# Muntz's entering the contest



## muntz (Sep 1, 2009)

Summary:

This is a string thru, headless, six string with a hand carved "laminated" (plywood) body. Brass bridge and brass string retainer. Bone nut and a "uni-fret" fretless neck (calling it uni-fret as the fret board has been covered with metal, thus one giant fret). Nearly everything was salvaged.

The specs:

I don't remember the exact prices so I will estimate on the high side.

Neck: Maple 1x2 $15
Body: plywood found next to the dumpster $0
Bridge and String retainer: brass stock $5
Tuners: scrap from a previous project $0
Nut: bone from a chunk of meat I ate $0
Finish: duct tape $2
Volume pot: reject from another project $0
Output jack: leftover from another project $0
Pickup: the throw away 7 string Schecter bridge from my 7 string $0
Misc screws and glue: stuff I had laying around $0
Fret board: scrap sheet metal from my father's HVAC shop $0
Strings: $5

Subtotal: $27

Just to be fair: $23 for stuff laying around if I had to purchase it

Total: $50


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## Arminius (Sep 1, 2009)

Any pics you can show us?


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## damigu (Sep 2, 2009)

please post pics. part of the fun of this competition is the pic-story aspect of each thread!

don't worry about your design--i very highly doubt anyone else building their home depot guitars will copy it since they're all past their design phase anyway.
and don't worry about it looking crappy or not--all home guitar builds go through a "still rough, looks like crap" phase.


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## muntz (Sep 2, 2009)

Let me do some more roughing out work on her this weekend and then I'll post some pics on the progress. Right now it kind of looks like a war club with crap glued to it. 

In the same spirit as others I've vowed to keep it simple. I've built guitars before, but this time I'm limiting myself to no professional tools or equipment. I'm using a hand coping saw, a dremel, and electric sander (plus hand tools like screwdrivers and such). This is a serious pain, I'm really begining to miss things like belt sanders, table saws, bandsaws, spindle sanders, routers, etc. Kind of fun, though, in a twisted midevil sort of hands on way.


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## muntz (Oct 29, 2009)

Here's my official crappiest, most god awful, thing I've ever made.

I suppose I'm entering on concept. I tried to keep it cheap and not use any profession equipment. This *thing* was made with only hand tools. The only piece of professional equipment I used was a bender in a sheet metal shop to form the 90 degree angles on the "uni fret"

So here it is...the Headless Uni-Fret guitar






Yes, that is a duct tape finish. I constructed this object out of a neck through maple neck with ply wood body wings. Not just ply wood body wings but hand carved body wings, as you can see by the contour. The bridge is brass stock with brass stock string retainers assisted by a couple of screws. I used some throw away crappy ass tuners from another project.






This picture sucks, my camera wouldn't do a good close up. But I used a bone nut I made from a steak that I ate. It was a good steak, choice T-bone I think. Too much beer that night. Anyway, home made and home filed nut. You can slightly see the string through design for the headless-ness.






Here's a pic of the nastiest back side of a guitar you've ever seen. Notice the hand carved contour of the ply wood and the mounting of the tuners.






I used a reject Shecter 7 string pickup. Wired with only a volume jack purchased from Radio Shack. And yes, that is a duct tape pick guard, doesn't get more "Home Depot" than that.


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## troyguitar (Oct 29, 2009)

OMG that is fucking awesome. Duct tape finish and a T-bone nut? Holy shit!


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## damigu (Oct 29, 2009)

props for the t-bone nut. absolute brilliance!


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## muntz (Oct 29, 2009)

Here's the specs:

Maple neck made from two pieces of maple stock with a 29 inch scale length. Much too narrow and difficult to play lead. Works great for slide guitar type work or rythim. String spacing ended up sucking ass so individual srings are hard to single out. Future model should be made from much wider wood but I was trying to make a concept guitar on the cheap.

Unifret, the metal fretboard, was made from a scrap piece of galvanized sheet metal. Don't recall the gauge of the sheet metal. It actually performs superbly. It's literally like having one giant fret. The notes ring clear and very easy to fret. Action is very low with no buzz. If the string width was correct it would be awesome.

The body wings, as stated above were made from some scrap ply wood leftover from another project. Surprisingly they don't really inhibit the tone or at least don't make it sound muddy like I thought they would.

The pickup is one I took out of a Schecter seven string. Even though the poles don't exactly line up it does ok. Obviously the tone isn't as good as it could be but we go back to the cheap concept.

Tone pot was a cheapy 500k from Radio Shack. Can't really say anymore.

The output jack was leftover from an earlier project and mounted using a plastic disk cut from a cat litter bucket and spray painted black.

As stated above the tuners are really really crappy rejects from a previous project.

