Eye of the Picker - the never-ending quest for cool instrument parts

On a recent episode of The History Channel's "American Pickers" show, co-host Mike Wolfe said the following:

"If you're gonna be a picker, you gotta think outta the box. That's one of the biggest parts of my job. Looking at something, and thinking how can I repurpose this. It doesn't have to be utilized for the reason that it was made."

Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz have built their increasingly star-studded careers around buying cool old stuff for the purpose of reselling it, and occasionally adding it to their personal collections or donating it to a museum. I think it's a great show, even though i know some of it is scripted. For me, the cool thing is seeing all of the neat stuff they find, and learning from the historical background they give about the items. But more on that below.

But Wolfe's quote above really cuts to the heart of what we do as homemade instrument builders. In context, he was talking about buying some decorative plaster architectural pieces and re-purposing them as wall-mounted table supports... but the spirit of what he was talking about is the same as what we do as amateur instrument builders. When you take an empty cigar box and make a musical instrument out of it, you are re-purposing. Same if you use a cookie tin, a silverware box, an old gas can, whatever. 

But it can be taken a whole lot further. When I watch a show like American Pickers, or Pawn Stars, or Downeast Dickering, Antiques Roadshow or any other show of that genre, I am learning and thinking about how the stuff I am seeing could be used on what we're building in the shop. It's not the high-end stuff they pull out, it's the rusty old stuff - sometimes it's the stuff you just catch a brief glimpse of as they're digging for what they want. I see an old metal beer tray, I think resonator. I see an old lunch box, I think amplifier body. I see a hood ornament, I see it mounted to the top of a headstock. License plates, gauge faces, old clock faces, camera parts, car parts, you name it -- the brain is always grinding away thinking how cool old stuff could be re-purposed onto instruments and related creations.

But it's not just stuff I see on TV shows. Walk through a Salvation Army, Goodwill or other thrift shop. Or through a lower-end antique store (you can find decent stuff at higher-end ones, but it's not nearly as easy - find the lower end antique shops or junk shops). So when you think about it, those of us who engage in this sort of behavior are pickers too. We're just buying stuff to use on our creations rather than looking to resell it.

One downside to using old stuff or antiques in builds is that the drilling and cutting you have to do usually ruins their collectible value. How you handle this is up to you. My own personal rule is that I don't want to mess up anything that has actual historic or antique value. But stuff that is old but common, it's no holds barred. I don't want to mess up a rare old cigar box, or advertising sign, or something that that has actual collectible value. But show me something that they made thousands of, or only is worth a few bucks even though it is 75 years old, and it's fair game!

Looking at everything through eyes of a re-purposing instrument builder, always thinking about how stuff could be re-used and recycled, it becomes a bit of an obsession... my wife might call it a mental illness. "Why the &!?# are you buying that?" she might lovingly ask. "I can make a guitar out of it!" I lovingly reply. She shakes her head (lovingly - I'm sure of it) and walks away. 

Need an example? Take a look at the old faucet knobs above - all sorts of great uses for these, with the most obvious being sound hole covers on cigar box guitars.

You'll get to the point where you can't walk through Lowes or Home Depot, even the kitchen tools aisle of a grocery store, without your mind matching up what you are seeing with instrumental possibilities. Some of it is obvious, some of it's a stretch, some of it's flat-out crazy... but that's what makes this hobby (obsession, illness, whatever you want to call it) so darn fun, intriguing and addicting. There really aren't any rules. Got an idea? Try it! Maybe you'll fail... but I guarantee you'll learn from it, if you let yourself. I'll write a post or two on some of my own failures (and what I learned from them) soon. 

So get out there, walk through some thrift shops, walk all the way through a Lowes or Home Depot (every aisle, look at everything), and think about how stuff could be re-purposed. If your goal is to sell your creation then of course you have to keep costs in mind and not go overboard buying $95 worth of cool hardware for a guitar you end up selling for $100. But once the bug really gets you, you'll find that the way you look at things has fundamentally changed. Your great aunt Mable will be showing you her beloved spoon collection and you'll find yourself thinking that properly bent and drilled, those spoons would make awesome tailpieces. 

Be discrete, consider Aunt Mable's feelings, but get out there, find some cool stuff wherever you can, and make neat stuff out of it... and send us pictures of what you come up with!