The story of this freak instrument started with a bad purchase I made on eBay. The seller listed this strange wooden piece as the body of an Appalachian banjo from the 1800’s. As a collector...
The story of this freak instrument started with a bad purchase I made on eBay. The seller listed this strange wooden piece as the body of an Appalachian banjo from the 1800’s. As a collector of antique DIY instruments, I couldn’t pass up the $30, “buy it now” listing. Unfortunately after inspecting it in person, the piece turned out to be the handle & half the body of a set of bellows for stoking a fire.
Instead of sending it back, I turned it into this insane rat rod “Electric Bellows” three-string guitar. It only took me an hour to build it. The shape of the bellows had the appearance of a solidbody musical instrument. I simply added tuners, a pickup, fretboard and bridge.
These are the parts I used:
1. Wickedbucker Pickup—an ultra-thin, hand wound pickup created especially for cigar box guitar builders. This pickup required no routing. I simply hardwired it to the jack.
3. Three-Saddle Hard Tail Bridge, a Strat type of bridge made for cigar box guitars.
4. Strat-style jack plate—I mounted it upside-down, allowing minimal routing of the bellows body.
6. C. B. Gitty Acrylic Fretboard – 25” Scale for Cigar Box Guitar—These are fretless fingerboards, similar to ones used on lap steels. They’re great for slide-style instruments.
7. A, D and G guitar strings from a pack of electric strings.
8. The nut is a section of a bolt.
9. Cheap Chinese Floyd Rose style string tree found on eBay. (I buy these by the dozen. They’re awesome for cigar box guitar building.)
Because the antique bellows had a time-worn “neck,” there was zero sanding needed. The only woodworking done to it was the