Comment

Comment by John Wendell on February 13, 2011 at 11:56am

ENTRY #39

"Crutchenstein"

       Inspired by not only MacGyver but also the ultimate recycler himself..."Dr. Frankenstein"...this awesome creature was brought back to life from the old and decaying items left buried in the ruins of discarded things. 
      From its backbone - the antique crutch whose rubber arm pad had rotted beyond recognition, to the windshield ice scraper tailpiece retrieved from its tomb under the seat of an old vehicle where it had not seen the light of day in literally 20 years or more!    Its body - a $1.99 silverware box Goodwill find -  is embellished with 3 heavy duty cabinet pulls for the bridge, bridge cover, and neck adjustment slide - that the wife knew I would love when she returned from a yard sale with them!   The old rotary phone mic installed under the strings was working great until it died and couldn't be reanimated...so an old yellowed smoke detector was dissected, and the piezo was surgically removed with the skill of a butcher and placed under the bridge achieving my best sounding piezo installment to date!  The jack input was from a little 1960's headphone mixer.
      If my creation were a lady, she'd be saying..."Don't hate me 'cause I'm beautful!"

Comment by Brian Walak on February 13, 2011 at 10:47am

ENTRY #38 (CONTINUED)

Photo two of my reclaimed barn wood guitar.

Comment by Brian Walak on February 13, 2011 at 10:46am

ENTRY #38

For my entry I kept it pretty simple I used some reclaimed barn wood from my grandmother's 1900's New England barn, along with some antique nails that I had. From their I built the box, and neck, then used the nails as the frets, the nut and the tuning pegs.

Some more pictures http://www.flickr.com/photos/zinger/sets/72157626042155682/

Comment by Brian Walak on February 13, 2011 at 10:40am

ENTRY #37 (CONTINUED)

Photo number two of the paint can guitar.

Comment by Brian Walak on February 13, 2011 at 10:38am

ENTRY #37

This is my son's (Ethan) entry. He was inspired to make an instrument out of things he could find in the basement. He found an old unused paint can that he cleaned out to use as the body, then with some help we cut holes in the can and added the board. He then found some bolts, screws and string, to use for the rest of the guitar. Again with some guidance we drilled some holes and strung it up. I was very impressed with his willingness and determination to want to complete this contest as he is only 9 years old.

Comment by mike anderson Blues Box Guitars on February 13, 2011 at 6:42am

ENTRY #36

well, poor ole MacGyver was in a fix.   he got hisself catched and held captive in an abandoned fishin shack.  luckily, his captors found a pick in his pocket and offered his freedom in exchange for a guitar gig.    he set to work, digging through the jumbled mess of fishing gear, broken fishing poles and  broken reels.   five fishing pole parts, 20-some gold hooks, a hook tin, broken reel with 10 feet of 6-lb line and a cigar box (and, THANK GOD, a tube of glue) ... and there it was  --  a one string d-bow with an amazing sound.  Free at last!!

Comment by Clay Wright on February 13, 2011 at 6:06am

ENTRY #35

 This isnt as wild as most of the others I found an old spice rack at the thrift store along with an old guitar neck, old scrap wood but I think it will play well and be a good conversational piece.

 

Comment by eric gittins on February 12, 2011 at 7:54pm

ENTRY #34

MacGyver knew that the bomb's detonator was wired to a mobile phone, and that once connected, a simple series of tones from a tone dialing phone would disarm it. 

Unfortunately MacGyver was trapped in a ghost town, with the only connection to the outside world, a smashed click-dialing telephone!

Using an old drawer for the box, a piece of galvanized fencing for a soundboard, a section of mantlepiece for the neck, a tuning peg from a decomposing piano for the nut, some stips of some kind of hardwood someone had left sticking out of a jar, a big container of old screws, a couple of forks for tuning machines, an E string and a B string left over from someone's cigarbox guitar project, the guts of the smashed dial telephone and a bank of switches from a Toshiba organ to turn the phone on and off, he had the answer to save the day!

Without any standard-type pickup of it's own, the fone-o-slide plugs directly into the phone-line.  Flick the switches and dial the number, the listener (or bomb) at the other end is greeted by sweet slide tones with that tinny phone-line vibe!

This project was a collective effort of James and Joey, and Brenden and Eric, and involved a few fine Wednesday evenings.  Thank you Boys.

Comment by ronnie d cole on February 12, 2011 at 6:10am

ENTRY #33

Description:

A plastic ice container for the lid of a cooler provides the resonant cavity for Jo’ Mantar, who has necks, tuners, bridges, and tension rod cover from various instruments.  The tailpiece and tuner adapter-straps/spacers are from (Thank you Dad), the shop.  The farmer’s pants seem to be down around his knees; but the moniker plate keeps the overalls from blowin’ wild.  The mandolin neck is like a colossal pair of pliers stickin’ out of a pocket.  Mr. mandolin fell sorta dwarfed by his neighbors, so I coiled the string-ends, hoping that’d make him feel more adequate.  Didn’t want to risk having envy soil the music of this little band.  I told him that performance was most the vital.  I think that it’s safe to say that this stringed instrument is unique, in the world, having a spit valve.  Hey, stranger things have happened!  Happy Tunes, Ron Cole

Comment by Scott Winburn on February 9, 2011 at 5:25am

ENTRY #32

7D9887 (Time Slider):

Description:
    7D9887, aka "Time Slider", is a lap slide guitar with a few unique features. The most obvious of these is the autonomous bass string. It is off-set, has a slightly shorter scale-length, and considerably lower action than the other strings. The purpose of this setup is to allow the player to comfortably fret the bass string with his or her thumb while using a slide at the same location on the other strings.

    Another unique feature is the mobile pickup, giving the player to an additional way to control tone. Turning the tap handle moves the pickup.

    Finally, a much less less obvious feature of 7D9887 is its naïve application of general relativity to quantum mechanics -- the ability to send sound waves very slightly back in time. At the core of the instrument a heavy atomic nucleus rests inside a strong magnetic field, causing it to elongate it into a cylinder. Sound waves generated by the strings are then projected across this exceptionally dense spinning cylinder, effectively sending the signal approximately 687 milliseconds back in time. By amplifying this time distorted signal along with the signal at its creation we achieve a sort of reversed echo effect. This can be a bit disconcerting at first as the player hears each note just before he or she plays it, followed immediately by the same note as it is actually played. Under most interpretations of quantum mechanics this does not violate causality and is therefore safe for use by anyone with more than 687 milliseconds of time to kill.

For more pictures, a full materials list, and a PDF containing 30 or so progress shots taken during the building of the instrument:
7D9887 on Jugtones.com

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