I’m heavily into the DIY guitar scene, sometimes I think I spend more time building and tweaking then playing. So I thought it would be cool to start highlighting some of the incredible work I find in the forums and websites where like-minded guitarists congregate. I plan on making this a kind of ongoing series called “DIY Masterpieces”.
I’ll start with the pieces that originally gave me this idea – the “hobocastors” of reranch member Lone*star. This quote from one of his posts seems to sum up his DIY philosophy:
OK. I really love building basses, and one of the things I enjoy most is using “re-purposed”, “found”, and “recycled” materials to build them with. It puts you in a different mindset when designing and building than when you are using shiny new parts, perfect slabs of wood, etc. Not better or worse…just different. Besides, recycling things is good for all of us, and if we get a cool bass out of it, all the better !
My favorite example is this bass pictured below. The main ingredients for the body were a pine shelf and a plastic sign. And the old Bel Air logo was a great touch.
Right after finishing that one he took another pile of junk and turned out a very unique bass once again. I loved some of the ingenuity converting home depot type hardware into bass parts. A good example is how he turned a chrome light switch cover into a pickup ring. Apparently he even gigs with his creations – cool!
He’s already done another bass since this one that used a board found on the side of the road and is now working on a bass made from an old suitcase.
I read about these smashable guitars from Japan a while ago. They are engineered to smash easily and you can then collect up the pieces to be recycled into a new “Smash”guitar. Apparently this is the instruction video that comes with them. This just takes it to a whole other level.
Over at wired.com on the geekdad blog, John Anealio has started a series of guitar lessons teaching sci-fi themed songs. First up is the theme from the cult favorite “Firefly”. I recently re-watched this whole series with my kids, now that they’re old enough to appreciate it, and it was even better then I had remembered. Aired back in 2002, it was canceled after only 11 of the 14 produced episodes due to poor ratings. Joss Whedon, it’s creator, was never able to make a deal with Fox, who owned the rights to the series, to get the show continued when the outpouring of fan support made it clear there was still a market for the show. He did finally bring some finality to the series with the excellent movie “Serenity”.
This song is super simple and even novice players should be able to handle it. It’s not that it’s such a great song that makes it worth learning, it’s more that it’s an interesting one to have in your repertoire, especially if you’ve got geeky friends.
I came across these beautiful looking paper model guitar kits. They are both about 12″ and obviously one is a Les Paul, though I can’t quite make out if they are using the official headstock design. And the other a Telecaster. They are made up of about 100 laser cut parts. They can be ordered directly from the manufacturers site in Japan for $58.80(Les Paul) and $52.80(Telecaster).
