Acoustic Guitar Construction

My mother in law died in may and we now have to empty the house. In her garage was this sidetable under a pile of dust, made by my father in law in the 60's. It was already in the dumpster, when I thought: well, this is unrecognized wood, with a lot of wax on it. Maybe it is something. I took it home for investigation. CSI Holland!


When I took off one plank and planed it, it reveiled, to my guess, Mid American Mahogany. It's quite light (510 kg/m3) and has a great ringtone to it. And, lucky me, it is 1 inch thick.

Half of it is quatered, not all, so here I'm sitting on a pile of neckwood from the dumpster! Ha!
Herman

looks like a good find!

That is an excellent way to 'up-cycle' something.

Nice Herman, I didn't know they did dumpster diving in Holland.

In a very scruffy furniture shop in town ,Ellesmere Port , There is always a smashed plate glass window. A crowded mixture of tables and mattresses . Very badly run and always untidy . They have two dining tables in nicely coloured wood . Asking what the wood was --"Rosewood" he says . What a dreadful waste in a shop like that . If that swearing chef had to sort it out the air would be blue .
Even worse is the firm that destroys pianos in a big New York warehouse .On youtube . The lorry backs in and up goes the back door and a grand piano comes flying out the back onto the concrete . The machine with large jaws drives up and chews it to matchsticks in a few seconds. It bites three upright pianos at a time in one big chomp . It`s enough to make you weep . You could get some nice guitar tops from that . Edit here . O`Mara Meehan Piano Movers is the company in the piano breaking film. But they say there are many pianos given away free and there must be some good guitar wood for not many pennies . The top is the most important part and look at the size of a piano soundboard . They say the men spend most days trying hard not to scratch anything so they enjoy lobbing them off a lorry for a change .

One of our members has access to such a source in Chicago - unfortunatelty piano sound boards are made up of smaller glued up planks and do not yeild attractive top material. Also to provide strength and stability the piano hardwoods are generally plywood.