The Luthier Community

Well, here's an old friend that went by the way side during The Great Debacle, brought back by popular demand!

We're gonna make this a build contest, and let's just put a starting time frame of NINE months on it, from today's date, (Yes, we can and will tweak as necessary - The idea is to have fun and get some folks building!)

Here are the rules, such as they are:

Your entry can be any kind of stringed instrument you want - It must have strings and employ same for the majority of its sound production, but beyond that, the sky and your imagination are the limits!

There will be two divisions for your entries:

Home Grown Division:
Instruments in this category must be made from wood that was actually harvested within 100 miles of your shop,
(Or from species that are known to grow within that radius). In keeping with the spirit of the category, the rougher the condition of the wood you start with, the more we'll be impressed!
ALL of the wooden parts must meet this criterion to place a build in this category!

Midnight Recon Division:
Instruments in this category may be made from whatever you can scrounge!
The wood you choose MUST have spent part of its life as something else before you found it, scrounged it, and got fixin' to turn it into an instrument! Doesn't matter what it was, as long as it was something else; from an old pallet to Aunt Tillie's BRW piano, it's all good in th' 'hood Within this category, you can use your best judgment when choosing the minor wood parts, (Blocks, bracing, etc), but try to keep those choices within the spirit of the category. Once again, the gnarlier and odder your original ingredients, the more wow factor you earn!

Judging will be done by a method agreed upon by a majority of the entrants,
and will take into consideration the originality, musicality, and innovation of the instrument,
as well as how well the builder interpreted the spirit of the category they entered.

Prizes will be awarded by The Board, and will include wood and tools to be determined shortly.

So that's the basic idea. This can be both fun and enlightening... and...
There will be some fine instruments produces, trust me on that one

So, who's in?

Sign up Procedure:
1. Start a new thread within the Back Yard Builds forum,
2. Name it ____'s Back Yard Build.
3. Tell us which Division you wanna enter,
4. Give us basic spec's on what instrument you're gonna build
5. Give us any specific information that you've already got planned, (And if not don't worry, just do it later)


E

Oh come on now, folks, really!

140+ members here all interested in building guitars,
and only 3 sign up?
And I met them folks and one of 'em is me...
Are y'all telling me you're all so busy and/or whatever that you don't wanna play no more?

Really?

Even free stuff, heck good free stuff doesn't catch your eye?

What am I doing wrong here?

E

Well Eben

Probably will be that I'm in, but am struggling to come up with the topwood. Everything else is obtainable. Even if its mostly Sycamore or dyed sycamore

Tomorrow I'm off to Pack away our holiday Caravan for the winter, so I plan on walking the beach at Talacre were the nice shells wash up. Gonna use em for inlaying hopefully.

Back to the topwood. Now the only way I know is to go to the place in the Peak District were there are lots of Conifers that grow. But getting permission to use some is another thing. How about a sycamore top . Another idea that crossed my mind was to call some of the local tree surgeons to see if they could fix me up with something.

Now my Cat 'bella' is getting worried with all this talk of a backyard guitar build. Twang!

Then again, I could spin some strings from Sycamore Roots

Garry

PS. When is the deadline for this build.

Hi Eben
I finished my local wood build started on the "other " forum but did not get it
posted. As soon as I can figure how to get Easyshare and photo bucket to marry up,
I'll post some pictures.
I'd like to get in on this build, but not likely before the new year. We will likely have
snow soon and I have a lot of outside work to do
This winter crap sure comes too soon!
Happy building!
Allen

Eben,

I got ideas for both categories, but if I have to start it in the next month or two I'll have to pass. Just too much stuff going on.

Scrounge - I'm not sure but I think the crate they packed that Grizzly Band saw in was pure spruce... Would probably take some creative joining to get a good top out of it, but I definitely got the bracewood for the scrounge build, and the neck and tail blocks as well as the kerfing from the pallet. Might need to get a bit creative for the back and sides, but push come to shove and I have a great set of monkey pod sides that started out as a table. I also have an old baby bed that is mostly particle board and veneer, but has some pieces of solid maple mostly for the railings and slats. At least good enough for binding, but if I work at it I might be able to laminate a ten piece neck or something.

Local wood - I've got some sycamore, oak, Japanese black pine (may not sound local but I cut it down in my yard), seedless mulberry, mesquite, holly, ash. Some from my yard, some from local sources, and some from Jesse, but definitely locally available. I don't have any osage orange, but I see those horse apple seed pods everywhere so I'm sure I could scrounge some somewhere. Maple is also everywhere which is good as I don't really like most of these woods for necks.

But like I said, I wouldn't be able to start anything for awhile, and before these I got a Uke and a couple of nylon strings to do.

Raymond

Ok, well maybe we just need to extend it, say for a 9 month period?



E

I could probably start them in about 6 months, but by my Birthday in July should be a lock.

Raymond

This has got be the coolest idea I've seen in a while.!!
Count me in , I start another post listing my B/Y build and category.
...this is right up my alley. (think my wife will notice the china hutch missing?????)
- Nehemiah