Sunday, December 13, 2009

Guitar made from recycled wood

This guitar is made from recycled wood purchased at the ReBuilding Center. The sound board is made from old cedar siding. The sides and neck are made from old-growth douglas fir. The back is made from the left-over cedar and fir scraps. The finger board and bridge are made from an old Brazilian Cherry hardwood floor board. If I remember correctly, total cost of the wood was $7. Yes, those are nail-holes on the top and back.

I used a Tacoma-style bracing, done with the old-growth douglas fir.

You'll note that this guitar uses an electric-guitar style neck mount. This worked well, but ended up being more effort than the standard acoustic neck mount.

One of the draw-backs to the Tacoma-style bracing, that I learned the hard way, is that it is not quite as tolerant of abuse. Right after I finished building this guitar, I managed to smash it and put a 8-inch crack in the sound board. In the process of trying to fix that, I managed to get my arm stuck in the sound-hole - resulting in a complete break of the sound board. A little super glue and some patch wood and it was quickly as good-as-new. You can see the crack starting at the bottom of the sound-hole.



Dave Pierce now owns this one.

Photos of "fence" guitar

I finally got around to uploading photos of the "fence" guitar.

The soundboard, back, and sides of this guitar are made from cedar fence boards from the local Home Depot at a cost of about $4.50 (three boards @ $1.50 each). This guitar uses a Tacoma-style bracing. The bracing wood is new-growth Douglas Fir (a.k.a. a cheap 2x4 stud).

The neck is cherry, and the fret board & bridge are purple heart. With the Tacoma-style bracing, I could get away with a full 24 frets. If you look close, you'll spot that the end of the fret board is bolted to the body. You'll also note that this photo was taken before the guitar was finished - I had run out of fret wire...

The sound is warm, as you would expect from an all-cedar body. The bass is particularly deep and rich.

My first "serious" guitar

I finally got around to building a "serious" guitar. No pieces nor parts from Home Depot in this one.

The top is Redwood, the back and sides are Mexican Rosewood, the neck is Spanish Cedar, and the fret board is Cocolobo. I used a common Martin-style X-bracing, with a mix of Spruce and Spanish Cedar.

I love the sound of the Redwood top, it half-way between Spruce and Cedar. Spruce tends to sound a little harsh, Cedar a little soft. Redwood is just right.

The Mexican Rosewood is very pretty, the photos do not due it justice. I especially like the subtle red flame in the Cocolobo fret board.