The nut, once again as stated above, came from the bone of a steak I cooked up one night. Cut with a hacksaw. 

The nut and string retainer are half inch brass stock found at home depot. I filed the nut and mounted at an angle such that I can back out the retaining screws to raise the height or screw in to lower the string height.

Overall, I was surprised that this thing actually had ok tone. It's bright and crunchy with distortion. I had figured it would be much more bassy with the scale length. On the clean channel it's glassy and bell like. The uni-fret really makes it sound like each note is actually fretted on frets. They actually have sustain and don't mud out. I wish I had a decent recorder to post a sound file, but alas I only have a cheap ass voice recorder and it sounds like crap. Compared to my Les Paul with EMG 81/85 it really does actually not sound that bad...but you'll have to take my word for it.

Anything I forgot?

ETA: cost=under $50


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## Customisbetter (Oct 30, 2009)

BAD. ASS.


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## guitarplayerone (Oct 31, 2009)

totally awesome dude- 50 bucks!


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## Apophis (Oct 31, 2009)

I think it's the most unique project I saw here at SS.org EVER


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## Arminius (Oct 31, 2009)

Wow


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## Customisbetter (Nov 1, 2009)

muntz said:


> This picture sucks, my camera wouldn't do a good close up. But I used a bone nut I made from a steak that I ate.  It was a good steak, choice T-bone I think.



HOLY SHIT I TOTALLY MISSED THAT PART


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## muntz (Nov 2, 2009)

Customisbetter said:


> HOLY SHIT I TOTALLY MISSED THAT PART


 

I tried taking the picture of the nut several times but the camera just wouldn't focus. In the blurry image you can kind of see the blockiness and not so professionally filed string slots. If the picture were clearer you'd also see how unsquare it is.

This whole concept can be credited to too much booze. I was thinking to myself one night after a few too many homebrews...what if we had a guitar with one giant fret? My step-father owns a tin shop and I used to help make duct work when I was a teenager. So I thought...unifret...I'll just make the whole fret board out of sheet metal.

The duct tape came from another binge of too much homebrew. 

Now that I've done the prototype I really want to do this to a real guitar. I'm trying to decide how much would be worth investing in it. I'm sure I could buy an unfretted cheap neck and just bend up some sheet metal. If it bombs then I'm out some money. If it's awesome then I'm going to wish I had spent more money on a better neck and tuners.


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## XSL (Nov 3, 2009)

that is the most metal thing ve ever seen!


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## MF_Kitten (Nov 3, 2009)

there´s only a couple tiny things missing to make this a "proper" axe:

-proper string spacing
-proper body wood (with oil or wax finish maybe)
-slightly wider headstock at the butt end, so that the string pull is straighter.

and that´s about it! of course, a normal nut vs. a t-bone nut, or normal bridge vs. brass thingy is debatable, but not really needed.

so overall, AWESOME!


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## troyguitar (Nov 4, 2009)

muntz said:


> This whole concept can be credited to too much booze. I was thinking to myself one night after a few too many homebrews...what if we had a guitar with one giant fret? My step-father owns a tin shop and I used to help make duct work when I was a teenager. So I thought...unifret...I'll just make the whole fret board out of sheet metal.
> 
> Now that I've done the prototype I really want to do this to a real guitar. I'm trying to decide how much would be worth investing in it. I'm sure I could buy an unfretted cheap neck and just bend up some sheet metal. If it bombs then I'm out some money. If it's awesome then I'm going to wish I had spent more money on a better neck and tuners.



The metal fingerboard idea is a very very good one for a fretless electric guitar. I did it on my 8, and Vigier does it on their (very expensive and very awesome) Surfretter models.


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## redlol (Dec 5, 2009)

'specs' lol


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## omgmjgg (Dec 10, 2009)

WE NEED A VIDEO


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## BastardN (Dec 16, 2009)

I don't care about 'specs.....That was damn original.
Not to mention fucking creative.
Great Job.


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## muntz (Dec 16, 2009)

I attempted making a video the other night. Unfortunately my wife insists on us using Mac's and I can't figure out what I need to do to upload it to youtube. Any tips?


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## darren (Dec 16, 2009)

Go to YouTube and upload it just like you would on any other platform.


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## muntz (Dec 16, 2009)

Tried that and youtube didn't recognize the format.


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## Arminius (Dec 16, 2009)

que format es?


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## Malacoda (Jan 17, 2010)

Lol @ bone nut from food.


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## joaocunha (Jan 19, 2010)

muntz said:


> Here's the specs:
> The nut, once again as stated above, came from the bone of a steak I cooked up one night. Cut with a hacksaw.



T-H-I-S-I-S-F-E-C-K-I-N-G-B-R-I-L-L-I-A-N-T.


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## heseddisciple (Jun 26, 2010)

Excellent!


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