A piece of scrap

This one is built out of the scrap left over from building other guitars. It is quite rough around the edges, so to speak, but that works in this case.

The unique aspect to this guitar is that the top (and back) is made of two different types of wood. The strip down the middle is old growth douglas fir (reclaimed 2x4). On each side of that is cedar (reclaimed siding). The back is exactly the same as the top (but the lesser-quality wood with chips, nail holes, cracks, etc was used). Standard Martin X-bracing, with old growth fir braces.

The neck is again old growth douglas fir down the middle and cedar to the sides (second growth cedar this time, leftover scrap from the "Home Depot fence-post guitar"). There are a half-dozen big nail holes in the fir - you won't find that on a "Guitar Center" Chinese factory made instrument.

The finger board and bridge are cherry (reclaimed from a hardwood floor).

The sides are douglas fir.

The theory behind using two types of wood for the sound board, beyond the obvious "that is what I had in the scrap pile", is that I was interested in hearing how it affected the tone. Fir has strong highs and cedar has strong lows. By mixing the two, I had hoped that it would be balanced but with rich over tones. I am happy with the results, the tone is definitely different than my other guitars and it is indeed well balanced. It works particularity well for finger picking.

On my previous guitars, I have noticed a problem with the G string breaking (not that it happens very often, but it has *always* been the G string). On this guitar, I made the D and G tuners spaced a little closer than you'll find on a Martin. This reduces the angle of bend at the nut. I'm not sure if that will help or not with the string breakage, but I think the resulting narrower head is visually appealing.

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.

A real travel guitar

So I'm heading off to a conference this week. I'll meet up with some friends who play guitar, and mentioned that I should bring one of the ones I built.

I hate to check in bags, especially for a three-day trip. Doubly so for guitars, which airlines have a great track-record in destroying. Add in the wonderful $25-each-way fee for checking in a bag, and I don't really want to take one of my hand-built guitars with me.

Since all of my guitars have bolt-on necks, I thought maybe I could dis-assemble one and take it as a carry on.

Two problems. 1) the last leg of this trip is on a tiny Saab turbo-prop, which has smaller than normal carry on limitations, and 2) I would not have enough room for clothes, my laptop, and other such necessities.

Well, not so much as problems, but engineering challenges. The obvious solution is to build a guitar that 1) sounds good, 2) plays good, 3) can be collapsed down to carry-on size without requiring tools, and 4) has a removable back so that I can shove my clothes and stuff INSIDE the guitar....

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

"Fence" guitar almost done, learned a few things along the way

My "fence board" guitar is nearly done, it is playable and sounds pretty good. I really like the neck-mount design, but it is obvious that it could use some refinement. I did take a couple photos along the way, but I seemed to have misplaced my compact-flash reader. I'll post them soon.

Encouraged by the results, I decided to try something different. I started to build this guitar:

http://www.liutaiomottola.com/instruments/Ipomoea.htm

Or at least something like it. This guitar will also be made of el-cheapo Cedar boards.

One of the interesting thing about the Ipomoea guitar is its soundboard bracing. It is mentioned that Tacoma guitars used the same design. So I did a little bit of research on Tacoma guitars and found lots of interesting info, especially this:

http://www.fender.cl/other_brands/tacoma/tacoma05Catalog.pdf

You can see on pages 16-17 that the bracing is indeed similar to that of the Ipomoea guitar.

On page 27, there is a nicely-designed mount for an electric guitar-style neck. This gave me an idea on how to improve my design.

What else have I learned?

1) I suck at documenting my build processes

2) I am unlikely to improve

3) Everything I could possibly come up with, someone else has done and documented on the internet

4) What does not get documented, and is of the most value, is what "does not work"... all those things that are tried but didn't work out.

5) For me, I have found that most of the things that "do not work" has to do with the tools I am using. As such, documenting that probably won't be of much help to anyone, with the exception that...

6) Buying cheap wood and expensive tools will likely result in a better guitar than expensive wood and cheap tools. You can only use the wood once. You can use the tools over-and-over again until you get it right.


Enough for now, I'm going to go play my fence ;-)

Document, document, document

I'm helping a friend build a guitar. He doesn't want to spend a lot of money on wood until he has some idea of what he is doing (quite reasonably). I started to think about the 2x4 guitar and other ways to use "cheap" wood.

I wondered over to Home Depot and looked for the cheapest wood they had. While not the cheapest, per se, I pulled out several cedar 5'x6"x5/8" "fence" board for ~$1.80/each that where perfectly straight-grained & quarter-sawed. I ran them through my planner. The tap-tone is good.

Encouraged by the results, I picked put a couple more boards. I grabbed a wildly figured one for the back, and straight-grained ones for the sides, braces, etc. Looks like it will take 5 boards to build an entire body (~$9).

Of course I'd still need a neck. Looking around, I wondered if I could temporarily "borrow" the neck off my cheap "pawn shop" electric guitar. A chunk of 2x4, a band saw, and several clamps later, it looks like it is indeed feasible to use an electric guitar neck on an acoustic guitar.

So here we are a couple hours later and I have a 1/2 finished guitar and not a single photo. If it sounds like a $9 guitar, no real loss. If it sounds like a $900 guitar, I'd really wish I would have documented everything I've done so far...