The third cigar box build was my recreation of the second build with some enhancements. I found this a little easier to work through for a few reasons. The first is the length of the cigar box is about 2-3" more than a normal cigar box. This gave me some room to play with different features which left the opportunity for a screw-up.
In the above picture, you will see the new addition of the two Chrome "Snake Oil" Mini Humbucking Pickups by Foundry-Tone from C.B. Gitty. I was excited to add an upgraded pick up to experience yet another different sounding guitar. It isn't possible to express in words how cool the sound is. It was more of a challenge to wire it up to the volume and tone as there was a learning curve with these pickups.
I decided on sticking with the chrome pre-wired pickup selector with volume, tone and a 3-way Switch. I really like the feel of the switch as it's easy to cut one hole in the cigar box and slide it in. There is enough room for error and not needing the perfect cut for installation, which is the sort of benefit I need. The other benefit is some of the wiring is done already. I didn't have the skull and cross bones knobs and just kept the stock knobs in place however, I think they look great.
When I added the pickups, it seemed like it really didn't need anything else other than the acoustic sound holes. Therefore, I decided not to add any Piezo pickups used in this build. I also stuck with the 3-string black hard-tail adjustable bridge with the benefit of the adjustments to continue the quest for a  perfect intonation.The one very important change is the angle of the next in relation to the cigar box. I angled this even further that the second build. It almost looked like it was slightly behind the top of the cigar box. I thought that would settle my intonation challenges. Once everything was all tightened up and strung, it was off to play.
The one major issue that's popped up on both of the last builds is the tuning peg position and the depth of the headstock. I wanted to do something different with the headstock. I cut the end of the headstock at an angle and flipped it over to get that angled look and then glued and clamped for the night.I drilled the holes for the tuning pegs too close! This was pretty frustrating. I used a pattern and even messed up with it in hand. As it stands, it's completely functional, plays well and sounds amazing.  The main issues is the tuning pegs are too close so they almost touch when you tune the guitar. At some point, I will cut that off and start the headstock design all over. Stay tuned.
