Reusing bracing and tonebars.

[Lab]

What are your comments on re-using woods from old guitars that have been discarded. I am not looking at it as a way to save money. I am looking at it as a way to reuse wood that is well aged and musical seasoned ( if there is such a thing)..Lab

[Antlurz]

I'd use it in a heartbeat if it was the correct wood in good shape and suited my needs.

Ron

[billhay4]

That being said, the savings surely can't be much. Why take a chance?
Bill

[Bill Snyder]

I am not looking at it as a way to save money. I am looking at it as a way to reuse wood that is well aged and musical seasoned ( if there is such a thing)..Lab
I don't think he is wanting to save money - just recycle.

[ErikAitch]

So.......

What if it was 150 year old Brazilian rosewood? (Sorry, that was a bit snide.)

The structural advantage that immediately occurs to me is that of starting with well seasoned materials that are already close to finished dimension.

[markishandsome]

old guitars that have been discarded

Old discarded guitars? Vintage instruments fetch a pretty penny, why not just repair them instead of reworking someone else's product into your own? And if the instruments were irreparable, it's probably due to failure of the wood. I guess if you found a guitar with a smashed in top, cracked sides, twisted neck, but beautiful back, you could salvage it, but i'd be suspicious. Or are you talking about putting slivers of smashed guitars together into smaller instruments? Either way, a restored vintage instrument is probably more valuable (and not just monetarily) than one made out of used wood.

[Bill Snyder]

The title of the thread is Reusing Bracing and Tonebars. I took that to mean that the used wood he is considering is for braces and tonebars.
If they are sound and the grain orientation is correct and they are a species (spruce) that you would use any way I don't think there is a compelling reason not to use them.
I do believe that you will probably have more luck meeting all the above criteria with new stock.

[markishandsome]

Oh who reads titles anyway http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

I'm still having trouble imagining a situation where it wouldn't be better to repair the "discarded" instrument.

[billhay4]

Lab,
I apologize for misreading your post. That being said, I still see little reason to use old wood for bracing UNLESS it was in a relatively non-stressed environment. If it was previously a brace or neck, I'd be wary.
But, cut it into brace size and test it yourself. You'll quickly get an idea if it's solid enough.
Bill

[oldwave maker]

Old wave #13, top and topbraces from a 1909 piano, tonally successful, a guitar #14 not so much so. If you're looking to recycle old wood Id keep an eye on the local obits for freshly deceased violamakers!

[Lab]

Hey Bill....Thats a real nice instrument. I am a newbie to this instrument building. I love the feel of a newly built instrument. Knowing that some of the wood was used in an instrument that played for years and years sort of adds something to the mixture....Some people might get what I am trying to say, some won't....Lab

[martinedwards]

I have a pile of lovely spruce I salvaged from a piano last week.

Each black key has the potential to be a bridge

some of the spruce pedal levers & push rods are well on thier way to being braces in a guitar

as to breaking down a guitar to use to build a mando?

POSSIBLE I guess.......

[james condino]

Call the material what you like: recovered, salvaged, reclaimed, recycled, et cetera. I have used a number of different takes on this theme to build several nice instruments over the years.

My personal instrument has a top carved from 103 year old reclaimed red spruce.

Visit my website or Ted's jazzmando.com for images and a review of the "cricket" mandolin, made from 75 year old recycled Douglas Fir.

Beyond the ideas of seasoning and tone, my favorite aspect of well aged woods is their stability. If it hasn't cracked in 75 years, the chances are good that it will make a nice stable instrument.

james condino
www.condino.com

[oldwave maker]

The worst feature of that 1909 piano was the beech 4x4's on the back, made a neck like a wet noodle, burned ok tho.....
the best feature was the brass plate on the front with the tone buttons, I salvaged one for my wifes mastertone, and part of our family band performance schtick involved her demonstrating the button with her right hand, which of course made the banjo go silent:

[sunburst]

I don't understand the reluctance to use wood that is "used". It's all "used". The tree used it for structure for years. Perhaps hundreds of years, depending on where, in the tree, it came from.
Sometimes wood fails because of something that happened to the tree from which it came, or from drying defects. Reclaimed wood is relatively free of those defects because they probably would have already showed up in the previous product and been repaired or the wood replaced.

There is a piano shop several miles from here. They often put new soundboards in old pianos and "chop up" the old ones and throw them in the dumpster. It's a great source of brace and patch wood, IMO. Sometimes the wood is from a Steinway from the 1800s, or something like that, giving some cool mojo I suppose, but it's just wood when you mill it into something else.

Many of us, who started building before there were lots of tonewood suppliers, got wood wherever we could find it for our early instruments. To me, that's part of the fun! I almost feel like I'm cheating when I buy top and back sets; it's like one step closer to a kit.

[Antlurz]

I think a certain mindset enters into it as well. There are many people out there who wouldn't even consider buying a used car, gun, house, or whatever because they are of the belief that if it isn't brand new, it is defective.

In reality, often the total opposite is the case. As Sunburst said, when it's been around a while, the bugs have likely already been worked out.

Ron

[markishandsome]

Old pianos are different from old guitars. A piano is like a used car in that it only depreciates in value and falls apart as it ages. But the wood is still good! There's nothing wrong with the wood in an old guitar either, and if it was a decent instrument to begin with, it probably has improved with age. Use all the old wood you like, just don't bust up a nice old guitar to get it, is all I'm saying.

[Bill Snyder]

For years there has been a mindset amongst some classical guitarist that classical guitars wear out. I wouldn't mind having some of their worn out guitars (and I would NOT be using for salvage purposes).

[markishandsome]

They probably just have CGAS! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif