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.

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.

ShonKybox Electric Cigar box Tenor Guitar

I thought I would revisit my ornate scroll designs for this Tenor guitar using a vintage Grand Nica Cedar cigar box with reclaimed Elm wings. (complete with woodworm Holes).

Reclaimed quarter sawn Sapele neck.

2 pickups adapted from Pbass pickups

Book matched Spalted beach headstock facing, Pickup covers and heel plate.

Afromosia fretboard, 20 medium nickel frets and custom brass and aluminium fret markers. Aluminium side dots.

Brass tailpiece. Rosewood and Amazique Bridge.

12 Bore Cartridge Control Knobs

Finished with the ShonKy trademark Oil stain finish

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.

Performance with a ShonKy Tenor cigar box guitar on you tube

Here's a fantastic video of John Diment Performing his Song Winky on the Wing with the Tenor Cigar box guitar He purchased of me.

New Guitars

I have had a little busy spell in between the commissions I have had. so here's a quick update on the latest instruments from ShonKy.


There's this big ole Box guitar made from an old oak box and a Kay neck and pickup.

There's also this nice little tenor cigar box guitar

And the latest is this smiley little fellow.

You can click on the pictures to be taken to the web album
or go to My Website where you can see the full details and prices.

New Cigar box tenor guitar

I actually finished this tenor cbg last month.

made with an antique cedar cigar box with a Mahogany neck.
The neck is tenon jointed to the body to maximise the acoustic volume and tone.
It has a wenge fingerboard and aluminium and wenge marker dots.
traditional vintage style machine heads with bone effect buttons.
Walnut floating bridge with a brass string retainer.
Triple piezo pickups.
I have just received a couple of nice boxes one of which I think may become another tenor guitar.
This one will be on sale soon.

 

ShonKybox Tenor guitar

Here is my Tenor guitar made from an Aurora Preferidos cigar box.
This was a nice big cigar box and I wanted to make an instrument that would benefit from the volume.
Unfortunately I had to lose the lovely artwork as it had an MDF lid which doesn't make the best soundboard so I thought I would make my first tone wood topped instrument. I got  some Cedar of a seller on Ebay. Why cedar and not spruce? I have made a few CBG's out of boxes with cedar lids and I love the tone. whether spruce would be much different I don't know.
The neck is made fom my dwindling pile of exotic wood offcuts from a retiring wood turner. I don't know what wood type it is but it has similar grain and structure to the wenge which I used for the fingerboard.
I made extensive efforts to make the top reverberate and keeping the rest of the box still. recent CBG's and my last ukulele had the problem of the whole box sounding rather than just the top thus when resting against the players body muffling the sound of the guitar. The trouble is the top is generally thicker and stiffer than the the rest of the box particularly the back which is usually made from very thin wood.
I ladder braced the back and X braced the top.
Instead of having the neck going through it is attached via a tenon joint to allow the whole of the body to be an open space. I don't know anyone else doing this with CBG's.
The rest of the box is re-enforced along the inner corners and around the neck joint to provide stability.
The end result is a great sounding instrument. Better than I expected. The bracing has worked beautifully. No muffling. The top rings out with a clear crisp tone and extraordinary volume.
I have tuned this standard Tenor tuning (GDAE) with the correct gauge strings from Clifford Essex Music which unlike most CBG's is suitable for folk rather than Blues.
Now available on the ShonKy website

Here's the pics and Spec.

Specification:

Body: Aurora Preferidos cigar box, Cedar tone wood x braced top.

Neck: Unknown exotic hardwood.

Fingerboard: Wenge.

Dot markers: Wenge and Aluminium

Bridge: Australian Walnut.

Nut: Brass and Paduak.

Tuning machines: Gold plated Sealed. Heart buttons.

Finish: Brush applied water based satin polyurethane lacquer

Length: 760mm

Width: 205mm

Depth: 100mm

Scale length: 560mm / 22"