Hello dear people,
Long overdue post here! Despite my good intentions, it's been many years since my last bass build. Years, too, since I last checked in on this forum (with then renewed intentions to build) and, regrettably, a long time since I last played bass (or any other instrument for that matter). It has simply not been in my cards. But a new year brings new opportunities, and I thought I'd start by showing off this one last project that I did manage to work on from Fall 2022 - Spring 2023 (April 1st to be precise). If you'll have me of course, since it's an, ahem, higher register six string instrument
It comes with a bit of backstory, for those few patient readers. I lacked time and resources for proper glamour shots, too, so they're just some quick phone pics outside. Hope you enjoy them regardless, and as always, I'm happy to hear your thoughts, the good and the bad!
September '22, I stumbled upon an announcement for a local guitar builder's meetup. I thought I'd pass, but my eye fell on this palletcaster challenge. I'd seen such challenges on this lovely forum and I sadly never got round to taking part. Was this the final nudge to fulfilling a long cherished dream of mine, to unite the pile of scrap wood salvaged over the years from dumpsters and bonfires with a carefully dismantled single use pallet that had been rotting in the garden for a year - all saved under the mantra "it'll come in handy one day!" - into the lofty creation of a musical instrument? In an extremely short timeframe with almost no spare time to work on it anyways? Yes indeed
I let the idea simmer for a while and then took it on as a purely for fun build, trying a different experience from earlier builds and creating a bit more room for unintentional 'features'. Given these time constraint (which I hate) I decided to skip the usually extensive design phase and drawing blueprints entirely, and instead indulge in the experiment. Not yet deciding what instrument this would be, I started making a few quick 'n dirty molds for a body - a Thinline! - and ran all the pallet boards through the HNC router (H for human) to see what I got in this woodpile.
Besides some knotty softwood (I think it's pine of some sorts) with gray streaks from unidentified origins there were some way denser pieces in the woodpile. Adding swamp ash and korina offcuts from previous bodies made exactly the surface needed for a new one. I really enjoyed the second 'eureka' moment when two pieces of rough wood and a strip of walnut from my very first build exactly fit the contours of the neck, with an added 'ear' on the headstock: the final confirmation this would become a guitar and not a bass. The fretboard blank was a piece I'd saved back when I was making knives (Australian?!), never used it because I couldn't bring myself to cut it. This knot too was meant to stay in, and I also kept the nail holes in the pallet boards for the top.
Slowly but surely a theme emerged: pallet wood, firewood, burnt in details, cork, nails, old leather. Fitting the concept of using waste materials for neck and body, the approach for the rest of the build was 'lo-fi' as well: spending as little money as possible, improvising and taking every opportunity to experiment. That included the consumables - using up 8 years past shelf life wood glue (so far it holds up!), blunt router and drill bits I had already binned, 3 rattle cans of €2.99 varnish I've had for years (one half used), and so on. The nut was made from a piece of soup bone I buried in the garden. I cut the nut grooves with folded sandpaper. Fretting was done the way I did it before, with my favorite flea market hammer and leveled with a plastic ruler with sandpaper glued to it When it was finally time to string it, late in the evening before the event with the lacquer still soft, I forgot that I didn't buy strings! So, very appropriately, I dug up a decade old pack of strings I had hidden in a gigbag.
Position markers are slices off a fat stainless nail (and some original pallet nails still hidden in the top). I took the soldering iron to make the side dots, to 'burn in' the position markers, to create some 'faux tortoise' binding and put a name and my signature on the headstock. The only costs were made buying some (brandless) hardware and pickups as guitar hardware was never in my hoarding scope. The parts looked way too clean though, so I happily set them on fire, dunked them in acid, dragged them across the street and hit them with all sorts of objects The knobs are made from a wine bottle cork that I kept in my drawer for years. Big oops when I realized I had used two tuning peg bushings for the inserts…. The pickguard is a piece of fiberboard covered with recycled cork. The strap is made from leftover bits of leather I kept from other projects (too ugly to use, too good to throw away) and hardware salvaged ages ago from a worn out bag. Contrary to an original Thinline I mirrored the position of the control plate to the f-hole. Pickup cavities are not routed but chiseled out. Lastly, I chambered the body to the extent I thought it'd be structurally sound.
