I only use HT (heat treated) stamped pallets. 

Burn, cool and sand.

Cleaned off with some spirit wipe and they look pretty nice. 

Removed them from the pallet and offered them up to the body blank for assessment, which one goes where. 

A bit of light planing and they are ready to go. 

Drilled, glued and screwed. I used an old template to screw down to act as clamping action, some nice screws will be used in the finished product, just for show, maybe stainless steel. 

Couple more pics.

Looking forward to seeing how this turns out @boo. Nice start. 

🙂🙏🎸🎶

Nice start. 

Thanks @russ I love making these Barncasters. 

@boo

Ive been asked to make something similar from an old scaffold plank and am not sure how to start, so I will watch yours first and see how it goes.

Ive been asked to make something similar from an old scaffold plank and am not sure how to start, so I will watch yours first and see how it goes.

@rocknroller912 Yeah, no probs. There are pictures on here of two other Barncasters I did last year too. 

@rocknroller912 if you look further to the bottom of this page, there are links to “Related Topics”, those are the other two Barncasters. This is the advantage of “tagging” topics and posts on this website, it groups them all so we can easily reference similar projects with the same tags we placed on them. 

Not sure if the hash tag thing works, I’ll test it. #barncaster 

#no 🤣

@ boo

Thanks I found the other Barncaster builds ok. I looked at the photos first and was really impressed that you had made a skunk stripe neck, then read that you had bought it on eBay !

Is soft wood solid enough to bolt a neck onto or does it have to be strengthened with something.

Thanks I found the other Barncaster builds ok. I looked at the photos first and was really impressed that you had made a skunk stripe neck, then read that you had bought it on eBay !

Is soft wood solid enough to bolt a neck onto or does it have to be strengthened with something.

@rocknroller912 Oh yeah! That was the first Barncaster I made, I used a hockey stick neck from eBay. 
I think softwood is ok so long as the body is thick enough. It isn’t ideal but I’ve made loads and they are still going. I wouldn’t make a neck from something like pine, I would stick with maple but a pine body is fine. 
Something like the scaffolding board you have will be fine and if it has any defaults, it doesn’t matter so long as nobody is going to get splinters etc. Make sure to remove all old nails or screws before processing the wood, I use one of those metal detectors that is normally used for checking for pipes and cables in walls before drilling holes. 

The other two Barncasters on here I made the necks from maple and rosewood for the fretboards. 

Today I used my big belt sander to get the boards a bit more level after the gluing process. I then trimmed everything up to make a respectable guitar body blank, ready for marking up and routing. 

@boo

Thanks for the info very useful. The scaffold plank I have has bad warping across its width so I’m planning to cut it down the middle and join the outside edges together. I will need to add something for thickness so I’m still thinking but you’ve given me an idea that the local DIY shop might have some pallets.

Thanks for the info very useful. The scaffold plank I have has bad warping across its width so I’m planning to cut it down the middle and join the outside edges together. I will need to add something for thickness so I’m still thinking but you’ve given me an idea that the local DIY shop might have some pallets.

@rocknroller912 With pallet boards, you have to keep them flat for as long as possible, even after gluing to the body blank, they can cup. I have learned from using them before, as soon as you remove them from the pallet, they can twist/warp/cup etc. If I’m burning them (Shou sugi ban), I leave them on the pallet. When I’m sanding them, I leave them on the pallet. I make sure that I have a fully prepped body blank before removing the boards from the pallet. Then I run the boards through my planer, just the side that will be glued and make sure they are all the same thickness. Apply the glue to the body blank only, then put the boards on but be quick to clamp them, with another board (creating a press) or they start to cup because of the glue. As you can see, I even use screws as clamping action.