Thread: Recycled/scrounged wood guitar as first build

Hi Slashbot,

Welcome to the forum. this is definately the place to get good advice. I'm not an acoustic builder, however the choice in timbers for the back and sides is important for sound, however you can buy good quality tonewoods quite cheap. It is only when you seek out highly sought after rare timbers that it gets expensive. Anyway, I will leave it to the acoustics builders to answer your questions.

Cheers,

Peter

Thanks for the welcome Peter. This forum certainly has loads of info and helpful members. I'm really quite new to wood working, but the bug has bit as they say.

I took some photos of the woods I have so far.

The

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Fretboard/Bridge:

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The Neck/headstock:

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looking good man...
im a big fan of using recycled timbers

i will be doing a simillar acoustic build soon (once i find some wood)

I love what you are doing there Slash. My first mandolin used salvage teak from a boat for back and sides and a WRC offcut from a plank that was being made into a boat. I bought a piece of Honduran Mahogany for the neck, milled some NT ironwood for fretboard and bridge that was a dead tree in the botanic gardens then used second hand tuners. Still have it 17 years later.

Jim

Someone please turn up the Tele

dont have much to offer in terms of advice, but i'll deffinately keep an eye on this.

A couple of ideas for you;

you will see second hand instruments in Vinnies, garagre sales etc, with a bit of luck they will have an instrument that is beyond repair. A great source of tuners, bridges, nuts, etc

you dont state what kind of guitar you want to build. If it is a nylon string be aware that some flourocarbon fishing lines are used by high end players

back wood does need to be reasonably hard, merbau, tassie oak are prospects, as is the veneer from old dressers etc. Ive oftern thought of getting some and putting several layers together.

Keep us posted,

drawer sides from old cabinets are usually great, well-dried, quartersawn wood, that I reckon would be great for guitar sides. quartersawn because those pieces were chosen by the drawer builders so that the sides didn't warp or twist.

now I think of it, you'd be hard pressed to find a drawer side long enough for a guitar side! Oh well. Multipiece back? Uke or mando?

Originally Posted by contrebasse

drawer sides from old cabinets are usually great, well-dried, quartersawn wood, that I reckon would be great for guitar sides. quartersawn because those pieces were chosen by the drawer builders so that the sides didn't warp or twist.

now I think of it, you'd be hard pressed to find a drawer side long enough for a guitar side! Oh well. Multipiece back? Uke or mando?

Good thought! I just flashed to the inside of a laminated side,

There is also the local council recycling centre, you might get a couple of instruments before they wake up

Hi All

Thanks for the ideas, I'm trying to make a steel string. Not sure how long it will take, but hey- that's part of the fun.

It won't be too long before something turns up I can use for the back/sides- once it does I can size up the overall guitar a bit eg body dimensions, scale length etc. In the meantime I have to split the topwood and joint it.

Another builder on this forum suggested to make a ukelele size guitar ahead of the larger one to iron out workflow problems, jig issues etc. I can't remember who it was, but its a great idea. I have some smaller pieces I could do that with.

I like the idea of Vinnes etc for hardware like tuners.

I asked at a local antique shop last week, and was given a very posh, padded cedar dining chair, with the back 2 legs broken off that was to be thrown out. there's some decent peices of cedar, for example the front rail, that could be a ukelele neck, or small tools like marking gauges, or plane bodies, the list goes on.



Cheers

I have been hard at work on the Ukulele -see this thread:http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com...175#post924175

Well Ive been working on the guitar slowly here's a bit of progress

I spent some time on the weekend booking the

The outline is half a medium classical size (Yamaha G230A) so theres room for a larger size gitar







Its planed down to around 2.5-3mm thich. I guess the next step is to sand it smooth and joint it.

I put some amber shellac on an offcut from the cedar- its going to have quite a dark old looking sound board.

Hey Slashbot_427 Good for you, I have a High regard for anybody who brings old timber back to life and hard rubish collection is my favourite time of the year LOL

Cheers and regards to all

Wal

Originally Posted by Slashbot_427

Its planed down to around 2.5-3mm thich. I guess the next step is to sand it smooth and joint it.

I put some amber shellac on an offcut from the cedar- its going to have quite a dark old looking sound board.

Looking good. One tip....leave the sanding till after youve jointed the soundboard (9 times out of 10 the joint will require sanding). I actually do the planing as well after Ive done my jointing. I also make use of a cabinet scraper for for final working down of the top......its a bit of an art but I have more control with cabinet scraper than with a plane or sandpaper.

Re shellac....if its the stuff you get at Mitre 10 then make sure its fresh. I use blonde shellac on my tops as I prefer to leave the wood its natural colour.

Cheers Martin

Hey guys thanks for the comments.

Thanks Wal.

Yeah I looked at the thin wood I created and suddenly wondered how I was going to keep the edges lined up to glue the joint on the soundboard.

Will have to think up a jig to keep the edges aligned while it glues. Maybe I should have glued it while it was still 6mm thick

I m thinking it will be hard to scrounge wood of a decent quality for the back and sides anytime soon, may end up buying a set in a few months if nothing turns up, just to get progress on it. See how I go anyway.

Re the shellac, I got the bunnings variety, so I hope its OK, its amber flakes i dissolved in metho. I haven't used shellac before so I'm trying to figure out how it will work on offcuts from the top wood.

Also I am looking at getting some liquid fish or hide glue. I currently have the yellow pva. I don't want to go to a glue pot yet for convenience, whats the vote between yellow pva, liquid fish, and liquid hide glue? I have used yellow pva to glue up the neck laminations so far, but if theres a major difference in the glues then for the bookmatching joints, neck to body joint, fretboard to neck joint, should I really go with one glue over another?



Matt