ARCHIVE BUILDS - ROADKILL #1 

The finish on this Cigar Box Guitar was in all honesty a case of making the most of a mistake type situation. The box itself had come with more than the usual amount of health warning stickers on the lid and back and I was still feeling out my way as to how to remove them without having to use sandpaper. As I often do (and you may have noticed a theme in my posts here) I decided fire was the best option. I got the grill of my oven going and simply put the entire box inside waiting for the stickers to peel off, which they did very successfully, what I didn’t notice until it was a bit too late was that part of the box had started to char and was pretty close to going full bonfire in my oven at the time. You might be able to make it out in the pictures, the top right corner has what appears to be a very dark thumb print shape/sized char mark, that was what started it all off. 

Faced with now what was a strange looking mark on the lid I decided to try and make it a little more uniform and pulled out the trusty Zippo and went to work on the rest. The thing I really like about the look of this build is that it is indeed a one off unique looking instrument, of course there are other Cigar Box Guitars out there that have been “aged” or burnt to smithereens" but they are all certainly unique. 

I finished this one off with a Tasmanian Blackwood neck and made the Bridge and Nut out of Ebony with a bridge loaded Piezo pickup. It had a really banjo like tone to it and ended up being a demo model I took around with me for some time before opting to sell it on.