Any lucky deals lately?

[ponch]

Hey guys, just want to hear about your lucky deals that almost seem to good to be true. I want to hear yours before I tell you about mine, don't want to seem like I'm boasting but I'm pretty excited!

[AJ]

Go on, spit it out...lol
8-)

[ponch]

Haha ok. Had a good few lucky months. Latest scores just blew me away. First one, I have a regular at work who I've become mates with. He builds boats on his days off and me guitars so showing pics of boats and axes and what not. The other night he comes in and says an an auction site he goes on has a stack of guitars on there for auction but its on the goody so probably no help to me. My family is on the gold coast. The auction house is literally 1km from my folks place. He reckons they're just cheapo ones but check it out when I get a chance. Turns out a shop closed down and their stock that didn't get returned to the supplier is being liquidated. Tanglewood acoustics and ukuleles. 60 of them. Ended up picking 7 acoustics, a uke with hard case and an electric baritone uke for well under a quarter of retail. Will be keeping 2 acoustics, a grand reserve super folk and a dred, and possibly the electric uke. Most have tanglewood preamps, and the others have fishman. Well pleased with that.

Score 2. As all of you have, I've got the build bug pretty bad now, and its only natural one starts to think about a scratch build. My brother who also works up at the mines is the safety manager for a building company for the Bowen basin. Asked him today if he has a router and rough price to buy one, hard to use etc. Comes in to the restaurant a few hours later. Turns out the company houses employees in properties they have purchased as an investment. They are selling a house, so the boys have moved out and the house gets cleaned up. Guess what was left behing. Skil router. Looks well used but works fine, and it was free. Comes back again with a stack of wood to practice on.

The gods of GAS are looking out for me.

[Brendan]

My recent one was a bucket load 'o veneer. On the sly I've been playing with bentwood veneer rings (pretty straightforward to make and can come out nice)... and looking for veneer. This bloke has jarrah veneer sheets for sale, just round the corner from me. Pop round and it looks OK - dry, but nice figure, some ash as well, etc... Turns out he needs to empty his garage and no one else has shown any interest in the veneer. Quick discussion and a bit of cash later and I have a bootful of veneer and he has one thing less cloging up his garage...

[Brendan]

And the rings...

No photos of the Jarrah / ash ones yet, but should have a couple ready soon and they look pretty neat...

Top and bottom ring - Silky oak with maple inners
Middle ring - American Walnut with maple inner

[ponch]

Good score mate. What's the veneer down the bottom? Dude those rings look unreal. Well done! You selling them?

[Brendan]

Bottom veneer is a couple of sheets of burl. The three rings above are the first of a couple. Considering selling them - got a mate who's made the same suggestion and suggested selling them through an art gallery he's connected with. I'll see what he says when he sees them in the flesh . May pay to feed my BAS.

[pablopepper]

Nowhere near as good, but I'm pretty chuffed at scoring a set of Fender wide range pickups for $60. I've always thought these were really cool pickups, not quite single coil, not quite humbucker and pretty uncommon to find out of a guitar. And now I get to build a tele deluxe!

[ponch]

Brendan, don't know where you live but if there is a market set up down there, might be worth a look. On the gold coast they have a market on the beach walk in surfers. Its around $100 to rent the stall and it attracts so many people. Heaps of tourists picking up small, not too expensive items. I've got a friend who sells cakes and macarons one day a week and that is enough to put her through uni.

Pabs, sick buy! They're rad pups.

Spose I should post a few photos. The router is a plunge router but here are the acoustics.

[Brendan]

Pretty cool Andrew! May check out my mate and some online options before I look into markets - ultimately if I can sell one every now and again, that will go towards feeding my BAS.