Another Fine Instrument Made of Junk

A little while back, I knocked together a little banjo out of stuff from the Goodwill, the hardware store and the junk pile, due to being a little too broke to afford a real banjo.  I was also feeling inspired by the book "Musical Instruments of the Southern Appalachian Mountains," seeing how mountain folks made music happen out of a whittled-down fence post, an old hubcap and the hide off the family cat.

I'll let the pictures do some talking:

I used the jigsaw to cut a hole in the top of this high-quality plywood half-sized guitar which I acquired inexpensively from the Goodwill.  One can easily find similar examples sold under names such as First Act, Mark II, and many others.  I often wonder about the Chinese luthiers knocking these things out by the thousands .  

Do they go home to create an instrument of their own personal vision?  I'd like to find out some day.   

I reinforced the top using some chunks of Doug Fir, aiming for a resonator-style soundwell sort of construction. This works fine, but next time I have the head off, I think I'll add some supports at the tailpiece end, too. 

The smallish bits glued to the back are cut out of the top brace, they're intended to hold this next part up off the back a bit:

For an internal tension hoop/tonering, I cut down this artisanal oyster sauce can from the dumpster behind the Thai restaurant.  See how it fits so nicely:

I like that galvanized finish.  My thinking is that having the ring supported off the back a bit allows more sound to escape into the body to bounce around and out the soundhole.  The resonant and overtone-rich sound I've been getting supports this hypothesis.

The tackholes are already there because I took these pictures during a head-changing session.  The previous head was some scavenged x-ray film, which proved a little too floppy.  I'm trying out a piece of PET plastic cut out of a cake container here.  I'm told you can shrink the film up tighter with a heat gun if need be.

I recommend punching the holes with some kind of sharp tool instead of just trying to push the tacks through with your thumb, unless you have Bruce Lee hand strength.

I really like the look of those brass furniture tacks.  

        

I cut a swoop into the headstock to omit the 6th tuner and visually indicate the banjo's five-stringedness, and ditched the dinky OE tuning machines for some decent ones I ordered from StewMac.  Now every time I look at it, I have an unfulfillable craving for Pokey Sticks.  I am aesthetically delighted by the massive knothole in the center of the headstock.  I believe more builders should try including such a stylistic feature.

The fifth string is tuned at the headstock and tucks under this unique capo device at the fifth fret.  Note high-quality Harmony inspired stencil markings.  Yes, my housemate made me aware later that I should have placed a marker at the 10th fret instead of the 9th.

And there you have it!  Probably about twenty bucks plus a few hours of spare time invested. 

It makes an excellent traveling banjo; you wouldn't lose sleep or even flinch if you had to bust it over some troublemaker's head outside the Greyhound station.  

Next time you're at the Goodwill, grab a five dollar First Act and make one for yourself! 

I think I might paint skulls and monsters all over this one.

Leavings Show at the Panic Room

The other day my friend Nick's band The Leavings played a loud, fearsome show of mindsplitting metal mayhem at the Panic Room.  He and his bandmate Keegan didn't have any merch ready for sale yet, so Nick asked me to set up a table at the show to draw and sell illustrations inspired by their songs.

Most of these were whipped out fast with a Sharpie and sold for 3-5 bucks (beer money) .

"Be sure to go buy some of Bruce Morrison's drawings of monsters and cocks" announced Nick in between beating hell out of the drums.

Sorry bout the non-archival quality of some of these photographs.  The light sources found during metal shows at dive bars are somewhat diffuse and indistinct.

Wizards are a theme I've been enjoying lately:

"This song is called 'Monkeyfist' " intoned Nick:

"This song's called 'Sisyphus.'  You're all familiar with Sisyphus, right?"

I sure was enjoying drawing some skulls.  Ever since I took "Anatomy for the Artist" for my college science credit and got to handle a bunch of real human skulls (presumably looted from some South American jungle gravesite by my kindly anthropologist professors) they've been one of my favorite things to draw.  Me and ol' James Ensor can't get enough of 'em.

