[Incomplete] - Temple TM-003 "The Manbag" (Washburn Dimebag - "From Bin to Life No.3")

LittleBlue

Hey guys

It's been a looong time since i posted on here. Basically, i had to put my guitar workshop into storage for about 2 years whilst my family and I tried to find a new house. But i'm back and so is my mandolin upcycling guitar workshop stuff!

For some context to this post, I would like to direct you to these old out of date posts:

From Skip to Life - (New photos to be added soon)
A failed luthier's debut
Sorry about the photos, seems my photo hosting site has changed a lot since originally posting!

So I upcycle broken guitars into fully working, hand made mandolins. And this is the thread for No.3...The Manbag!

LittleBlue

So this is the original Washburn guitar. Some love it, some feel its a disgrace!

LittleBlue

Chopped it up.

Took it to size and reglued.

Fitted the final sized body and neck back together:

LittleBlue

After a lot of sanding, shaping, recrafting the fretboard and beginnings of a scratchplate (and quite a lot of lost photos) the mandolin is coming along nicely.

LittleBlue

Having fitted the frets and machinehead holes, gluing on the rosewood scratchplate begins. (this was actually made from the back of the guitar used on the TM002)

LittleBlue

Finishing begins. My standard Tru-oil finish.

LittleBlue

Here is the excellent nameplate I had made by Custom Cooletch.

LittleBlue

And here it is in it's current stage:

Headstock:


All electrics are now fitted, including a kill switch, Push pull on the volume, and a Seymour Duncan Dimebucker pickup.
Grover Machineheads used, which were fitted to the original guitar. All I need to do is make the rosewood back plates and then it needs stringing!

Strangefan

Bloody brillaint,! 

DrBob

Looks amazing but isn’t this actually as much work as just starting from scratch ? 

LastMantra

It's recycling though. 

Excellent job btw.

LittleBlue

DrBob said:

Looks amazing but isn’t this actually as much work as just starting from scratch ? 

Definitely not. With the acoustics, there's not a lot of thicknessing of the tops, backs and sides, as they are already at a decent thickness. Working with this electric has been even easier; its mostly problem solving and using the luthier skills I have to make them the best I can. This is the first electric I've done. The links above show the two acoustics I have made.
I guess the other thing to note, everything is by hand. I have no power tools, apart from a drill.

The idea all started a few years back, when the guitar tutor in the shop I worked at then, brought in a washburn acoustic (The TM-001) which he found in a skip with no headstock. He gave it to me and asked if it was useful to me (knowing that i'd just completed a Luthier course having built a mandolin from scratch). And it just carried on from there. What once was a playing guitar, wrecked and thrown in a skip to now be a fully working quality made instrument again is what I love about the whole concept of Temple Mandolins.

ICBM

Best instrument name ever .

You have some serious vision to pull these off - as a repairer I would probably just have scrapped all of them for whatever parts and materials could be re-used for normal repairs, and binned the rest - it’s great to see a completely different instrument emerge!

The only criticism I can make is of your photo hosting - try Imgur, it’s far less of a pain in the bum...

LittleBlue

AICBM said:

Best instrument name ever .

You have some serious vision to pull these off - as a repairer I would probably just have scrapped all of them for whatever parts and materials could be re-used for normal repairs, and binned the rest - it’s great to see a completely different instrument emerge!

The only criticism I can make is of your photo hosting - try Imgur, it’s far less of a pain in the bum...

Haha. Cheers for the name kudos. I will look into Imgur. The old threads were when Photobucket worked. Been away  from the game for 2 years and come back; everything's out of sorts.

LittleBlue

LittleBlue said:

AICBM said:

Best instrument name ever .

You have some serious vision to pull these off - as a repairer I would probably just have scrapped all of them for whatever parts and materials could be re-used for normal repairs, and binned the rest - it’s great to see a completely different instrument emerge!

The only criticism I can make is of your photo hosting - try Imgur, it’s far less of a pain in the bum...

Haha. Cheers for the name kudos. I will look into Imgur. The old threads were when Photobucket worked. Been away  from the game for 2 years and come back; everything's out of sorts.

Update. Have moved images of this thread to Imgur. Please can someone let me know if they show up fine, before I sort out images on my larger completed threads?

Revolting1

Images showing much better -win 10.

DLM

Amazing! There do already seem to be "Pantera on mandolin" covers on YouTube. \m/

ICBM

Yes! All showing properly now .

Out of interest, what was wrong with the Dimebag? (Other than just being a Dimebag... ) Collapsing Floyd pivot post holes? I've seen a couple like that, and one with a broken neck joint.

LittleBlue

ICBM said:

Yes! All showing properly now .

Out of interest, what was wrong with the Dimebag? (Other than just being a Dimebag... ) Collapsing Floyd pivot post holes? I've seen a couple like that, and one with a broken neck joint.

I actually cant remember what was wrong with it. It seemed structurally fine. Just an old colleague heard what I was doing and gave it to me all stripped down. No Floyd Rose, and other bits missing. Maybe he believed that one less Dimebag in the world would make it a better place   

normula1

What a brilliant thing. Love it