I love the idea of “here’s a bit of wood I found lying around, I’m going to make a guitar out of it”.  Brilliant.  I believe Leo Fender started out in much the same 

Hope you did the @markbailey tap test on the wood first?

😉

Seriously, I’ve seen people make bodies out of old scaffolding planks, or Ikea table tops - all sorts.  The neck wood is more important.  You need something strong and stable for that.

@tv1010101

I did do the tap test, the pine sounded dead. The hardwood did have a ring, despite it being filthy, it had been a part of a boat's floor in a past life, so its well seasoned. Its going to be a semi hollow body with a hardwood cap.

Its going to be a semi hollow body with a hardwood cap

Great stuff - post plenty of progress pics.  

Apart from the fact that I love watching builds come together (and generally learn some useful tips too), I’ve also found that sharing on a forum makes me do a decent photo diary of a build whereas I’d probably not have bothered otherwise.

And having old photo diaries is always useful when I try to remember how I did something previously!

I love the idea of finding a lump of wood under a caravan (I mean, who hasn't?) and then turning it into a musical instrument, it's is just so amazing! I think we can all get so wrapped up in what may be the ultimate materials, the best technique and the finest 'everything else' that we miss some of the joy of just using what may be to hand and trying to make it the best it can be. With the ever expansion of the CITES schedules this may be an avenue of exploration that is increasingly forced upon us! I bet it will sound amazing!

Darren

I love the idea of finding a lump of wood under a caravan

What he didn't say was that the caravan had been parked for 50years in a Brazilian wood yard ...

?

@tv1010101

I'm not in a Brazilian forest, but at Knapdale forest a bit further up the scottish west coast from Mark.

The pine is the last piece of a bed frame, the rest of it is now shelves in my bathroom cupboard. The hardwood came from the floor of a sailing boat that was built in Grangemouth in the 1950s for the Royal Navy, I don't know what it is, but it sanded up to a lovely dark orange colour.

Excellent! Nothing wrong with this idea, I’ve made electric guitar bodies out of old pallet wood, I’ll put some pictures up. 

I'm not in a Brazilian forest, but at Knapdale forest a bit further up the scottish west coast

You lucky man @robin (well, apart from the midges and the rain!) - that's one of my favourite parts of the country.  Beautiful scenery, loads of space, and few people!  Had a few holidays on the stretch south of Oban in a tiny place with no name (but I remember Easdale and the bridge over the Atlantic).

In the spirit of building my fisrt guitar from scrap wood, I'm still searching for a bit of suitable neck timber. In my past working days we used a wood called Keruing for truck body floors. Any thoughts if a 28mm plank of Keruing would work for a neck, even if I just use it as practice piece and to test the routing jigs that I'll be making.

I used a length of pine and some pallet boards to make a body blank.

Turned it all into this left handed T-type Barncaster. 

Here is another. 

I've moved on a bit today and got some body cavities routed.

@robin That is some nice routing, very neat. 

@johnnierox-boo  Thanks John, my router was falling into the cavity doing the larger bit, I'll need to make a wider router base plate soon.

@robin Yes I’ve had that problem before, I bought a much bigger piece of Perspex to solve the problem. I look forward to seeing how this project of yours turns out, I love reusing/repurposing wood (or anything for that matter) for guitar projects. Keep going! 

@johnnierox-boo I’m curious as to how the softwood body affects the sound of the guitar. Traditional teaching would suggest that it may not be that great but who cares? What are they like in real life? All sorts of accepted ‘truths’ are up for challenge at the moment and I feel that a new age of real experimentation is upon us.

I have loads of lengths of 2” pitch pine (from the same uncle who left me all the Rio rosewood), which is the only conifer species to be classified as a hardwood and which just rings like a bell if you belt them with a hammer. I wouldn’t suggest scorching them though as pitch pine is the closest thing you’ll ever find to a wooden petrol bomb!! You can set light to shavings and it really is like watching tar burn, it’s completely astonishing! I imagine the sustain would be amazing though!

my router was falling into the cavity doing the larger bit, I'll need to make a wider router base plate soon.

@robin

I struggled for years with the same problem with my router.  It was watching one of Mark's livestreams that prompted me to get some perspex and make some decent sized router bases.  Makes a huge difference - the router is much easier to use and can be used for more jobs too!

Though, for some reason, the price of perspex seems to have jumped recently ...