(AP) — What do soup pot lids, old car transmissions, wooden salad bowls and cigar boxes have in common? On a recent trip back to Sedalia to visit his mother, Mary Frances Herndon, he brought along three of his handmade, folk art, acoustic guitars — all made from thrift store trinkets and re-purposed materials. Herndon, who lives in Golden, Colorado, calls himself a "junkyard luthier," and hopes to someday retire from his computer graphics job and make and sell the instruments full time. Herndon, a 1966 Smith-Cotton High School graduate and former marching band member, is a harmonica player in two Colorado bands, Once Removed Blues Band and Ajax Blues Band. The concept for creating musical instruments with re-purposed material came to him almost two years ago because of some wheel covers he'd saved. I thought this is a brilliant and original idea. [...] I got online and did research and there's a whole community of people making handmade instruments. After he built the hubcap guitar he decided to try his hand at building a wooden cigar box instrument. Herndon also brought along a guitar/banjo he'd made with a wooden salad bowl, a stainless steel soup pot lid and an inverted dog bowl. Created with a barbecue tool kit body, he added many thrift store trinkets, plus automotive pieces and typewriter pieces. The instrument also has car blinkers, an antique shell shaped soap dish, a small calculator, wires and tubes, plus many more novelty items.