#1 resource for Cigar Box Guitars, Free Plans, How-To, Parts & More!

Unusual little doubled 2 stringer...

My dad bought this unusual little doubled 2 stringer at a local gunshow in Idaho. The guy he bought it from didn't know anything about it. Looks kinda like an adapted Chinese folk guitar. There's a missing friction tuning pin, though on this particular instrument, they are only decorative (probably copied but the building didn't know how to do them, so added open machined tuners on the side...guessing this as the missing friction pin isn't placed in the cutout section where you could actually string it.). It's missing one of the wood (pauduk?) frets, but is playable. It's especially interesting as this whole instrument is carved out of one single piece of wood (almost like one would carve out a big spoon...you can see the gouge marks inside) and then the sound board is inlayed back into the top.

I've never owned/played a 2 stringer before, so this one will be fun to play around with. First, I've gotta replace that missing fret and then figure out the fretboard layout....then it'll be "look out, here I come!"

If anyone has seen or knows anything about this sort of 2 stringer, I'd love to hear about it!

0 members like this

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by CrocBite on May 10, 2013 at 10:06am

that is a cool little thing indeed! i love paired strings.

you could always slot the nut and bridge a little so it could be played as a more normal four stringer too... if you felt so inclined.

Permalink Reply by Joe Madl on May 15, 2013 at 1:03pm

yeah...I had thought about that...and may even just do it to have alternative tuning possibilities (did a lot of that on my dulcimers and my 3 to 4 stringers).... but, like you, I dig paired strings! have never played a two stringer either, so this will give me an opportunity to branch out

Permalink Reply by Gordon Cooper on March 13, 2016 at 2:24pm

This resembles a number of Balkan, Central Asian and Chinese instruments, while not quite matching any of the ones I've seen. Most Central Asian instruments are carved from a single block. This may also be true for some South American guitar-like instruments, though they would generally have more courses of strings.

Please, do fix it, string it up, and play it!

RSS

Welcome to
Cigar Box Nation

Sign Up
or Sign In

Or sign in with:

The Essential Pages

Site Sponsor

Discussion Forum

View All

Blog Posts

Latest Activity

Doug Thorsvik posted a video

Da Do Ron Ron: 3D Printed Cigar Box Guitar

Cigar Box Guitar Slingers - Spokane, 198th Zoom Mtg 04/15/24. Only 1-finger chords, free songbooks here: https://www.cbgslinger.com/download CBG Songbook.pdf...

1 hour ago

0 Comments 0 Likes