We've seen the big players in the guitar-making world – like Fender and PRS – raid stocks of old or reclaimed wood to create rather impressive limited run instruments, and even come across an acoustic made using wood reclaimed from the Hendrix family home. But none of those has quite as much character as The Bench from artist, maker and upcycler Keith Decent from New York's Hudson Valley.
The Bench was designed and built for a maker competition, and is primarily made using reclaimed ply. There's a single-cut body with old workbench bits for the top and salvaged cabinet doors for the back, and a 3D pyramid pickguard inlay near the lower cutaway, fashioned using a table saw with an angled blade.
A through ply neck is topped by a reclaimed walnut fingerboard, with shop bought fret wire, nut and tuners. There's no truss rod though so keeping strings all tensed up will be the job of the neck itself. Sitting at the opposite end to the head is an antique hinge for the tailpiece and, of course, a reclaimed ply floating bridge.
Rather than choose a bridge or neck position for the pickup, Decent opted to plonk it right in the middle. Naturally, he built that pickup himself from workshop scraps, including copper wire from old plugs, and made a contrasting surround from an old vinyl record.
"It's not perfect by a long shot, but it works, it looks great, and it's about as DIY as a guitar can get," said Decent of his creation.
You can see highlights of the build, and hear the end result, in the video below.
Source: Keith Decent