased with it.

Another tenor guitar

Another tenor guitar the 7th so far.
I made the box for this one from some left over spruce. I used some Ovankol binding left over from a previous fret board for the top of the box and  the fret board.

This one sounds quite nice acoustically but not fantastically loud. it is fitted with a piezo and sounds particularly good through an amp with little of the hand noise transference you usually get so I'm pretty pleased with that.
I'm also pretty pleased with the soundholes. Using a hand held dremel with no templates.

2 string fretless cigar box bass guitar

Its been a while since I posted anything (as usual) Mostly the summer holidays and getting a few commissions which has made me very busy.
The latest creation is this 2 string upright bass commissioned by Gavin Lloyd Wilson of Guitars Blog the second after the Double neck I built earlier this year.

SO here it is a 2 string fretless bass
Made with a vintage cigar box, reclaimed  maple neck with a lovely character grain Ovankol fingerboard.
Split pbass pickups and jazz bass wiring. He also wanted to be able to play it in an upright position which makes sense as it will be so neck heavy. So I used a snooker cue. I removed the ferrule from the unused half which I them embedded into the bottom of the body the thin end then can be screwed in easily or removed for portability. It was an idea suggested by some kind folks on the cigar box guitar builders group on facebook.

Cigar box Ukulele and a 3 string cigar box guitar. oh and a warwick refinish.

This month has been fairly quiet. The post Christmas duldrum and being off work for a few days after my finger met the bandsaw (I'm very lucky to report was not too serious) Also a nice bout of Flu this last week has made it a reasonably unproductive month. I had two commissions one for a cigar box guitar and another for a 3 string cigar box ukulele to complete which I managed.
I actually had both of these commissions before Christmas unfortunately I didn't really have any cigar boxes suitable so I had to go on a major hunt to find suitable ones. Since I have started it seems cigar boxes have become a bit scarce on EBAY uk and the ones that are there are becoming fairly pricey. where I used to be able to pickup a nice vintage box for 3 or 4 pounds they are now going more to the 8 to 10 pound and even more. plus the postage. In the end I won a joblot of 25 boxes from the USA of which 10 are really good for instrument making. Even with the postage and import duty it was still cheaper than buying 10 separate boxes from the UK.
The box for the Ukulele I found On Ebay USA too.
The 3 string is for a customer in Austria. he saw the last one I had made on facebook. a nice simple plain wooden box with a nice flat neck which can be played with a slide or like a fretless instrument and wanted one similar.
It's only a small box but amazingly loud acoustically. and when it's plugged in Wow!
I soaked of the label from the inside lid to put on the headstock as it was such an attractive one. It also has position markers on the fret board which show on the front as well as the edge.

 

 

 

The Cigar box ukulele is for a customer a bit closer to home In Wiltshire.  She wanted a nice box with attractive labels on.  I found this one on EBAY USA and knew it was perfect for the Uke.

It's actually a new box but has that vintage look to it with the embossed labels and Victorian style artwork.  This one is without a doubt the best cigar box ukulele I have made. It really is not far off a standard Uke in terms of tone and volume and I will be keeping my beady eye out for more of these boxes.  I tried out a different sound hole design with an X brace on the top which may have helped with the sound quality. 

 

I Also managed a refin of a local chaps Warwick Bass which came to me in a plain finish which was looking a little tired. So it was given a transluscent  red brown brown (Looks very red in the picture) coat. The plan was to finish it with a matt clear coat but as it looked pretty awesome with a bit of gloss decided to leave it like that.

 

 





 

 

 

 

Two latest cigar boxes. A tenor guitar and a 2 string fretless cigarbox guitar with a magnetic pickup

The two latest instruments from ShonKy are this 4 string tenor guitar

The box was found at a carboot sale by a friend who thought I would like it. It's fairly modern by my usual standards but as soon as I saw it I saw it had to be a tenor guitar.

I tried out a new tailpiece design on it which works a treat and looks really nice and is reasonably easy to make.

Other firsts on this one are a radiused fingerboard and stainless steel frets. to be fair you don't really notice the radius on a small fingerboard like this but the fret wire comes pre radiused! 

I also decided on the addition of a forearm rest to protect the arm from the fairly sharp edge and to bring the hand forward a bit as the bridge is fairly high.

It's been snapped up by a buyer in the Netherlands.

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The second one which at the time of writing is still available is this very diminutive 2 string.

It has a very small mahogany wills whiffs box sapele neck with a lovely smooth and flat Afromosia Board. Volume control with one of my 12 bore control knobs. The string ferrules are made from the primers in the cartridges. The pickup is 1 half of a modified pbass pickup. the plastic cut down rounded off and a wooden top added. The strings pass between the poles and it is height adjustable. Anyway it rocks. I'm tempted to make my first demo video featuring this one as it is pretty impressive how it sounds.

Pandora 6 string cigar box guitar

The latest sold. going to Germany.