Cigar Box Guitar Quality: What Should I Look For?

There are several things to consider when choosing your cigar box guitar. It’s tempting to choose on looks alone, but if you’re serious about playing , you need to know it will play well ( even if you don’t yet). These are the things to check for quality:

Appearance
Finish
Frets or fret markings
Size
Sound
Strings
Pickup
Machine Heads
Sound Holes

Appearance : What Should I Look For In A Cigar Box Guitar?

Personal preference is such an important part of what makes a good-looking cigar box guitar. If you like the look of it, that makes it a good guitar for you, looks wise. Just remember that looks gives no indication of whether it plays well.

Before you even pick up a guitar to play it, you will have some sort of gut feeling about whether an instrument is appealing or not. If you are building your guitar, you will want to spend a bit of time collecting the parts together and assessing whether they will make a nice looking cigar box guitar.

You may want a genuine cigar box with a neck that matches the box. Or you may prefer a plain wooden box with no writing or logo on it at all.

You may have a distinct preference on silver-toned or gold- toned hardware (machine heads, frets and box corners for instance). However it may not bother you as long as they all match or you may not care at all.

Some builders really enjoy decorating a bespoke instrument to suit the player’s personality. However you can easily decorate a guitar to your own taste. See this guide on decorating your Cigar Box Guitar.

Just remember that a good-looking guitar may not play well.

What Does The Finish Tell Me?

Whether you prefer a highly polished or distinctly distressed finish, is it in keeping with the build?

Even a very distressed looking instrument needs to be comfortable to play. Run your fingers over the back and sides of the neck and check it is smooth. It will be hard to play an instrument if your hand cannot slide up and down the neck easily.

Are the corners sharp? You might prefer an instrument with rounded corners and box edges or you may be happy with box corners and a more angular instrument, but you don’t want to be playing an instrument with sharp parts that could injure you.

Things to look for are:

Are the box corners installed correctly so that no sharp bits of metal are sticking out?
Is the neck straight without any obvious warping?
Is the neck comfortable to hold and move your hand along without any frets cutting into your hand?
Is the box itself smooth to the touch?
Is any tail piece attached in a way that means you won’t catch your arm on it as you play?

Fretted Or Fretless Guitars: Which Is Better For Me?

Playing a fretless guitar means that you will need a guitar slide unless you have loose strings on a diddley bow or bass. If you are building your own guitar, there’s no doubt that it’s easier to build a fretless instrument because installing frets correctly is a bit tricky. My first couple of builds were fretless but because I wasn’t that good at playing with a slide, I was a bit limited in what I could play.

On a fretless instrument check:

Is the neck straight?- even a fretless instrument needs an unwarped neck to play well
Does it look like the fret lines are marked in accurately?
Are there side dots? – these really help with playing with a slide because you will be moving up and down the neck a lot

If you choose to buy or build a guitar with a medium to high action, you will be able to play with or without a slide.

If you buy a fretted instrument, look down the fretboard and check for these things:

Do the frets look level and straight on the fretboard?
Are there sharp edges on the frets? If so, this will make it difficult to play as the sharp metal will catch your hand. It’s also a sign of a badly made instrument, although if your own build has sharp frets it is something you can remedy.

Size: How Do I Choose Which Is Best For Me?

The size of a guitar does not affect the quality as such- bigger is not better for instance. However, it’s important to choose a size that’s good for you so it is a factor to consider.

A Cigar Box Guitar tends to be sold by scale length rather than soprano, concert etc like a ukulele. The only exception is that you can buy a Bass Cigar Box Guitar with thicker strings which plays in a lower range.

If you need to know all about scale length, read this article here.

A smaller scale length will probably make a lighter sounding instrument, but only if you go really quite small. Think ukulele vs guitar, for instance.

A longer scale length could be harder to play if you have really small hands or limited mobility in your fingers.

Here is a table to help you decide what kind of scale length cigar box guitar might suit your needs ( I have not included bass guitars):

	measurement range	pros	cons	best for
very short scale length	13-22 inches	suitable for a child or small hands	frets very close together, lighter sound	children or those that like the range of a ukulele
short scale length	22- 24.5 inches	less string tension, easier to play	larger hands may find frets too close together on chord shapes higher up the neck	lots of string bending
medium scale length	24.5-25.5 inches	medium string tension and fret spacing	lower fret spacing requires long stretches on some chord shapes	a good size for most players
long scale length	over 25.5 inches	high string tension gives bright sound	wider fret spacing and high string tension makes it physically harder to play	lead guitar, amplified, rock

Building A Cigar Box Guitar: How Do I Choose The Size?

