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Permalink Reply by RON NORTHCUTT on December 10, 2021 at 4:20am

Permalink Reply by RON NORTHCUTT on December 10, 2021 at 4:36am

Christmas in Kentucky 1908. !908 has been a very difficult year for the family. This is the second year we have not raised a tobacco crop due to our joining the boycott to force the tobacco companies to pay a fair price.  As a result, we have little money to spare, as a result Christmas will be a very small affair and gifts just for the youngest children. I have tasked myself with making a small one stringed instrument for my youngest sister Zona. She has displayed an interest in music and we must encourage her. I have fashioned a small one string guitar from lumber from a discarded soap box. The neck was a left-over remnant from splitting tobacco sticks this fall. I made a tail piece from a hinge from an old sewing machine that had been damaged in a fire. I salvaged a tuner and string from an old banjo. I am pleased with the result and pray that she gets some enjoyment from it in the following years.

Permalink Reply by Uncle John on December 10, 2021 at 6:04am

That looks the part for sure.   Handsome build.

Permalink Reply by smilingdog1 on December 10, 2021 at 6:14am

Nice job.

Permalink Reply by RON NORTHCUTT on December 10, 2021 at 4:24am

Permalink Reply by Tom Lederle on December 11, 2021 at 3:50am

I built The NRA Guitar using cast-off materials that down-and-out musicians might have scavenged when times were hard and they had no money for “luxuries” such as store-bought guitars. The box itself – a phenomenally lucky find at a local thrift shop – once contained cigars from a 20^th Century tobacconist during America’s Great Depression. The National Recovery Administration’s sticker at one corner authenticates the age of the box and the cigar maker’s compliance with marketing guidelines set by the NRA, which was organized in 1933. The agency was disbanded in 1935, after which the stickers were no longer used. The neck is fashioned from two pieces of scrap lumber glued together, and the strap is from a well-worn ladies’ handbag, also acquired at a thrift shop. Other elements of the CBG include frets made of copper wire salvaged from a house-wiring project, a strap stud made from a grease fitting in a junkyard car, nuts and bolts from my own toolbox collection, and vintage nylon acoustic guitar strings. I carved the guitar’s tuners from scrap hardwood using simple hand tools, a splinter removal kit, and a tube of antibiotic salve. The NRA Guitar was an intense (and often painful) labor of love, and a tribute to the creativity of Depression era cigar box guitarists. I was absolutely delighted with how it turned out.

Permalink Reply by RICHARD RUTHERFORD on December 14, 2021 at 5:03am

Permalink Reply by RICHARD RUTHERFORD on December 14, 2021 at 5:10am

Here are photos of a diddley-bow which may be typical of one handmade during the 1800's.  The box and a drawer front were found in Montana having been recovered from a destroyed homestead house.  I used a portion of the drawer front for the neck and a handle and filigree became the tailpiece.  I imagine that the box was for a Christmas gift due to the poinsettia burned on design. My only modernization was to include a single pole pickup to give it a voice. 

Permalink Reply by Uncle John on December 16, 2021 at 10:19am

    In 1934, my dad and was 12 years old and living in a company house on Iowa mine property. Back in those days, coal mining was the second most common occupation in Iowa after farming. Two of dad's friends had cigar box guitars and my dad wanted one for Christmas. Hid dad, my grand dad, made it happen. He built it himself with scrounged wood and parts. It had and still has flaws, such as mis-matched f holes on the back.  But it plays and I play it to this very day.     

If you can only view one video (per contest rules) view the first.

To hear it play, view the second.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGdLxZTvDGM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dbjtHbh36M

Permalink Reply by Gerrit Klaassen on December 22, 2021 at 10:56pm

Antonio is 7 years old, son of a fisherman. All he's ever talking about is wanting to learn how to play a guitar. We are in Portugal, December 1921, times are hard and Antonio's parents are struggling to survive. Nevertheless, his uncle works at a furniture workshop and managed to smuggle out two little panels from a cabinet that they repaired. Antonio's father used whatever he could find to make his son a stringed instrument that he could practice on. 

The instrument as well as the case stayed in the family for many generations. Nevertheless, a century later it ended up at a car boot sale, where it was bought by a Dutchman living in Portugal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhUFPOtzAaE

 

Permalink Reply by the anonymous pick on December 24, 2021 at 12:07pm

WOW !  The video on this creation blows my mind !!!  a must see folks  . !!!

Permalink Reply by Tom Lederle on December 24, 2021 at 3:45am

My first CBGs were true to traditional cigar box designs and methods. During the pandemic lockdowns, however, I began using my own digital artwork to decorate the box. I build the boxes from birch plywood and hand-carve the necks from red oak or hemlock. I use tuners, strings and pickups from CBGitty (naturally), and the hardware and straps are found or second-hand materials. This particular 3-string guitar is Infinity Plus 1, which is the actual title of the digital art on the box. In reality it’s a digitally enhanced photo of computer printed circuit boards that came from my scrap bin. The hemlock neck and fretwork (always the hardest part) were a labor of love, and they function beautifully. This guitar is playable acoustic or amp’ed, using a ghosted Mini Box Bucker Pickup. I like the juxtaposition of high-tech artistry with old fashioned woodworking, resulting in an ultimate piece of “functional art”. Thanks for viewing.

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