Well, I was given my first guitar when i was 14, one of those horrid Encore Strats in black and white but I loved it. After a few months I saw Kirk Hammet playing an all-black Strat and my first mod, an Encore strat with a black scratch-plate made out of a plastic sheet was done. Since then, I have tinkered, fixed, modified and…. butchered every guitar I’ve ever owned.
I’ve been in bands, mainly metal but I’ve always loved Delta and Bluegrass. Even as a kid I loved listening to John Lee Hooker, just a happy guy singing about being sad with a barely tuned guitar and his own foot. As for the more big-budget polished studio blues that’s been around for the last 30 years, well each to there own, but they bore me to death.
I found out about Cigar Box Guitars a couple of years ago, by a friend who suggested I should make one. The idea that I could make an actual guitar from scratch rather than mauling with a pre-made guitar seemed far-fetched to say the least!
Using little more than a few wood-working tools, a used cigar box and a scrap piece of mahogany, my first build was painstakingly slow but I did it, an actual guitar that was in tune, had a piezo pickup in it and sounded (to me, at the time) awesome. My friend’s wife asked me to make him a Cigar Box Guitar for a Father’s Day present, and while I was making it, a neighbour asked me what I was doing and he ordered one for his son. After a year of bits and pieces like that I decided to set up Treadstone Guitars, and here we are.
With Cigar Box Guitars. my main ethics are to build tour-grade instruments that are made of recycled materials, and to operate at very low-carbon usage.
I also take in good six string guitars and re build them into something….unique!
Take a look around the site, get in touch for commission quotes or just say hi,
Rob.
‘Lily’ Treadsone’s first ever Cigar Box Guitar
Contact Rob by phone on 07980 784 906, via email at rob@treadstoneguitars.com or you can fill in the form below: