Locally (Tacoma) there is a store called Tinkertopia. They are a creative reuse center. Basically all kinds of odds and ends from all types of things in one convenient location. We’ve been in a few times and I kept seeing the pile of empty film canisters. I decided they would make a good base for a guitar. My goal is to use as much material from Tinkertopia as possible. I got everything I need except for a pickup, tuners, and jack from the store. Including some strips of maple that I could laminate together to make a neck out of. Conveniently, I acquired a junked guitar out of the trash a few months ago so I have everything I need.
Beginning of the neck building. Gluing strips of maple from Tinkertopia together to make the neck.
Still not exactly sure how I’m going to go about the whole thing. One thins for certain, I made the neck too wide. I only intend to have 4 strings on the body, but even if I go with 6, I’m about 3/4 inch too wide. I certainly have enough for a full through neck though.
Basic taper to the sides, and head stock square shape. I’m going to have to cut out a good chunk of the neck in the body area to fit the humbucker. I’m adding an additional layer of wood to strengthen the neck, as well as the film canister body. Using tin snips I cut a hole for the neck to come out of the film canister. The film canister cuts very easily. I on the other hand had a hell of a time cutting straight on a rounded surface.
Digging through the scrap bit at work I found a good chunk of hardwood. No idea what it is for certain, Looks similar to oak, but isn’t porous enough. It machined and planed like butter. It’s most likely Sapele, but it cut and machined a little too easy for that.
At this point I still hadn’t decided if I was going to use frets or not. at the least I figured I should cut the slots, that way I had markings on the guitar (because I can’t play for shit) and I could add them later.
So something that would have been a lot easier had I cut it prior to tapering the neck would be the slot for the tension rod, and gluing a straight fret board. Nothing clamps and a straight edge can’t fix though. It took a lot of clamps.
After testing the fit and placement for the pickup, I ended up cutting the frets deeper and planing a good 1/8″ off the top as it was way too thick.
This was my first go at using a spoke shave. I got so into using it and shaping the neck, I forgot to take photos as I progressed. It’s a little thick, but not too bad really. I understand now why people use support boards as they shape the neck.
I was going to make the nut out of Coconut, but I decided on the brass as it had a bit more mass to it. So I shaped and filed a brass nut
Over the extended Thanksgiving holiday I started finishing up the project. So I did a test wire & stringing. It sounded good for what it is. Sounds better than it has a right to. It definitely needs frets though. I found that my fingers were dampening the string vibration too much. So, recycling some 14 gauge ground wire I made frets out of copper.
I ended up changing the nut out to just a filed cut bolt to get some height, the first two frets ended up a bit tall.
It sounds like a cheap electric guitar. It has a bit of distortion since it’s wired directly to the jack without a volume control or filter. It’s also a bit awkward, the giant round body really wants to roll on you. The neck is way thick, but I think it actually help counteract some of the issues with the frets and body roll. It is not a sit and play guitar. Still, for copper frets, and beat up & trashed components, it isn’t all that bad. There is just enough flex in the through neck that you can put a bit of pressure on the canister body to create a makeshift tremelo. Should you need that.
Many thanks to Tinkertopia for the work they do in making Tacoma a better, more enjoyable place to live