It was three summers ago that Ben Chrusch built his first cigar box guitar.He credits a YouTube video that he thought was “pretty cool” showing a man playing one of the instruments with inspiring him to start crafting such unique guitars.Since then, he has used cigar boxes in the creation of 14 guitars, a handful of amplifiers and two ukuleles, with a couple of mandolins currently under construction.Chrusch builds the instruments at his home in Olds, where he also has a recording studio, and he said he has developed his craft through “trial and error” over the years.“Everything's made by hand and I'm no luthier— they're professional guitar builders— that's not me at all. I'm just hacking them together with what I come by,” he said.The cigar box instruments don't sound as “refined” as a mass-produced guitar and they are a little “rougher around the edges,” Chrusch added.“But they still play quite well and the thing I like about them is the sound that they have and the way they're put together, it's almost inspiring. They're like little riff machines. You pick one up and the way it's tuned and the way it sounds— and they're simple to play, in comparison to a guitar— that anyone after a couple of hours is kind of coming up with little blues licks or whatever. I think that's kind of what's special about them.”Chrusch said he “hunts” for the cigar boxes using online auction and classified websites such as eBay and Kijiji.He also receives some of the boxes from Olds' Cheap Smokes and Cigars and from friends and he said when it comes to the box that makes the best sound, “the bigger the better.”“The larger boxes tend to resonate more.”Some components such as tuning pegs and pickups come from online orders and Chrusch said he'll make other parts of the guitar such as bridges and nuts himself, sometimes using components from around his house such as cabinet handles and sink strainers in the creation of his guitars.The entire process of building a cigar box guitar takes roughly four to five hours spread out over days or weeks.He admits his early attempts to build the guitars had mixed results.“The first two or three I built were pretty much wall hangers,” he said. “They didn't play well, they didn't sound that good.”But Chrusch added he found an online community for guitar builders to see what works and what doesn't when it comes to building his cigar box creations.It was his friends, after seeing his cigar box guitars around his home, who encouraged him to start selling the instruments.So far he has sold three guitars, including one someone bought after seeing Chrusch's creations at a vendor stand he had set up at the Summer Oldstice celebration on June 21.He sells the guitars, most of which have four strings, for $300 on average.Chrusch, who works full time as a dental technician and has a diploma in recording arts from MacEwan University, said he would like to see his hobby evolve into a “small side business.”Since his first instrument is the drums, however, any of the guitars he keeps will only be for show or for messing around with.“I can't play a real guitar,” he [email protected]
