Thursday, April 28, 2016

Complete Ready to Play Cigar Box Ukulele, or a Pratially completed Kit

It seems there are more Cigar Box Ukulele's than ever before. Most are completely built for you and all you have to do is send off your payment, wait patiently for your delivery, open the box, tune it up, and play.  Naturally the fully functioning uke's (and guitars) carry a higher price tag because of the labor to put them together.  I've built dozens of fully assembled ready to play Cigar Box uke's and guitars.

Kits on the other hand allow you to put your hands into the building of your own instrument.  I find it very satisfying to complete a kit. You get to put a lot of yourself into it and do any customizing that you may want.

Most kits will (should) include a complete set of easy to follow instructions, the cigar box (body), the neck and head of the instrument, strings, tuning pegs, the nut and bridge, screws, nuts and bolts necessary to complete your instrument. Other than a couple of simple tools required for assembly it should be complete and ready to put together.

Most kits are going to leave you to do any finishing touches to it such as; final sanding, sealing the wood, and applying the finish of your choice. And of course stringing your instrument up and tuning it.

Kits can come fretted or not depending on what you want or what your kit maker offers.  The notches (to accept the neck) should already be precut into your cigar box, or at the very least marked off on where to cut the notches.  I personally would want the head predrilled for the tuning pegs and any other holes needed for mounting parts to your instrument.

I have some Cigar Box Ukulele Kits in the making and will post pictures of them when they are closer to being completed.

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