Cooking with Gitty: Matt Cheever's Innovative Cigar Box Guitars

Dear C. B. Gitty,

Here are my first four builds after discovering some cool CBG’s played in public and on Youtube.  [This was] shortly after discovering C. B. Gitty and how easy and affordable parts are to get and the fast shipping times.  I’ve enjoyed building a few. 

The necks are hand made from walnut I had milled, boxes I’ve collected but most of the other parts have come from C. B. Gitty.  Here are my first four builds all together

My first build on the right used a “Cap O Tone” standard piezo pickup harness, large fret wire, box corners, mandolin tail piece, a homemade shell casing bridge and bicycle sprocket cover resonator.

My second build “Monte” (below) is a through body solid walnut neck I made with small gold fret wire, gold box corners, and has the “Black Ice” pickup that is switchable to the hidden 3 string rod piezo pickup inside the shell casing and a little diamond tread pickguard. This one is professionally played by the fantastic Edward David Anderson of Bloomington, IL

My third build (below) was a gift to my brother David Cheever and is a six string with a flask resonator that hides a “Cap O Tone” pick up and can be switched to the Black basic single coil pickup harness with volume and tone. This has the chrome sealed gear tuners, medium stainless fret wire, 6 string solid body chrome bridge, chrome and black speed nobs as well. Corner protectors only on the bottom corners

Build #4 (below) was for friend Dave Cygan and featured some old guitar parts mixed in with a timing cover from an old Harley Davidson, the bridge is a Harley clutch handle cut down, Chrome skull tunes to match the sound hole cover, medium stainless steel fret wire, and chrome skull volume knob. This model along with the others all came from a 230 walnut tree locally grown, cut and milled.

Thanks CB Gitty for the reasonably priced parts which allowed me to learn to make these with nothing more than how to’s from your website and a few youtube videos.  I am enjoying them greatly

Thanks,

Matt Cheever

Lexington, IL