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Not too long ago we had a surprise visitor here at C. B. Gitty. Being an e-commerce company without a physical retail storefront, it is always a bit of a surprise when people show up here in person. We always do our best to accommodate folks whenever we can.On this particular day, the visitor was an elderly lady, who shuffled down the hallway leading to the warehouse portion of Gitty HQ. As it happened, I was the first person she ran into. As usual, I was caught a little off-guard but as she beg …

Shane Speal shows you how to turn a simple $24 Canjo neck into a cool Walkabout Dulcimer (Strumstick).  The instrument shown in this tutorial is very basic and uses the neck-on-top method of building.  Soundholes and other decorative elements can be added for artistic flair. Here's the tutorial video.  Scroll down for additional photos and a full parts list.The hack requires these steps: Drill out extra spaces for guitar tuners on the headstock  Add two additional …

In this post for building canjos, you'll learn how to remove the top from a beverage can in under a minute without a single tool!Making your own canjo is one of the most uncomplicated and satisfying musical instrument-building projects you can undertake. To build one requires little more than a neck, a tuner, a string, and a can. As a toast to the canjo's simplicity, Ben "Gitty" Baker recorded a short video demonstrating how to remove a beverage can-top using no tools. And that process to p …

Seven years ago, I had never heard of cigar box guitars or other homemade instruments.I had dabbled a little with "restoring" an old Kay guitar and had read a book on how to build a bluegrass mandolin. But the idea of crafting musical instruments out of everyday objects had never occurred to me.That all changed in the summer of 2008 when my friend Dan "Deke" Caldwell and his wife Laurel (who now works in the C. B. Gitty packing department) took a vacation to Tennessee. While in Gatlinburg, they …

We've been busy posting new tablatures and other "how to play" info for our American Canjo Company canjos in the knowledgebase over at CigarBoxGuitar.com. These "tabs" use a simple numbering method corresponding to the frets on our canjos to allow you to quickly and easily start picking popular and well-known songs! CigarBoxGuitar.com also has a growing knowledgebase of how-to articles and videos related to building cigar box guitars, so if you haven't had a look, head on over and …