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Doubt it would mean much to the average person. Bought two pieces of 'pine' from Home Depot, both quartered and I thought I could make some interesting instruments out of them. First one the widest grain I have come across. I am building an all pine/spruce Martin size 5 with it.



The next is a board you don't see at HD every day. About 200 years growth on this one. Will make some nice 00 sized builds.

Cool!

Looks a lot like good ol' "pyjama grade" pinus radiata.

Can sound OK, though...

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

Nice projects!

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Wow, nice silk too.

Yup we do !

Go for it!
Send pics & sound when it's done.

Mike

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Mike Collins

The silking on it is quite nice, I am glad it showed up a little in the photo. Not bad for a five foot board that cost about $10. Wish it was thicker than it's 3/4".

I had a request for a picture of how I cut my neck pocket, seeing that no one seems offended by the guitar I'll post a few extras. This build started because I let the humidity in my house drop too much and dried out some bodies to the point where some cracks developed. Seeing that I Rather than work on them while they still feel parched I thought it might be fun to do a simple guitar out of this wood. If it self destructs when the humidity is higher no big loss. It also gives me the incentive to make some tooling for a size 5 guitar.

The raw materials I thought I would use. In the end I only used the wide grained pine.



I resawed it to get three plates out of it. The top was bookmatched along with the sides. The third piece adjacent to the top was used for the back along with the extra 'side'. The board was a little narrow so I added a couple of wings for the lower bout, less than half an inch.



One day I might make a bender. Normally softwoods like to crease or crush when you bend them to a small radius. Found out from previous builds. SuperSoft to the rescue.



I will be using a 2"x6" stud for the neck. Cut two sections and glued them together. This will be a nylon string.



Neck block out of a piece of 2"x4", same with the linings. The original idea was to use common materials that anybody could pick up from their local big box retailer.



Maple binding.



Trying to figure out how to do a dovetail joint, never done one before. I could not find the bottom plate of my router, made a quick one out of plywood.



So far so good.



The body jig. Showed using a square and caliper to find the center of the upper bout. I did not trust where the sides met and I was unsure if it was semetrical. Built it without a body mold.

A very fun build. I bet that light back and sides will give it a very fast flamenco sort of attack.

I have seen plenty of spruce head blocks but never one for a dovetail. They are pretty common on Asian guitars with dowel pinned butt joint necks. They work fine for bolt on necks. We think of spruce as pretty soft - but its not uncommon to find spruce with the same density as soft maple. If I was going to pick spruce for the neck and block - I would try to find the hard dense stuff...

Are you going to paint/burst this one or leave it white?

Lots of fun!

It was very kind of you to post this show and tell.It will give newcomers the incentive to hopefully make an instrument by shopping at their local lumber store to buy the wood for their first instrument, thanks fred.

Yes, great project!
The problem is, it will most likely sound better than your exotic wood guitars. Just sayin'.
If you are like me, and I hope that you are not, you like the sound of your guitar better than the wood it is made of.
Your guitars and the making of them, will never be the same. You will try to get this great sound from your mundane Brazilian and Madagascar Rosewood paired with Red or European Spruce. Can't do it.

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We do love our "wood" Fred. Thanks for sharing that.

I'm an old Windsor Park boy btw. If you ever need some lower grade Spruce or Cedar to fool around with let me know. From one Pegger to another.

Cheers!

Hi Danny, got a few cedar tops and enough spruce to probably last the rest of my life unless I gear up for small scale production. But thanks for the offer. Wish there were a few more amateur builders in the peg though. I need to get a few more hooked.

Which is part of the reasoning behind the build. I did want to do a low buck build with this guitar with just basic tools but I have too many projects on the back burner that I need to get finished and I opted for using my bandsaw and other tools the regular homeowner wouldn't have. Hey David, nice looking guitars, seems we are of the same mind.

A torrified pine with walnut fretboard and China rosewood bridge. Cost me less for it ready to slap on than the wood if I wanted to build it myself. Probably going to use one for this current build also.



Two other spruce back and side guitars but with cedar tops. The cedar is from quartered fence boards. One was finished and at a moment of weakness I sold it to someone for a ridiculous low price. The second I still need to put the bridge on.



The guitar that started me on this trend.

One other picture for my, you can do it tutorial to come some day.



The board was cut on a table saw down the middle and then finished with the hand saw. Then I planed it down to give two plates for the top or back. Wasteful coming from a 3/4" board but it is the cheap and dirty way of getting the job done. Just remembered, the above guitars had necks out of fir, the nylon spruce.

Forgot to answer your post. The nylon that I made before does seem quick now that you mention it. When I brought it to work one of the guys started to do a flamenco sounding thing after a second or two. I did look up Spanish cedar and the density and hardness is not that far from Sitka so using it for the sides, back and neck might work alright for a flamenco guitar. When I go shopping the lumber aisles I do find a large range in the weight of the wood. With the construction lumber it might be due also on how dried the wood is. In the pine board racks the wood is probably more consistent in moisture content. I did sort through them when I was looking for wood to build a lightweight speaker cabinet. Some heavier, and harder pieces might be better suited for the back and sides while the lighter ones for the top. I think I have a few more guitars to build with the stuff given the range to play with.

Not sure how I will go on the finish of this guitar. I did think I was going to do a burst at first but I think it might be cool to have the guitar all white with a maple fretboard, bridge might be better dark though. Or maybe a light burst with much of the wood showing through. I'll have to see how the wood looks together once I am farther along.