If you are building your cbg, this will be one of the first things you need to decide. See the paragraph above for some things to think about.

The size of the box and the length of wood you have for the neck may be the over-riding factor on this. However just because you can build an instrument with a longer scale length because you have enough in the way of wood, doesn’t necessarily mean you should.

A smaller scale length means that all the frets will be slightly closer together than on a longer scale and you might be a bit limited on how many frets you can have. You will be able to get at least 12 frets installed and it’s probable that you can get at least 15 frets even on a shorter neck.

As a beginner, 15 frets is probably going to ample, but you can install more if you want. Just remember that the higher frets on a cigar box guitar are harder to access because of the body being box- shaped.

Some traditional guitars have a cut away body to help with accessing the higher frets, but this is not something you want to try as a beginner builder. You might find it hard to find someone who will attempt to build one for you too.

Sound: What Should I Be Listening For?

Just like looks, the sound that you will like is a very personal preference.

You might want a very clean sounding guitar or you might want something more bluesy or rock- inspired. Just remember that changing the strings and using an amp will have a marked impact on how the instrument can sound.

Some builders add springs inside the box to add reverb without amplification, but that doesn’t mean you want frets that buzz all the time.

It’s much easier to make a clean sounding instrument play ” dirty” than to make a “dirty” sounding instrument clean.

I would suggest that if you are a beginner, you go for an instrument that passes the following check list because these are the things that it’s hard to change.

Do the strings buzz? Play each fret on every string and check that there is no buzz. This can be caused by badly fitted frets, slots not cut correctly on the nut or bridge, or an action that is too low.
Does the instrument play in tune to itself?- See this article on intonation for more guidance.
Is the action so high that the notes go out of tune as you fret them? High action is good if you intend to play a lot of slide guitar because the slide does not need to press down as far as your finger would.

Strings: What Should I Look Out For?

I wish I had known more about the effect that good quality strings can have on an instrument sooner.

Both 3 and 4 stringed guitars are a good choice although 3 stringed are more common. Read this article for more information if you are unsure which to choose.

If you are buying a guitar and the strings are poor quality, it could be a sign that the builder has used inferior parts on the whole instrument. Or it could just be a sign that they are inexperienced. Check for rough, worn, dented or rusty strings.

If you are new to building, try not to skimp on paying for decent strings. The box choice, the neck wood choice and even the pickup choice will not effect the quality of the build nearly as much as poor string choice and cheap machine heads.

Changing poor quality strings is probably the cheapest way you can improve the sound of your cigar box guitar. You can also choose to tune your guitar differently and this will sometimes require different gauge strings. I have an article here about lots of different tunings for cigar box guitars.

As you get more experienced, you will begin to know what gauge strings and what material to choose for the sound you want. Read this article for more info

Pickup: How Do I Know Whether It’s A Good One?

As you get more experienced, you will begin to tell the difference between different pickups, but as a beginner this is not such an issue.

If you want to plug into an amp, you will need a pickup , but it’s fairly easy to start with a cheap piezo installed under the bridge.

However, if you want a lead electric guitar sound you will probably want to go for a coiled pickup and nickel strings.

Machine Heads: How Do I Check For Quality?

There is a lot more information in this article on machine heads or tuning pegs, but the main thing you want to check when assessing the quality of the machine heads used is will they hold the guitar in tune?

New strings take a while to settle in, so may cause a few tuning issues to start with, but if you have poor quality machine heads they will slip, causing the instrument to go out of tune all the time.

This is annoying and something that can only be remedied by changing the machine heads.

Sound Holes: Cutting And Placement

Not all Cigar Box Guitars have sound holes, especially if they are designed to be played with an amp. If there are sound holes, these are things to look for:

Are the sound holes even? If they are meant to be round, are they round? Is an f shape hole cut accurately?
If there are sound hole covers, are they installed securely without any sharp edges protruding?
You might think it strange if the sound holes are on the side of the box that faces up as you play, but this is to help you hear the instrument so is not a mistake in sound hole placement.

Final Thoughts

There is a lot to consider when buying or building a cigar box guitar to ensure that you get a good quality instrument. When you are choosing your first instrument, you want to make sure that you have a playable instrument and not a toy. It’s a really good idea to buy from a reputable company or from a recommended solo builder.

It’s always best to try an instrument in person if you can, because only then will you know what suits your needs. However if you have to buy online, read reviews or ask other customers. There are instruments appearing on Amazon and Ebay now that are mass produced and of an inferior quality. You can buy kits to build your own guitar, some of which have good quality parts and some which are really bad quality.

All this information may give you “analysis paralysis” but there is one main thing:

Buy the best you can afford from a skilled maker or make the best you can with the skills you have.