MGB Guitars & Parts Suppler will soon be releasing a CBG (Cigar Box Guitar) Ubass kit and they’ve asked me to help with testing. Yay!
The kit will consist of a 21" scale bolt on neck, tuners, nut, bridge, piezo saddle, preamp and strings… everything but the box… but they have boxes available too if you don’t want to hunt one down on your own (which is hard to do in some countries).
With the USPS experiencing catastrophic delays at the moment it might take a while for my kit to arrive… but stay tuned for build progress pics in the near future.
So I got my ubass kit and made bit of progress today between running errands for my wife and letting the dogs out (what seems like) every five minutes.
Got the tuners installed on the neck and the neck installed on the box. Decided to use the side without the graphics as the top, though it was down to a coin flip because both sides look cool, one because of the graphics and the other because of the burl-like patterns.
I reinforced the box with 1x3 poplar, which is overkill for the low tension poly strings that come with the kit, but better to overbuild now and have the option to switch to metal strings later.
Awesome! I’ve got tons of cigar boxes, how do I sign up to be a tester? (Not a smoker, there just good for storing trinkets and my grandfather had a lot.)
To be a tester you just have to buy tons of guitar parts from MGB and constantly bug Mike Breedlove with suggestions about what products he needs to make available to cigar box guitar builders. It only took me two years… best of luck Glitch!
If you’re interested in getting into building CBGs, here are a couple of great FB groups to check out…
Well, I had a few more free minutes before bed so I got out the alcohol markers and made the bridge match headstock. It was originally the grey-brown color you can see in the saddle slot.
I hate to ask but is the nut on backwards? I guess not by the slot widths, maybe it’s just the angle, but it looks like it is sloping in the opposite direction I would expect.
Those pics are so good!! Who’s the hot dude in the last one? I hope I’m not embarrassing myself by not knowing… I think he’s like a famous actor or movie star or something…
