If you are considering buying a cigar box guitar (CBG) I suggest before you buy you really think about your true purpose for buying. To summarize things, are you looking for a piece of art, a playable instrument, or a combination of both?

Back in March I wrote about the Cigar Box Guitar Building and playing  classes I was planning to teach at the Townsend, MA Senior Center.  In the building class we built 11 new cigar box guitars.  Everyone who participated put in their time and effort to make it happen. 

Cigar Box Guitar Parts and Their Functions

I had the pleasure to interview Uncle Mark of Uncle Mark’s Music, live from “The Mother Ship”. He is a busy guy, so I was glad he gave me the time and was willing to share. Below are some of the highlights from our 30-minute Zoom call.

I’m always poking around the internet to find interesting Cigar Box Guitar builds.  I am constantly amazed at the creative ways people use and reuse common materials to create unique looking and sounding Cigar Box Guitars and similar primitive instruments.  It’s not just the creative use of materials either that amazes me, it’s also the creativity of the people building them.  So many are truly artists.

When I build Cigar Box Guitars I like to find interesting and unique ways of building them so they’re not just like everyone else’s CBGs. With this in mind I decided to try using copper wire as the frets. In this blog and the included videos below I’ll share how I made and installed the frets.