So here it is - the Scrapocaster - another member of the small but growing musical family, a Telecaster that I always wanted to own. Excited like always when it finally talks, I could long after enjoy this moment. Besides I loved this build it has been a bit of a struggle, physically and mentally, so I'm all the more proud of this one. Won't bother you too much with the details but besides cold, moisture, time and space constraints I had some health concerns, both serious and less serious (and equally persistent); from Covid to broken bones to a herniated disc, and a lot of taking care of others, mainly my own family. I sincerely hope the next post will not take as long again
My lessons learned from this build:
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Long overdue post here! Despite my good intentions, it's been many years since my last bass build. Years, too, since I last checked in on this forum (with then renewed intentions to build) and, regrettably, a long time since I last played bass (or any other instrument for that matter). It has simply not been in my cards. But a new year brings new opportunities, and I thought I'd start by showing off this one last project that I did manage to work on from Fall 2022 - Spring 2023 (April 1st to be precise). If you'll have me of course, since it's an, ahem, higher register six string instrument
It comes with a bit of backstory, for those few patient readers. I lacked time and resources for proper glamour shots, too, so they're just some quick phone pics outside. Hope you enjoy them regardless, and as always, I'm happy to hear your thoughts, the good and the bad!September '22, I stumbled upon an announcement for a local guitar builder's meetup. I thought I'd pass, but my eye fell on this palletcaster challenge. I'd seen such challenges on this lovely forum and I sadly never got round to taking part. Was this the final nudge to fulfilling a long cherished dream of mine, to unite the pile of scrap wood salvaged over the years from dumpsters and bonfires with a carefully dismantled single use pallet that had been rotting in the garden for a year - all saved under the mantra "it'll come in handy one day!" - into the lofty creation of a musical instrument? In an extremely short timeframe with almost no spare time to work on it anyways? Yes indeed
I let the idea simmer for a while and then took it on as a purely for fun build, trying a different experience from earlier builds and creating a bit more room for unintentional 'features'. Given these time constraint (which I hate) I decided to skip the usually extensive design phase and drawing blueprints entirely, and instead indulge in the experiment. Not yet deciding what instrument this would be, I started making a few quick 'n dirty molds for a body - a Thinline! - and ran all the pallet boards through the HNC router (H for human) to see what I got in this woodpile.
Besides some knotty softwood (I think it's pine of some sorts) with gray streaks from unidentified origins there were some way denser pieces in the woodpile. Adding swamp ash and korina offcuts from previous bodies made exactly the surface needed for a new one. I really enjoyed the second 'eureka' moment when two pieces of rough wood and a strip of walnut from my very first build exactly fit the contours of the neck, with an added 'ear' on the headstock: the final confirmation this would become a guitar and not a bass. The fretboard blank was a piece I'd saved back when I was making knives (Australian?!), never used it because I couldn't bring myself to cut it. This knot too was meant to stay in, and I also kept the nail holes in the pallet boards for the top.
Slowly but surely a theme emerged: pallet wood, firewood, burnt in details, cork, nails, old leather. Fitting the concept of using waste materials for neck and body, the approach for the rest of the build was 'lo-fi' as well: spending as little money as possible, improvising and taking every opportunity to experiment. That included the consumables - using up 8 years past shelf life wood glue (so far it holds up!), blunt router and drill bits I had already binned, 3 rattle cans of €2.99 varnish I've had for years (one half used), and so on. The nut was made from a piece of soup bone I buried in the garden. I cut the nut grooves with folded sandpaper. Fretting was done the way I did it before, with my favorite flea market hammer and leveled with a plastic ruler with sandpaper glued to it
When it was finally time to string it, late in the evening before the event with the lacquer still soft, I forgot that I didn't buy strings! So, very appropriately, I dug up a decade old pack of strings I had hidden in a gigbag. Position markers are slices off a fat stainless nail (and some original pallet nails still hidden in the top). I took the soldering iron to make the side dots, to 'burn in' the position markers, to create some 'faux tortoise' binding and put a name and my signature on the headstock. The only costs were made buying some (brandless) hardware and pickups as guitar hardware was never in my hoarding scope. The parts looked way too clean though, so I happily set them on fire, dunked them in acid, dragged them across the street and hit them with all sorts of objects
The knobs are made from a wine bottle cork that I kept in my drawer for years. Big oops when I realized I had used two tuning peg bushings for the inserts…. The pickguard is a piece of fiberboard covered with recycled cork. The strap is made from leftover bits of leather I kept from other projects (too ugly to use, too good to throw away) and hardware salvaged ages ago from a worn out bag. Contrary to an original Thinline I mirrored the position of the control plate to the f-hole. Pickup cavities are not routed but chiseled out. Lastly, I chambered the body to the extent I thought it'd be structurally sound.So here it is - the Scrapocaster - another member of the small but growing musical family, a Telecaster that I always wanted to own. Excited like always when it finally talks, I could long after enjoy this moment. Besides I loved this build it has been a bit of a struggle, physically and mentally, so I'm all the more proud of this one. Won't bother you too much with the details but besides cold, moisture, time and space constraints I had some health concerns, both serious and less serious (and equally persistent); from Covid to broken bones to a herniated disc, and a lot of taking care of others, mainly my own family. I sincerely hope the next post will not take as long again
My lessons learned from this build:
- We waste an incredible amount of valuable resources (!)
- It was not at all liberating to not think and plan ahead
- It was way out of my personal comfort zone
- Skipping a planning phase did not save time, just shifted the moment I had to think about the same issues to a more inconvenient moment
- Trying to do something quickly resulted in drama 95% of times (and ignoring this fact does not help)
- Experimenting and improvising was creatively satisfying and educational
- Discarded and other materials freely available come with their own specific challenges and advantages
- Making something valuable out of materials others have perceived as worthless is extremely satisfying
- Using free or low-cost resources did not lower my expectations or efforts towards a high quality result, other than I expected; building an instrument demands a bit of persistence and a significant amount of time, patience and commitment
- Some properties of 'inferior' materials are unavoidable or fixable with means within acceptable limits thus have to be accepted, as well as the wider margin of unpredictability
- I am starting to understand the charm of 'relic'
- Last but not least: many people have played the Scrapocaster so far in various settings and have appreciated the sound and playability, so I'm not going to touch the tonewood myth, but just saying
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. Cool build and I like the incorporation of flaws (knot on the fretboard)
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I love the story and your work is fantastic! Kudos!
