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At 1:23pm on November 11, 2011, John R. Yuknis said…: The "My Father's Cigar" is a very beautiful ornate box by itself so I tried to be minimal in its design. I found a diagonally cut "special edition" orange ribbon and a floral sticker in the box so I used them in the design. I added the brass pieces to accent orange ribbon I glued and varnished to the neck and glued the sticker to the end piece of the CBG

I felt that the brass ribbon accent pieces tied in with the brass accents on the box and created a nicer eye flow.

This is a heavy cigar box and I recommend anyone who finds one to build a CBG with one of these babys. It has a deep thick sound. Yes, I am still using Piezos and I am noticing the sound variances being dictated by the quality of each cigar box that I use. Duh to me right! Still learning...

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Kahlau2 CBG and MC Escher Palm

My first two simultaneous "learning" CBG builds were a Montague and a Kahlua. Being the artistic brainiac that I am I decided to hollow out the logo's letters. Knowing now what I didn't know then I have since built 2 more Kahlua CBGs. I pinstriped the neck using the red and yellow colors used in the logo art. I also found some onyx tuners which added to the "Aztec look."

The MC Escher Palm is my latest build. On my original Montague CBG I added some Escher artwork to the neck after the build to kick up the design. As a fan, I decided to do a dedicated Escher CBG and this is the end result. CBG purists may cringe but as an old graphic artist I wanted to make a piece worthy of display and play. As with all my CBG's it is electric and set up for slide playing. It sounds sweet and I got a lot of rave reviews on it. Hate to have to sell it...Plan to do another MC Escher along with the 3-4 other CBGs that I am building now.

Who woulda thunk that making CBGs would be so rewarding and fun?! (Most of the time except for those occasional building burps) I'm making a musical instrument that can actually be played!!! As the Scarecrow once said, "Oh joy. Rapture!"

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Jack CBG X-Mas 2011

Posted on January 17, 2012 at 3:29pm 0 Comments 0 Likes

I made this CBG for my bud, Jack. The s.o.b. moved to Arizona years ago but comes back to IL to visit family/friends for the Holidays.He's in a band and has been playing slide for a while now. So, he needed a John CBG.

I usually make kinda nice, real purty CBG's but I wanted to make Jack's more personal and give it that beat up "lived in" look. I added little mementos and had some fun putting some lit cigarettes on it for that extra "touch."

There's a 1982 Taste…

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My Very First CBG: the Montague

Posted on November 13, 2011 at 1:15pm 0 Comments 1 Like

I know most people start with a good old cigar box but nooo, I had to go straight into building a wood box CBG. I built this Montague along with my first Kahlua.I modeled the sound holes based on an Ovation design. After my initial build I…