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Old wood


jaberwock

Question

Posted

I built this Strat body when I was eighteen, it came from a huge old sycamore tree in my uncles garden, blown down in a freak storm in 1976, it was sold to a local furniture company who very kindly cut me a choice grained guitar sized blank; three months, and many bloodied knuckles later I had fashioned a guitar body ( with the exception of an old electric drill I didn't have access to any power tools at the time) so it was cut out with a fret saw, and shaped with a rasp, and a spokeshave, it was old school out of necessity.

It sat in my parents attic for an eternity , but ISycamoreStrats_zps9bd2088c.jpg always had it in the back of my mind to resurrect it at some time, so I brought a one piece rosewood neck, removed the huge block of brass I had expoxied into the body in search of sustain ( this was the seventies ) and fitted a Babicz full contact tremolo. It sounds fabulous, I love the feel of the unfinished neck, and has become my new main squeeze; it's amazing to play a guitar that is made from a piece of a tree I used to play "hide and go seek" round with my cousins as a child.

Jaberwock

18 answers to this question

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Posted

Cool story.

Don't know anything about Sycamore, is it heavy?

Posted

I think I remember Yamaha using flamed sycamore in some of their high-end hollowbody electrics from 10-20 years ago. It's very nice wood, and that body you made is killer! :wub: What's it sound like?

Posted

British and Irish Sycamore is Acer pseudoplatanus and looks like A. saccharem, the Canadian Maple.

I looked on wiki and loads of trees are called sycamore from all over the place but I assume it would be the European one as the wood was used historically in furniture.

Great looking piece of wood - I like it!

Posted

Awesome story and beautiful guitar!

Posted

That is a cool story. Love the grain of that wood and daresay the amber hue got more intense over time too. :D

(Kinda thought this thread was gonna be about Viagra...).

Posted

That is a cool story. Love the grain of that wood and daresay the amber hue got more intense over time too. :D

(Kinda thought this thread was gonna be about Viagra...).

Is it not? got wood did you not? mmmmm? ;)

very nice Jab.

Posted

Thanks for all the great comments.

I had to do some extra routing to fit that pickguard on, and sycamore is a lot harder to work than any maple I've used, almost like oak. Sound wise the body is as you'd expect, pretty bright that's why I used an all rosewood neck, and the Babicz tremolo to warm things up a little. I used it at an out door 4th of July celebration last night, and the vocalist/bassist ( also a keen guitar player ) in our band was in raptures over how it sounded; its sweet played clean, but cranked has a beautifully, soulful midrange howl, I think a fair bit of that of that may come from the neck, acoustically it's as loud as the body, with a much sweeter tone, played loud the neck resonates like it's almost alive in your hand.

The amber hue may come from the yacht makers varnish I used to finish it, which has undoubtably yellowed significantly in the last thirty odd years; nice colour though, and it looks even nicer in real life.

Regards Jaberwock

Posted

Cool work! What about a "The guitars I build myself"-thread? There are more I guess (three alone here..)?

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