Sonntag, 20. Januar 2008

From the Blues to Blue (s) grass!



It's been quite a while since my last post - Christmas, New Years, Birthdays, etc. but american George is back and with two very different creations; a miniature 3-String Tele Thinline and a 4-String Dulcimer. Both begin with a "B" for the Blues and Blue grass and have just one thing in common - free scrap wood!
It's not that I don't have any Cigar Boxes to work with, but what do you do with the pieces of wood you've collected along the way.... it's just a shame not to use them, so I did!
As always the initial impulses came from outside sources. I fell in love with beautiful American made G&L Tele Thinline on display at my local guitar shop and since (like I said) having all that scrap wood around I thought it would be a snap to glue together, route and sand, etc. but.... it took me almost a whole week (day & night, folks) until I finally strung the little beauty DGB and plugged her into the amp!
As you can see everything except the tuners are hand made from your's truly and I'm very proud of my first (almost perfect) fret job - no nails or tooth picks here, solid nickel silver Stewart MacDonalds! The hand wound pickup is around 3.000 ohms and has Alnico 5 magnets with just a volume speed knob topped with a Jefferson nickel. Sealed and Waxed as always!
The Dulcimer just happened too! Yup! Scrap wood again and a plan I found on the Internet. Naturally the plan looks completely different, but compensating for the pieces of wood I had and my typical neck construction it's more or less what you can call a mountain dulcimer. Looks good, plays well, sounds cool and has two piezo elements mounted to an output jack in case some one needs to hook to an amp, although it's loud enough just by it's self. The satin finish is floor varnish, very durable (did our stairs with the stuff 8 years ago) and should hold up a long time to come. For the practice (a dulcimer needs frets, friends) I used the same fretting material as on the Thinline.
Now I just have to learn to play it - might take a few days? Maybe a life-time, maybe never!
Like always I've had a lot of fun (I also wanted to throw both in the dustbin at some point, too) making them so if you have any coments send them along.
Remeber all american George's Junkyard guitars are for sale to own, so make an offer if you really like them!
Best regards from Bamberg, Germany
american_George
P.S. as always there are more pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.com/ggborrelli/JunkyardGuitars