The Mountain Tenor Acoustic DIY Box Guitar Kit - Choose 3 or 4-string

Designed with front (or back) porch picking in mind, this kit is perfect for playing good old down-home mountain music. Whether around the campfire, at church, or a pickin' and grinnin' jam session, the Mountain Tenor is the kit for you. Easy to assemble and ready to be stained, painted, woodburned, decorated and customized. The top panel can even be flipped around to build a lefty guitar!

Designed and with most of the parts made right here at the C. B. Gitty workshops in Gonic, New Hampshire, this amazing-sounding guitar can be built at your dining room table with just a few basic tools. No advanced woodworking is required (no sawing, routing, etc) - just some basic clamping, light drilling and screw insertion is all it takes to build your very own four-string tenor guitar.

This guitar is named in honor of the mountainous areas of the United States, the people who live there and the amazing music that has come down from them over the years. Whether the Smoky or Appalachian Mountains, the Ozarks, the Rockies out west, the Adirondacks and Alleghenies, and even the Green and White Mountains up in New England. 

Tenor guitars have been around for many years, but they have always been the lesser-seen cousin of the 6-string guitar... but all that is now changing! With their shorter scale (23 inches instead of 25+), fewer strings, and versatile tuning options, tenors are a great way to either get started playing, or to expand your repertoire. 

This tenor kit comes with a set of strings meant for tuning to Open G "GDGB" (or 3-string GDG), which have become the de facto tuning standards for 4-string and 3-string cigar box guitars. For the 3-string version, you can re-string it with a set of High Open G Strings for an even more old-timey banjo-like sound. This kit also comes with a full fretboard already attached to the neck, making assembly easy. The detailed how-to guide not only shows you how to assemble the kit, but also includes some basic how-to-play information as well, to help get you picking once the build is done. We also throw in a full-color copy of one of Ben Gitty's Essential Chords Posters (3-string or 4-string version, depending on which kit you order) with every kit, which is a wealth of information to help get you strumming along with popular songs. 

Also don't forget to grab a copy of one of Ben's songbooks! He has a whole line-up of 3-string tablature songbooks, and also the new Four-String Songbook by Ben Gitty, featuring 30 beloved songs arranged for four-string GDGB guitars - which is what you build with this kit!

Assembly time on this kit is 3-4 hours, not including glue set-up time. It is recommended for ages 16 and up, though younger kids can help build it with close adult supervision. This kit comes in "blank slate" form of bare plywood that can be painted, stained or finished as desired. The decorated version(s) in the listing photo(s) are for demonstration purposes only.

Here is a testimonial from customer Ron H: "Got my Tenor kit Thursday. I am very happy with it. It sounds great. Took your advice and am approaching it like a while new instrument. I've been playing in a form of open G (DGBD) but this is better. Especially the chord forms. I am very happy with the four string songbook. Your material is great. Thanks to you I now am understanding how to move from single string melody playing to choral melody playing. I've needed this info for a long time. THANK YOU."