A while back Ifound a half rotten cicrca 1930's lounge chair (quite common furniture style that my grandparents had) on a kerbside. I stripped it back to find it was silky oak (grevillea robusta an Australian native timber not a true oak) which is easy to work and has a beautiful grain and texture. After a few months sitting in a corner I had an idea to do my most ambitious build, a weissenborn style lap steel using predominantly the timber and other items such as screws and upholstery tacks recovered from the chair for the build. A year later here we are; the hollow neck was made from the chair legs and some undetermined planks I had, the soundbox body from the the chair cushion frame, the soundboard frame / guitar top is the chair back. The headstock has a wings from the cushion box offcuts. The sound board, headstock veneer and back board are all from an old pine Bundaberg rum crate. The back board is attached with the recovered upholstery tacks, the tail piece is an off cut from the chair legs and the original slotted head screws are used for fret markers. It has a snake oil mini humbucker at the neck position with a vol pot only. Tuned open E EBEg#be. Sounds nice acoustic and very mellow when plugged in.
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I like #206 agp it may be silky oak as you suggest. I am not great at picking what type of timber I have found. I often look for old furniture with some sort of feature. It then sits around until some sort of idea comes to mind. The result is a big pile of timber building up in my garage : )........
I also recently scored a large solid timber entertainment unit being discarded by one of my grandsons, have been using it a lot lately in my builds, not 100% sure, but I think the two types of timber are Grey Ironbark and Forest Red Gum, and although classed as hardwoods, they are both very easy to work with :-)
Will have to keep my eyes open for some Silky Oak Nigel, have heard a lot about the benefits of this Aussie Timber, your post did get me thinking about a build I done a few years back and still have in my possession (like the majority of my builds!), didn't really delve into what type of wood it was at the time, but dug it out this morning and had another look, and I think it may be "Silky Oak", sourced the two carved (door?) inserts at a second hand store in Wondai Qld.
Thanks AGP there is quite a bit of silky oak around. I bought a big old silky oak drawer for $5 at a Vinnies a while back that I have not yet used. For me the challenge and artistic part of the build is using materials that have been discarded. Here in Brisbane there are so many renos where they just dump the hardwood that was used in the original build. I have a builder mate that says they only use treated pine these days as it is cheap quick and doesn't blunt your tools like the old hardwood. He passes on a constant supply of old studs, beams etc that they usually dump.
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Great save of some very nice timber well done good to see another Aussie builder .
I like #206 agp it may be silky oak as you suggest. I am not great at picking what type of timber I have found. I often look for old furniture with some sort of feature. It then sits around until some sort of idea comes to mind. The result is a big pile of timber building up in my garage : )........
Thanks Kigar
Very cool build, I kept going back and looking at the details. I have a soft spot for the ones using reclaimed materials.
I also recently scored a large solid timber entertainment unit being discarded by one of my grandsons, have been using it a lot lately in my builds, not 100% sure, but I think the two types of timber are Grey Ironbark and Forest Red Gum, and although classed as hardwoods, they are both very easy to work with :-)
Will have to keep my eyes open for some Silky Oak Nigel, have heard a lot about the benefits of this Aussie Timber, your post did get me thinking about a build I done a few years back and still have in my possession (like the majority of my builds!), didn't really delve into what type of wood
it was at the time, but dug it out this morning and had another look, and I think it may be "Silky Oak", sourced the two carved (door?) inserts at a second hand store in Wondai Qld.
Thanks UJ.
Thanks AGP there is quite a bit of silky oak around. I bought a big old silky oak drawer for $5 at a Vinnies a while back that I have not yet used. For me the challenge and artistic part of the build is using materials that have been discarded. Here in Brisbane there are so many renos where they just dump the hardwood that was used in the original build. I have a builder mate that says they only use treated pine these days as it is cheap quick and doesn't blunt your tools like the old hardwood. He passes on a constant supply of old studs, beams etc that they usually dump.
Neat story and result!
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