2021 Jake-made 4-String Cigar Box Lap Steel

My friend Rick Redington wanted a cigar box lap steel as a prop for his buddy's whiskey business over in Ripton. Rick plays a lot of cigar box instruments and so he brought the box over and I made and assembled this from what was on-hand over here. He specifically wanted a 4-string in DADF# tuning (like open D without the two top strings).

The neck is cut from red oak scrap from old furniture, the pickup is a newer GFS Alnico 5 humbucker, the bridge is an old tailpiece guitar unit, the tuners are nice Gotoh Kluson-style ones that were "lefty spares" from various other projects, and the tailpiece is from a trapeze unit that no longer has its hanging wire. This guy has a 25 1/2" scale length.

Because we assembled it all in one go, speed was somewhat of a priority. We were going to initially paint the fret markers but instead we just Sharpied them. The extra time was put into the neat headstock and solid construction. This does not feel loosey-goosey like your average cigar box.

Like I told Rick -- it would probably have been faster and easier to just make a lap steel from the plank and be done with it...!