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Hi there!

This is the latest in a series of home-built instruments - all based on the theme of re-cycling dead 'folk' guitars.

A colleague donated a particularly nasty IKEA guitar, that was beyond all redemption. So I ripped the front and back off it and threw them away.  It's only the curved sides that are needed.

The sides were cut over a drawn template, and glued together in their new configuration.

I added a back from 1/8 ply - complete with spruce bracings.

The sound board was cut from 1/16 modellers ply, braced underneath, and set aside whilst I decided how to tackle the neck.

A baulk of unknown hardwood was planed square, had the fret slots cut by hand, and then hacked to shape.

The shaping was completed with hand tools, my belt sander and glass paper.

More shaping, and then the frets and markers were added.

The neck was trial fitted to the body, using screws and dowels.

The soundboard was added, the neck glued in place, followed by the bridge.

There's a piezo pick-up under the saddle.

A couple of coats of lacquer, and then the Ebay-sourced fittings and Aquila strings completed the deal.  A little bit of adjustment to the string height, and it's fit to join its brethren on the wall!

So, that's a conventional 4-string, the new guitalele, an 8-stringer and the 6-string reso guitar all together!

Here's a YouTube clip of the new baby making its debut;

Valerie