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Comment by Dave Cummins on February 14, 2011 at 6:58pm

ENTRY #54

at the 11th hour he realized he needed a bass for his band. someone told him that a wash tub bass was hip. he scrounged some pipe, and a bucket and created "Dear Liza" he grabbed a bit of wire and some old faucets from a sink and fashioned some tuners. a bit of speaker wire serves as the convient strap

Comment by Henry Strat-o-varius Lowman on February 14, 2011 at 6:25pm

Oh, yeah. Almost forgot. Fishing line strings! (20, 30 and 80lb test)

Comment by Wade on February 14, 2011 at 5:09pm

ENTRY #53

Born in the scrap yards along the Blue Mountain and inspired by the spirit of "Mac" and Rockabilly I present to you the “Junkyard Dog II”. This mean, lean six string axe began with an old 1958 license plate that was given to me by a close relative who lives in Borger Hollow. This Hollow is well known far and wide for its, well....let’s say potent distilled goods. The plate was sitting in the beams of his garage for years. The old wooden box used for the body of the guitar once held art supplies. A walk on trash day had me come across two nice chunky dowels leaning against some garbage cans. They appear to have been pieces from a broken canopy bed. Tuners were the most challenging- they are zither pins taken from those country craft type of door chimes. The used spark plug on the headstock is strictly there for coolness factor and added horsepower. The tailpiece is a hinge with a bent nail to secure the strings. The nut and hardware came from a broken futon as did the wood to support the back of the neck. The bridge is a wrench I found in the street. The second piece of the bridge is a loose aluminum roof(gutter) spike. The pickup is a peizo taken out of a broken rock band type drum set toy someone was throwing away. The volume knob is a sawed off 12 guage shotgun shell that I found in the woods and it polished up nicely. The strap is the cut off waistband of a pair of old jeans I bent over too far with one day and ripped them clear up my backside. The strap is attached with a leather shoe lace. Go ahead, take her for a spin- Just don’t let the Junkyard Dog bite ya!

Comment by Henry Strat-o-varius Lowman on February 14, 2011 at 5:08pm

ENTRY #52 (CONTINUED)

McGyver is in need of a 12 string guitar for a gig and realizes that he is short on cash to buy one. Seeing a Home Depot while sitting at a red light, he gets a fit of inspiration. A couple of planks of wood, some wood screws, long screws, wing nuts, some wood glue, a piezo buzzer, 1/4 inch jack, spare fret wire from a previous project and...VOILA!!!

Comment by Henry Strat-o-varius Lowman on February 14, 2011 at 5:07pm

ENTRY #52

Comment by ProfWaldo on February 14, 2011 at 4:37pm

ENTRY #51 (PIC.2)

Comment by ProfWaldo on February 14, 2011 at 4:36pm

ENTRY #51 (PIC. 1)

Comment by ProfWaldo on February 14, 2011 at 4:34pm

ENTRY #51

So McGyver gets locked in the non-ferrous metals warehouse of a recycling center. He looks around and says to himself, " I'm sick of breakin' outa' places just to be locked up again, ta' hell with it, I'm stayin' put n' I'm gonna' make sumptin' cool outa' this crap." This guitar was made specifically for this event and is made entirely from old crap in my basement shop. Solid brass except for the fret-board, which is from a mahogany pallet I received some product on from the Phillipines. The brass ball of the body is what I believe was a kerosene lantern base in it's past life. The three brass tubes forming the neck were chandelier parts and a telescoping leg from an old brass camera tripod that never fit a single camera I ever owned. The center tripod tube with it's "horn" extends over 3 feet and has various attachments including an arrow-head finial from an old lamp for roasting hotdogs on the campfire. The two tuners on the head are old valves as is the tuner on the tail end. The three tubes are joined using an old brass pipe strap and the angle was achieved using 2 fittings from a 50's era goose-neck lamp. The nut and frets are brazing-rod stubs that I always save. The "soundboard" is an old door escutcheon-plate and the round "hand-rest" valve handle was part of the original kerosene lamp. The bridge is an old brass key. The fancy decorative brass valves and tubes were at one time gas-light fixtures salvaged from old homes. The large horn "speaker" was the top of a brass outdoor light fixture, the smaller horns were once candle holders. The "speed-contol" is from a long gone victrola record player and it is mounted onto an old door-bell escutcheon. The pick-up is a speaker from a 1961 "Archer" walkie-talkie. The wires from it are copper shielded wire cut-offs from low-voltage pendant-lights I installed recently, they lead to an upside-down "candle-cup" from an old lamp which houses the amp cord recepticle. There is also another goose-neck that screws into the guitar to hold a kazoo or harmonica and a flashlight. (removed for photos) Everything was soldered together using a torch. I will be posting close-up photos and a video on my page and on my youtube channel, "profwaldo" as soon as I can. This thing actually sounds good !

10 pounds of Scrap, Value: about 35 dollars. Tons of building and playing value: Priceless !

 

 

Comment by Brian Hunt on February 14, 2011 at 4:26pm

ENTRY #50

 Having to go to the Mississipi Delta to recover stolen top secret plans, Mac must appear on stage and play a quick televised song during a multiple artist blues concert to signal the recovery of the plans. If he doesn't appear and play, then the CIA will start assasinating foreign dignitaries and political figures of the newly founded ex-soviate block dictatorship.

 

In order to avert war, Mac must be able to play. But during the recovery of the plans, he lost his guitar, his car and his cell phone in a massive explosion that he barely escaped from with his life. Hitching a quick ride he found himself in a very small town with one pawn shop that had just recently parted with all of it's guitars.

 

Digging through some old boxes, he found a used neck with 3 tuners from the 70's along with a metal roller bridge made in Japan from the 70's and 3 new tuners. Digging through some more boxes he put together a complete set of used strings, found some wall wart transformers, some scrap steel, an old brass door kick plate, a couple of old hard drives, a knob from an old CB radio, some scrap shielded wire, a used audio jack still attached to an old volume pot.

 

Taking apart the hard drives, he removed the magnets from them. With care, he pulled apart the wall wart transformers and tore them down until he had the secondary windings from two transformers. Cutting some scrap steel to length, he used that a poles for pickups and used the hard drive magnets to transfer a field through the coils. Using a hot glue gun he glued the impromptu pickups together and tested them with an old amp at the shop.

 

Cutting an old piece of pine 2 X 12 into an interesting shape, he used a router and some hand chisels to cut pockets for the neck and the pickups as well as a pocket for the volume and jack. Finding an old, nearly dry can of stain, he rejuvinated it with some alcohol and gave the wood a quick stain then finished the wood with a mostly empty can of tung oil.

 

Drilling holes for the strings to go throught the body of the guitar, he used pop rivets that he drove the nails out of to run the strings through and stop the strings from cutting into the wood. Using a scrap piece of Oak he had found, he make a new string guide for the neck to guide the strings over the fret that was designed to act as a nut.

 

After attaching the neck with some glue and 3 recovered deck style grabber screws, he stripped the covers off the new tuners so they would better match the old tuners that he had to tweek and repair to get them to work. Then used a couple of screws to hold the bridge in place.

 

Making a quick telecaster like control plate he soldered everything together, glued the pickups in place with hot glue and wrapped the copper windings with black duct tape to protect them. Since one pickup is a little weaker than the other one, he had to set it a little closer to the strings.

 

After mounting all the electronics and attaching the control knob from a 70's CB radio to the volume pot, he strung it up and tried it out. With little time to spare he hitched to the concert and just made it on stage in time to play his set using an old socket and saved the day.

 

 

 

Hope you enjoyed this little tale.

 

Brian Hunt.

 

If there are any questions on

Comment by Dustin Brown on February 14, 2011 at 4:02pm

ENTRY #49

 This project came to be through my channeling of MacGyver and Antonio Torres, specifically the 1862 Antonio Torres FE14 Papier’Mache Guitar.  

Using all recycled and reclaimed materials I present for your consideration a 15” Concert scale Paper Ukulele.

(Please check out my page for construction process photos.)

 

Tuners & Bushings- Reclaimed from old Yamaha acoustic

Headplate- Koa scrap to add Island Mojo

Nut- Rosewood leftover from Guitar fingerboard

Neck- Black and white mat board with Jatoba floorboard scrap stiffener

Fretboard- Jatoba from floorboard scrap

Frets- Vintage brass frets pulled from an Old Kraftsman Archtop

Top-  Leftover Spruce from Mandolin rebuild project

Back - Black mat board

Sides-  Black mat board

Back & SideVeneers- Taylor Guitar catalog, Macassar sides flamed Maple back

Kerfing- Pine 2x4

Bracing- Western Red Cedar fence plank

Bridge- Rosewood leftover from guitar fingerboard

Saddle- Broken bone saddle from Classical guitar sized to fit

Top Finish- Expired shellac & stain

Back & Side Finish- ModPodge “reclaimed from Missus craft closet”

Binding- Paint marker “reclaimed from Missus craft closet”

Strings- Pulled from cheap Chinese Uke

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