Free Plans

3-String Cigar Box Guitar

These are easy-to-follow plans that started the Cigar Box Guitar Revolution. Build a simple 3-string CBG using an empty box, a plank of wood (easily found at your local hardware store) some strings and tuners.

 

 

 

 

NEW PLANS!!! 2-string Cigar Box Guitar

From Guitar Player Magazine, 1976. These are the plans that inspired Shane Speal to build his first cigar box guitar.

 

 

 

 

Pathetic, blatant advertising:

CIGAR BOX GUITAR T-SHIRTS - sale ends Monday night -->

 

 

 

NEW PLANS!!! 1920's Cigar Box Ukulele

Vintage cigar box uke plans - fully detailed. Ukulele geeks and cigar box freaks unite!!! It's time to get your strum on.

Plans are a high res .jpg scan.

 

 

 

NEW PLANS!!! 1910 Cigar Box Ukulele

From the article: "The one-string banjo, cigar box guitar and similar Vaudeville favorites are giving way to the tantalizing ukulele..." Oh yeah, baby! (Plans download in .jpg file)

 

NEW PLANS!!! Cigar Box Tube Amplifier

Way cool vintage plans from a 1954 issue of Science & Mechanics Magazine. Plans are in a 2 page .pdf Please note: the pages are mistakenly reversed in the .pdf

 

NEW PLANS!!! Strange Cigar Box/Pitchfork Fiddle

Discovered in an old 1936 patent. The instrument uses a cigar box like a slide on a fiddle made from a pitchfork.

 

<-- This picture features proof that someone actually made and performed with this style instrument. Anyone wanna attempt this?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vaudeville Fiddle

Build a Cigar Box Violin first published 1949 Create a 1-string cigar box "cello" violin, similar to instruments used by the great Yiddish vaudeville performers of the turn-of-the-century. W. C. Fields appeared in a movie playing this instrument. (See video below!)

5-String Cigar Box Banjo - Historic plans from late 1800's

Build an Uncle Enos Banjo first published circa 1870 The oldest known plans for a cigar box instrument, the Uncle Enos Banjo plans were written by Boy Scouts founder Daniel Carter Beard for a childrens magazine. The finished product is a very playable 5-string banjo.

 

Cigar Box Violin

Build a Cigar Box Violin first published 1949. Build a playable 4-string violin. Also includes plans to make your own fiddle bow, too.

Dr. Oakroot's Diddley Bow

Dr Oakroot's plans for a great Cigar Box Diddley Bow The diddley bow is a traditional one string instrument fundamental to the early blues. You can easily make a diddley bow using a cardboard cigar box, a guitar tuner, and a few other things.

Brian Lemin's Cigar Box Guitar Plans

Brian Lemin presents his own take on building a cigar box guitar. Pictures, descriptions and more. .pdf format (Thanks Brian!)

 

 

 

NEW PLANS!!! Fun With a 2x4 Bass

Cool plans found in a 1960's Popular Science magazine. Build your own solidbody electric bass from a standard 2x4!!!

 

 

 

1-String Cigar Box Bass

Funky and primitive cigar box bass that uses a lever tuning/playing system. From an old children's book. Download is a 2 page Word document.

 

Funky Homemade Bass Guitar

Not a cigar box instrument, but cool nonetheless. Check out these plans, originally posted in the old Cigar Box Guitar Yahoo!Group. (Thanks to Jim "Gutbucketeer" Bunch for compiling and archiving the information.) Download is a Word document.

 

 

 

W.C. Fields and his

Vaudeville Cigar Box Fiddle

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