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This is a guitar I made three years ago which made use of a lot of salvaged and reject timber – some of it not ideally suited to building an acoustic guitar.





Due to a bit of experimentation together with unorthodox and substandard timber, the guitar was originally more of an art project than a musical instrument. The story and history behind the wood was always going to be more important than the guitar itself.
Full story here https://overendsite.wordpress.com/2017/ ... -a-guitar/

I never expected the tone to be its’ best feature so I incorporated an experimental bracing system I have been dabbling with in the past. As a result, the guitar looked OK but as expected, did not quite sound good enough to inspire me to play it very often. Since then it has sat gathering dust so with the current lock-down creating idle hands, I decided to change the bracing to a more traditional pattern.

The Cedar top I used had sat on my shelf for 20 years as it was originally discarded due to it having thin spots which could not be avoided in a guitar build. With this in mind I didn’t want to try to remove that so I went in from the back.



After breaking the back and carefully removing and replacing the bracing from the soundboard I took an old ‘short’ set of Mahogany sides and made a four piece back to replace the original.



As with the front, the back now has more traditional bracing. Stings have gone on this week and despite the build quality, it does actually sound quite nice now.



Removing and replacing the bracing from within a guitar was a bit daunting at first but turned out to be much easier than I expected (although I won't be rushing to do it with any other guitar).

Thanks for looking,
Fred

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https://overendsite.wordpress.com/2017/ ... -complete/

Cool looking guitar and a good use of your idle time. I would never have the nerve to try and break open a guitar in such a manner. Seems to have worked out for you, so all's well that ends well.

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George :-)

Job well done!!!

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Thanks. The weird thing is that because this is a guitar I made myself I had no qualms about taking it apart and rebuilding yet I have a Lowden which needs a couple of frets replacing and I feel quite nervous about tackling that in case I mess up.

Fred.

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