The Luthier Community

Hi haven't posted for a bit but I have been busy. Here is another junkyard guitar made from recycled hardwood doors.
Some of the bits and pieces.


My own bracing system using Douglas fir for the soundboard as well as the bracing.



The neck is maple and Sapele all recovered from scrap floorboards and door bits.



The bridge and fretboard are from an old Church floor board it is some sort of Ebony I think, it does not smell like rosewood when cut.



The finished thing







The eagle eyed among you will realize that this one has the hole in the "normal" place, I just thought I'd give it a go. It sounds really nice and has gone to a young lady who is well on the learning curve. I am at the moment working on one for her brother who is a keen learner too.

Amazing! I would hardly call it a junkyard guitar.

Bruce

What a great looking guitar! - if one likes the strong visual character of fir, and I do like it.

How is douglas fir to work with? I have some self harvested silver fir (Abies alba) in my wood stash, and for some tasks it is a pain to work with: extremely hard latewood and overly soft earlywood. The appearance is quite similar to your DF top here.

Markus, Douglas fir is not bad to work with but tends to be very splitty, it can give you amazing splinters in your fingers but I think it looks superb. I love the characterful appearance. My soundboard is made from 6 pieces of wood cut from a window ledge which resided underneath my living room window and survived the worse of Cumbrian weather for 35 years. I like the bright tone of this wood and the amount of headroom it has, it is very hard wood and very stiff heavier than spruce. And to me absolutely free?

Thank you for the detailed reply. Sure, free wood is some of the coolest things that can happen to an open minded instrument builder. Although, when "it happened" to me (10 cherry trees and one silver fir tree ) I was not sure if it was a blessing or a curse, because I had no idea where to store the treasure. Luckily I have a very kind neighbour (not the donator) who even helped me pile up the stuff under the roof of his machinery shelter.