Dead Cigar Box Guitar Given "Frankenstein" Life with C. B. Gitty Parts, Psycho Knob

Shane Speal brought a dead cigar box guitar back to life using C. B. Gitty parts.

The guitar was a 3-string solid-body, built in 2007 by West Virginia builder, Tomi-O Hartwell, and was an essential axe in Speal's live shows for many years.

The original guitar sported two P90 soapbar pickups wired to a selector switch and one volume.

After countless gigs and constant abuse (including Speal throwing the guitar across stage at the end of shows), the pickups died, and the guitar was unusable.

To bring that axe (one of his favorites) back to his arsenal, Speal gutted the instrument of its electronics and replaced them with

• a single Snake Oil Pickup
• a Psycho Knob internal distortion kit
• and a 500k volume pot.

He also used a Darkened Chrome Skull Knob for the distortion control. 

Shane shows off all the details in the video below, recorded live for Cigar Box Nation TV.

The cigar box guitar is plugged into a Roland Micro Cube on the "JC Clean" setting with no gain.

Hear How it Sounds

Speal also fired off a second video, showing how to make tight volume pots feel "worn in" by treating them with contact cleaner and working them back and forth:

Bonus Tutorial: Loosen Stiff Pots

Are your pots feeling a little too stiff?

Check out Speal's workshop trick to give them an easy, "worn in" feeling in the video below.

Parts Used on Frankenstein Guitar

Psycho Knob Board - Internal Distortion/Boost/Overdrive

This knob requires only simple soldering to place between your volume/tone knobs and the guitar jack.

No more tap dancing on a pedal board to get the boost or overdrive you need.

Get it here.

Chrome "Snake Oil" Mini Humbucking Pickups by Foundry-Tone

"These are my favorite pickups... bar none! 

They're the perfect mix of smooth 'molasses' blues tones of a humbucker and mean 'snarl' of a single coil."

- Shane Speal

Get the Snake Oil here.

500K Bourns Audio-Taper Potentiometer

Bourns 500K audio-taper potentiometers are perfect for use as volume controls in cigar box guitars.

Get your pots here.

Voodoo Skull Knobs - Darkened Chrome w/ jewel eyes

These wild looking knobs are an fantastic accent for your cigar box guitar or other special build and they fit the 500k pots perfectly!

Get them here.

Dig Distortion? Read This...

Build a Cigar Box Distortion Unit With This Easy Hack

C. B. Gitty introduced the Psycho Knob internal distortion, an easy-to-install circuit that added fuzz effects inside your guitar.

Now Shane Speal shows you how to hack the kit to become a standalone unit that can be used on all your electric guitars!

Click here to learn how to Build a Cigar Box Distortion Unit With This Easy Hack.