Guitar 3, the $5 wonder

So I did a bunch of research for nice and expensive wood for which I'd build guitar 3. I saw a couple very pretty guitars that had douglas fir sound boards. I had read that douglas fir is an excellent tone wood, but for some unknown reason not many luthiers use it.

I ended up buying very pretty Mexican rosewood (Palo Escrito) for backs and sides. Since I didn't do a perfect job of bending the sides on guitar 1, I thought I should practice on some scrap wood. I also had just bought a new planer, and decided to run some scrap wood through that to make sure it wouldn't eat my pretty and expensive wood. I had a couple of cheap 2x4's laying around, which are just the right width for a guitar side, I could slice one up with my band saw, run it through the planer, and kill two birds with one stone...

I was really impressed with how the sides came out. I figured, why not?, and sliced up & planned a couple more pieces & joined them together for a sound board & back. I cut a length in three and laminated them together alternating the grain to make a neck. I then cut out strips to make the soundboard and back bracing.

I tried making a "2x4" bridge and fret board, but that didn't turn out so well. I grabbed a spare piece of oak for the bridge & fret board.

I glued it all together and much to my surprise, this is a really decent sounding guitar.

I had spent $200 just for wood for a guitar, and ended up making one out of $5 worth of wood. The final cost was about $66, 50% of which was the Gotoh tuners (black was on sale ;-).






Update: Cheyenne Appleby is now the proud owner of this guitar.