Scrapwood?

[RGGR]

Scrapwood? Every body I have cut out body blank resulted in some pieces of scrapwood. Some big, some small.

The big ones are mostly too small to built new body from.

Is there clever idea to use them in future body. Know MIM Strats are made out of 7 or 8 different pieces of wood with veneer on front and back.

Are there other more clever solutions.

Just wanting to pick you brains.

[RGGR]

That's work by Charles Goldman not my pile.

[j. pierce]

Eh, I use it for practicing techniques and finishes. Save bits to cut up for the occasional shim, or headstock ears or what have you. Square some up for sanding blocks. Cut some in contours for sanding blocks on irregularly shaped surfaces. The nice looking stuff I save to make truss rod covers and such. Resaw some of it to make cavity covers, pickup covers and such. I always save a few pieces for clamping cauls where needed. Made a few spool clamps. Resawed some thickness off some of the larger pieces and used the thin pieces to make dovetailed jewelry boxes for gifts. I always have a few pieces of different woods for getting a good color match from some sawdust if I need a glue+dust filler, or getting shavings and plugs from if I need to fill a hole. Little pieces are always handy for cleats or what have you when you're building an amp. I have a wedge made of flame maple holding the back door open. Bigger pieces can be useful in jigs.

Or just make tiny instruments, sized to your wood, rather than the other way round! Electric ukelele, perhaps. Or get inventive and make a 7" scale length lap steel?

Every year or so, I take what's obviously gone beyond usefullness from my scrap pile, and bring it down to the recycling center. I guess they chip it and burn it in the local wood-fired power generator. I also make a point of trying to cut my scrap down into something that I'll actually use, and is easier to store, rather than the large, weirdly shaped cutoffs made by cutting a guitar body out of a large rectangle of wood. I find I'm more likely to use leftover wood (And tackle projects in general) if I can just grab something "close enough" from the pile rather than have to mill it to usefullness before I even start.

I also give a lot of scraps to a friend of mine who does small carvings and woodturnings and stuff.

[zyonsdream]

if it's exotic or figured you can cut it up into knife handle and gun handle blanks and get some money back out of them.

[joshvegas]

how about building other instruments?

ukes mandolins etc.

[verhoevenc]

Get a lathe...

Chris

[Ilikes2shred]

I once saw a picture of a guitar made out of many pieces of wood (maybe 10-20, all different varieties/colors) that were all different odd shapes (but still fit together perfectly) and glued together to form a body blank. I don't know if you know what I mean or have seen the pic or anything so I can try to explain it better if you want me to.

[Mattia]

Second the lathe. Making small items (egg cups, pens, that sort of thing) is good fun, and you can make knobs. Cheapie one will do, and I'd say don't bother getting a set of chisels (like I did) but get a roughing gouge, skew and bowl gouge (if you're interested in bowls) and a paring tools of some sort. Good fun.

For larger scraps, I've made two scrap guitars to date; one full scale headless (neck through, strips on the side) and one short scale Les Paul-ish thing (tiny, 20" scale length, body scaled to size). Fun little things.

[Canuck Brian]

I was eventually going to take enough of my scraps to do a guitar with and call it Patches.

[cherokee6]

are there pieces big enough for jigs?

[Daniel Sorbera]

I say make a cool "butcher block" style guitar with tons of little glued up pieces. It would look pretty sweet IMO

[jsnhavoc]

Here's one example.

[Rick500]

I bet that was a royal pain to glue up.

[Daniel Sorbera]

But it's really cool. Doesn't really go with that body style IMO. It's more of a coffee house look and would look great with a more subdued body shape.

[pinefd]

How 'bout sending some of the larger pieces my way...I may be able to use them for some of my builds!:

[joshvegas]

Here's one example.

has no one noticed who made this? those black bits arent dark wood they are glue joins or in his lingo natural tone holes left there to show that it was built by hand and not by somefaceslessrobotPOSfactoryfloppycrappy PRS peanut paid monkey!

pinefd you should start with one piece of wood and see how many guitars you can make from it starting with full size and working your way down!

Edited September 13, 2008 by joshvegas

[westhemann]

I don't know what you are talking about,dude...Zachary or not,that is a nice guitar that I would have been proud to build...

[psw]

I don't know what you are talking about,dude...Zachary or not,that is a nice guitar that I would have been proud to build...

That's true...hope he didn't put a zac headstock on it though! I like this kind of thing those conkins melted tops and someone posted a checkerboard Ibanez once that looked pretty cool.

