My Passion With Chris Dare

I have been playing guitar for more than 12 years, and started building my own instruments four years ago.

My hobby began when I realised I was neglecting some of my older guitars in favour of newer, shinier models. It was a shame because these were the guitars I learnt to play on and they had sentimental value.

I had an old Stratocaster sitting around that I never played, so I decided it would be a great idea to put some life back into it and restore it to its former glory.

I stripped out all the wiring and electronics and reinstalled them in an old coffee table, which turned out to make a very handy guitar body.

The original guitar was scrapped, but has lived on through its reincarnation. Because it was fitted with a pickup, I can plug it into an amplifier. The funny thing is, it can still be used as a table!

So it spends half of its time being strummed, and the rest of the time sitting around with mugs of tea and coffee on it.

Since the successful rebuilding of the Stratocaster, I’ve taken my hobby to a new level altogether. I now make guitars out of anything I can get my hands on – boxes, brooms and biscuit tins – it’s amazing what can be used to create different sounds.

A favourite is the custard cream guitar, which is made out of a sledgehammer and an old confectionery box.

The guitar neck is made from the sledgehammer handle, and although it only has three strings, it’s perfectly playable. The guitar body has a custom-built custard cream design embossed into it, so it looks like an enormous custard cream!

Another slightly unusual design is the guitar I built out of a dog bowl and a mousetrap.

It sounds ridiculous but it’s actually quite functional. The bowl acts as a resonator, amplifying the sound from the vibrating string, and the mousetrap’s metal component works as an effective bridge. The strings sit in place over the mousetrap.

The simplest guitar I made is a ‘diddley bow’, which is basically a one-stringed guitar made out of a piece of wood with screws at the top and bottom and a string running between the two.

Once you have the basics, you can start making it interesting by adding different parts here and there. I made one with a cigar box for the body.

While the unusual guitars are a bit of fun, I’ve customised many conventional instruments as well, including a Les Paul, and I’m currently working on a Stratocaster, which I’m building from parts. It will be great when it’s done.

I mainly play country and blues style guitar, and I’ve played in bands over the years. In the future I would like to branch out and start building customised effects pedals and amplifiers.