A little while ago I took a break from building regular ‘ukuleles to build a couple of cigar boxes. Someone in the club (Ukulele Union of Boston) had one that I really liked and after doing some research online I thought it might be fun to build one or two. Here are my first two cigar box instruments.
Cigar boxes make really fun instruments and they’re easier to make. You will occasionally see them in music stores, but in my experience most of the are poorly made and too much money for the quality.
It’s a great bring-along-instrument that you can just throw in the back seat and take anywhere. It can also be a good introduction to making musical instruments. Everyone should give it a try, it is not as hard as you might think. #1 is my personal instrument, #2 was gifted to a friend of my daughter’s when they studied in Israel together and is still in Israel!
I have one more finished instrument that I still need to take pictures of. I’ll post it here at some point. And I have half a dozen partially built, but on hold while I work on #11 and #7!
Confessions of an Amateur Luthier 
I’ve been thinking about building a couple of these with (if they will help) or for my two boys. Did you use any plans or just pick a scale length and go? Nice work.
Thanks. I would encourage you to get them involved and helping, if they have some skin in the game the instruments will mean that much more to them later. No plans really needed. Just pick a scale length (concert or tenor) and create a neck. The rest is pretty easy š After building several ‘ukes it is not much of a leap. You might want to check out the book on Cigar Box Guitars, gives you lots of ideas.