[WezV]

thats the thing with zachery, i like most of his ideas.... i dont like the attitude that surrounds them but i am willling to say most of his ideas are sound... Why not make SG guitar out of an Ikea table, and why not make a guitar out of many pieces of wood??

i know why i havnt done it yet but if somebody asked me for a guitar that looked like like minton floor tiles i might produce one like the guitar above...and i might even use some black filler t do it..

the only thing i cant get on with is the samurai headstock and the attitude... most of which comes down do stuff the rest of us do a second nature... i am doing a LP JNR at the moment and i am using an uncompensated bridge... apparently Z has this nailed, me... i use ruler, but with past experience and general know-how this is Z'ed's for honesties sake

http://www.zacharyguitars.com/241006pics.htm

there are lots of carefully chosen questions in that build, for me all questions i want to ask come down to neck angle. He obviously has none and obviously has both P-90's raised quite high. Fine if you like it like that, but i wish the guy would learn the terms 'neck angle', and whilst he is at it he might want to consider how awkward it is if the A and B tuners turn the opposite way to the rest of the tuners

[westhemann]

I agree about that butt ugly headstock...but the body is mighty fine...

[WezV]

i chose that example because this statement makes me laugh:

I spent a whole day calculating the bridge placement. If you care to look and measure the bridge location on the reissue Gibson Special/Junior and I am sure on the vintage specimens as well, the bridge is in the wrong spot and the two intonation screws really need to be used to place the bridge in the right spot. To intonate these guitars properly sometimes means that the bridge is moved way back on the anchor bolts. I don't like that at all.

I could have really messed the bridge placement up and I had no idea I would get it so dead on. I did many calculations and basically predictions as to where the bridge will sit on the finished intonated guitar. When it came to intonate this guitar with my strobe tuner I was shocked to find that I did not have to move that bridge at all. I was amazed. So the ugly intonation screws are not needed and I removed them. This way the bridge also sits all the way forward on the anchor bolts, giving it the most surface area and stability.

basically it translates that Z can use a ruler and i think he placed the bridge more on experience than luck, or if he had used the info on this site he would have been smack bang on the line anyway.... certainly coupled with how experienced he makes himself out to be you would expect him to get that simple detail right

[Tim37]

Say what you want i love Zachary's site i think the man is probably fairly intelgent and a very capable luither

i also think he is a few french fries short of a happy meal and when i have had a bad day at work i will read some of his site laugh my ass off and feel better.

[psw]

At this at becoming yet another Mr Z thread...it would seem his work is improving...if not his seemingly multiple personality reviews and prose...

Gone appears the commitment to his original shape (which I liked in a strange kind of way) and due to the above comment...I just noticed something...

Fine if you like it like that, but i wish the guy would learn the terms 'neck angle', and whilst he is at it he might want to consider how awkward it is if the A and B tuners turn the opposite way to the rest of the tuners

There is neck angle to me...obviously it needs to if the bridge is going to be that high. I am not convinced at all about that non-intonated bridge...looks like a tailpiece to me with not enough of a sharp edge, even if traditional, there are probably more practical designs. Similarly...although he may have lucked out with the bridge placement, without any play forward and back...adjustment for a different gauge of string might be a little tricky.

As for the tuners...I have other criticisms and some admiration...if it weren't for the justifications. Although he has switched the two e string tuners about...the string winds on the reverse side so in fact the tuners would turn all the same way...

So...perhaps cleverer than he would appear to be in this design. Hype aside, the idea appears to be more to save on wood and work by economizing on neck wood...not a bad plan...but the strings are heading off on angles (no worse than a gibson though) and come dangerously close to the first tuner posts. Some of these principles are exactly the same as Leo Fender employed with the strat and tele designs to aid in manufacture. The six in line headstock and bolt on neck were certainly novel in their time. However, Leo went further have a straight string pull. one weird thing is that it could be adjusted to do this I suspect if he just played with it a little more and used ever so slightly a wider piece of wood!

There are other oddities...no truss rod adjustment (unless behind the neck pickup), but it is a workable design and distinctive in it's own way and I am sure actually works and would be a lot easier to manufacture. I wouldn't have minded coming up with the scheme...in fact, I did use that kind of marker dot layout years back on my compact travel guitar.

If the prices reflected the cost saving measures (scrap and cheap wood sources and design corners cut) instead of hyping them up, it would be easier to tolerate. Remember the clip of him playing guitar with the guaranteed not to break a string tremolo...where the string broke...classic! But he knows how to rial people up and get publicity...whether it translates to sales I can't tell.

Similar with this guitar, the thing couldn't be more basic in terms of hardware and design...and that is something in itself. If I recall, the pickups on the previous guitar were also zakery designs and look pretty spiffy too, whatever they are...again, wouldn't have been ashamed to have those in my resume...

pete

[Bmth Builder]

That headstock is very, very ugly and in that link wez, dont you think hes overdone the pictures a little? Theres like a thousand lol

[WezV]

like i tried to say at 2.30 in the morning - i think the guitars might actually be quite nice... its too easy to get drawn into his ego issues which is probably where i was at in the early hours of this morning..