Having trouble viewing this email?  Click here.

Ammo Box Resonator

Built by Marko Natri of Ontolla, Finland

It has been known for a while now that pet food dishes make great resonators.  (You turn them upside-down and use the lip to mount to the soundboard.)  However, Natri's design takes it a giant leap forward, using a sturdy metal ammunition box as the body.  Note the creative soundholes, each one hand cut and filed.  Natri said it took 15 minutes to file each individual hole! 

He says the tone is similar to a banjo and the guitar features a piezo pickup mounted under the bridge. 

We're going to use Marko Natri's Ammo Box Resonator as inspiration for today's newsletter:  Soundholes, dog bowls, piezo pickup secrets and more!  Read on.

THE C. B. GITTY/CIGAR BOX NATION SOUND HOLE CONTEST!

Win up to $50 in CBGitty cash.

We're looking for the most creative and artistic sound holes.

Your previous builds are eligible!

Pictured:  Entry by Mikolaj Sikorski of Poland.  His soundhole features an ornament found at a garage sale.

1st place: $50 in CBGitty.com credit 

2nd place: $25 in CBGitty.com credit

Contest runs April-May 2015

Send pics to GittyFans@CBGitty.com

Let's take the cigar box guitar concept and elevate it even more as an art form!  We're looking for the greatest sound holes!
Use a scroll saw to cut out intricate pieces.

Use found objects to make creative sound hole covers or outlines.

Scroll saw artwork and found object covers are just two ways you can enter.  We're still working up the details and adding prizes, but we wanted to give you a jump start on building!

Contest rules:

1.  Send three (3) jpeg pictures of your entry to gittyfans@cbgitty.com along with a one paragraph description.  Include your name and address.

2.  One entry per person.

3.  Entry must be an instrument you personally built.

4.  Contest runs from Thursday, April 2 through Sunday, May 31, 2015.  Winners to be announced in June 2015.  Any entry received after May 31 will not be eligible. 

5.  Entry into the contest gives us the right to reprint the photos on CBGitty.com, Cigarboxguitar.com and CigarBoxNation.com.

Can't get enough gear news? 

Check out this week's C. B. Gitty newsletter for the latest in parts, new soundhole templates and much more.

Dog Bowl Resonator Cones!

A simple $5 stainless steel dog dish becomes a great resonator cone when turned upside-down (as pictured). Not only does it continue the 'found object' aspect of homemade instruments, but it also looks great in a guitar, too. 

You won't get the increased sound projection of a true spun-aluminum cone, but you'll achieve that metallic Dobro tone.  A simple piezo placed on the underside of the dish is the easiest way to electrify dog bowl resos, however a good magnetic pickup such asFoundry-Tone Lipstick Tubewill get you a gnarly electric live tone. 

Dog bowl resonators have become so popular that C. B. Gitty is now selling two different sizes:

Six inch dog bowl: $4.29 each

Seven inch dog bowl: $4.99 each

Cushioning Piezo Disk Pickups

Piezo disks work best as pickups in cigar box guitars if you provide some cushioning for them. This helps tone down their harshness. Embedding them in a generous glob of hot glue when mounting them to the inside of a cigar box lid is a popular method.

Want more secrets on working with these temperamental little things?  We've collected piezo tips and posted them in one central knowledgebase at www.CigarBoxGuitar.com.  Piezo Disk Articles at CigarBoxGuitar.com

Glenn Watt TABs a Shane Speal instrumental,

allowing for further study of 3-string Cigar Box Guitar Theory

Part of what Shane Speal does that is so appealing is that he’s willing to explore how a 3 string cigar box guitar can be played.  I’d like to take this opportunity to present you with tab for a song that Shane recently posted on his Youtube channel. With his permission, I have done the best I can to reproduce Shane’s music through tablature for you to learn how to play this piece.  See the video and download the TAB here.

Cigar Box Appalachian Mountain Dulcimer - $199.99

Handmade by C. B. Gitty and features a floating bridge which transfers more sound vibration to the resonating body than a traditional dulcimer. 

The body of this instrument is crafted from Macanudo cigar boxes, and we chose to use the box bottoms as the instrument soundboard, as they are made from wood plywood. The neck of the instrument is crafted from solid Padauk, an exotic hardwood, which is fretted in the standard diatonic method using nickel-silver frets.

This is a four-string instrument, with doubled melody strings and two drone strings. Tunings on this style of dulcimer vary, but we have one tuned D/D/G/D, with the two melody strings tuned to high D and the drones tuned to G and D respectively. This makes it very pleasant for playing in the key of G. You could also do DDAD if desired - there is a lot of material available online in regards to alternate dulcimer tunings.

Jim Morris' 3-string cigar box guitar version of Cyndi Lauper's "Ti... is the best thing you'll watch all day. The arrangement is magnificent and it'll have you grabbing for your own cigar box guitar, trying to copy his licks.