Here's a cute little dude being devoured by a serpent.  It went to an appreciative and discerning owner:

Nick and Keegan might use this one for album art or something, sez them:

A good time was had by all.  The mosh pit came close to crashing into my table but swerved away just in time.  I drank five or six refreshingTecate tallboys.  I also drew a helmeted barbarian in polka-dot underwear stabbing a huge serpent-beast.  The dude who bought that one says he's gonna put it on a shirt for his sister. Somehow I neglected to get a picture of it, but I'll rework that theme for a bigger drawing some other day.

Remember to go get your ears destroyed by The Leavings, and that I will draw for beer and music.

Wine Box Acoustic Bass

Welcome to the first real post on my blog!  Here's something I finished recently: a monstrous cigar box guitar inspired acoustic bass.

A while ago, the nice folks at Trade Up Music gave me a de-fretted First Act electric bass neck that they had laying around.  Being an accomplished dumpster-diver and collector of garbage, I combined it with some more junk that I acquired from various free piles, alleyway trash heaps, and the majestic project palace known as the Rebuilding Center, and yielded myself a musical instrument.

The body is made from a fine pinewood wine box.  Since it is just nailed together, I glued some triangular-shaped mystery-hardwood (maybe beech?) reinforcements into the corners.  Didn't need to use clamps, just applied glue and rubbed them into the corners until they stuck, which is a trick I picked up reading Cigar Box Nation's forums.  

The heel is a couple pieces of fir held together with long screws. I might stick some furniture plugs into the screw holes to give it a finished appearance later.  I wanted to give the neck plenty of back angle, unlike your usual acoustic bass guitar.  To attach the neck, I drilled all the way through the screw holes on the back of the neck, then countersunk the holes in the fretboard.  It's held to the heel with four very long screws.

Neck bock is just a big piece of pine glued to the inside and then screwed into the heel with some four inch long deck screws.  Solid!

The soundboard is made from two beautifully fine-grained pieces of cedar that were formerly siding shingles (50 cents each at the Rebuilding Center).  I spent about a billion years laboriously hand planing them down to thickness, note the pile of fragrant shavings.  Shortly after I finished this project, I eagerly purchased a Wagner Saf-T-Planer.

Caressing the stylish First Act logo.  Mark of quality!  There's a note from my old boss thanking me for my service when I quit the joint unintentionally included in this photo.  See if you can spot it! I am a valuable asset to any workplace. 

Note my rough, hairy left muleskinner protruding into the above frames.  Although not pictured, the right one looks similar.

I adapted a bracing pattern from Liutaio Mottola, who provides lovely free plans and builds beautiful and creative instruments.  The braces are arched per the template provided by Rudy at Blue Stem Strings. Check him out too!  The braces are a stiff-feeling mystery softwood that makes very hard and crinkly shavings, maybe a very pale fir or maybe even spruce?  The center reinforcement strip is a thin piece of walnut.

My Quebecois friend M. assures me that this is an excellent wine region and producer.

I like the large blocky heel. It echoes the shape of the wine box and reminds me of Brutalist Eastern European buildings.  And it looks silly.

My tailpiece was made of a chunk of a busted up walnut chair I found in an alleyway.  It smelled delicious while I was carving it.  The endpin is a little whittled piece of hardwood dowel and the tailgut is some stripped copper wire found laying on the sidewalk around the corner from my house.  My bridge is carved out of of maple.  I like having the round cutout repeated from the soundholes, but I think I might cut it in half and rework it to make it adjustable.

Finished!  My friend and housemate Max gave me a spare set of light gauge extra-long-scale strings.  Thanks Max!  It's louder than a typical acoustic bass guitar, but it sounds more like the bass notes on a piano than like an upright bass. I like it that way.  

I also picked up another neck from the Value Village in Tigard, so a banjo bass will be coming soon.

Welcome to my dang ol' blog and such

A successful working artist was telling me over a beer the other day that you can't just stick a notice in the Nickel Saver anymore and expect clients to come pouring in.  No sir.  He told me I should put my work online.

Here's some of my recent work: illustration, luthiery, sculpture, and fermented liquids.  Hope you enjoy reading along, and if you want to hire me to make something for you, gimme a yell.