Using non-traditional or non-tropical woods

[pb+j]

I'm all for non traditional woods and think the idea of "tonewoods" is mostly marketing hooey. But I have to admit I'd have a hard time with the aesthetics of an oak guitar. Reminds me of mission furniture, which i like but which is heavily built and stocky. I wonder if a guitar could be made of oak with "mission" styling?

Obviously it's just a matter of familiarity--the more oak guitars you see, the more it would become acceptable

[LouieAtienza]

Originally Posted by charles Tauber

I was introduced to phenolic fingerboards in 1978 by Charles Fox, who, then, endorsed them. My first guitar has a phenolic fingerboard. Unless I've told people that it isn't ebony, no one pays any attention to it. It has worked very well, with zero wear. I appreciate that people like solid woods, just as I do, but composites can certainly work very successfully.

I don't know the chemistry involved in phenolics, other than the use of paper fibers and a matrix, but it likely isn't particularly "environmentally friendly", which figures somewhere in the equation of whether it is better to use wood or man-made materials. I don't think anyone is suggesting there is a shortage of wood, only a shortage of the kinds of woods people prefer for specific uses (e.g. ebony).

Not necessarily paper fibers; they are usually paper sheets impregnated with resin, layered and bonded with resin - phenol resin - hence the name. The layers can also be cotton fabric, fiberglass, fiberglass fabric, carbon fiber, etc... I agree that the shortage is not with the trees themselves but the woods from them that we have available. "Environmentally friendly" is another question; while the resins may not be the most eco-friendly, the recycled paper products used for the layers are, and it's as indestructible as paper products get.

[perttime]

Originally Posted by pb+j

Obviously it's just a matter of familiarity--the more oak guitars you see, the more it would become acceptable

Maple is already a pretty usual thing on guitars. So why not a few more woods that aren't naturally very dark in color.

I believe rowan AKA mountain-ash has some suitable characteristics as guitar wood and it is quite common in my area. The wood often has pretty nice color too. I've heard that some luthiers feel it doesn't stabilize for humidity fluctuations as well as maple or the usual tropical woods, though.

[Alan Carruth]

It occurred to me once that all the balsa I'd ever heard of people testing was thin sheets. The problem there is that it has such low density and has to move a relatively large amount of air to vibrate, so the damping might not be loss in the wood per se. I got a balsa 2x2 and tested that: it has the same sort of damping as spruce. Only one test, I know, but suggestive. And moot,too, in a way: balsa is a tropical hardwood...

[printer2]

Originally Posted by redir

I like the way that looks too. I used white oak for an all oak guitar and didn't fume it but painted on a solution that essentially does the same thing. IT really came out nice and black and I've really fallen in love with that technique and plan on making more white oak guitars.

Well when I was making my guitar I saw the thread documenting your build and wanted to steal a few bits and make mine look similar. In the end I decided to just leave the wood in its natural state with a clear finish. My mistakes are there to see but given the humble origins of the wood I see it more as character. My guitar did not turn out sounding as well as yours, a little too much contribution from the live back, but then again this was my first acoustic and I had no idea how to brace the back for the woods used. I have some white oak waiting to be turned into a guitar but have a couple of birch ones to build first.

Originally Posted by fazool

I also heard that Bob Taylor did an experiment and made a guitar out of old pallets. Presumably, it worked but, given his forestry conscientiousness, he probably would have started moving toward such woods if it worked "good enough".

I was thinking similarly.

For example, I would think knotty yellow pine would be awful as a "tonewood". Obviously balsa has way too much inherent damping to be a "tonewood". Willow is probably too wet and squishy to be a tonewood.

Seagull, on the other hand, specifically embraced native wood as tonewoods, exclusively using cherry, maple, etc.

Well I did not use knotty pine but I did use pine for my back and sides. With the back being more closer to the density and stiffness of the top than that of hardwoods it does contribute a greater amount to the sound (from my limited knowledge about acoustics). Mind you if I let my ample belly dampen it a little the balance is better.



Actually the sound is more balanced if I pick gentler. Good enough to throw in the back of the car without worrying about it getting dinged. I have a couple more sets made up of the pine and when I know more about building I will give it another attempt.

[LouieAtienza]

I believe Ken Parker had made a few archtops out of figured red birch; seems like an interesting alternative to maple. Also thre are many plywood guitars out there; the core is usually poplar. I've seen some striking color variations in some poplar boards, even figuring; though the green-gray hue is a bit off-putting to me. I think cherry has some promise, and it looks rich when the wood is darkened; it also comes figured as well.

[perttime]

Originally Posted by LouieAtienza

I believe Ken Parker had made a few archtops out of figured red birch; seems like an interesting alternative to maple.

Birch is in somewhat common use in my corner of the world. Generally it is "silver birch" which is also the material for "baltic birch plywood". A figured piece can look a lot like maple but it is a little softer, and lighter weight.

[WaddyT]

Walnut is also another option. Just plain old North American Walnut. I just finished a Walnut/WRC classical that may be the best guitar I've ever built, sound-wise.

[mauna lisa]

I have built 3 solid bodies and one acoustic out of teak. Back in the 90's I did some research and found that teak has one of the lowest coefficients of thermal expansion of the readily available (at that time) hardwoods. They really do stay in tune better, even at the beach in July. But it is terrible to bend. Back in those days I bent my sides over a foot of 3 inch fence pipe in a vise with a propane torch aimed at it. Before I bent the teak I had built a few acoustics (with cutaway) out of maple and southern yellow pine. I took the maple to 0.090 to bend nicely, I took the southern yellow pine to the same, and it was like butter, where to bend teak, I had to take down to 0.020 (Yes, barely over 1/64) to get the cutaway to bend. That teak guitar (#10) is still my fav traveling guitar, but the cutaway has had a hole in side for years. I am rough on guitars and don't use a case. Maybe a Trader Joe's cotton bag or a backpack. The teak sides ended up splitting after a few miles, also. I currently have a walnut patch on the lower treble side bout, and the lower bass bout is in need of a patch, but it still travels well and sounds awesome! The teak sides seemed to be brittle after bending them, where the back and necks seem pretty tough.

I recycled a double overhead garage door in the 90's that was southern yellow pine from the 60's. I had to cut a lot of the rot and termite damage off. But, after re-sawing, I built three parlor size guitars out of it. I used it for back, sides, neck, top and all the bracing, with ebony finger boards. I had to go with a four piece book matched top, but you couldn't tell by looks or playability. It bent like buttah, also.

Walnut is also very easy to bend and looks nice, also. I left a 2x10 of quarter sawn walnut in Arizona. That could have been some nice necks.

Currently, I got my hands on some old redwood siding and an old redwood 2x10, and am building #14 (acoustic), #15 (solid body), and #16 (acoustic) out of it, with enough left for possibly a few more. This old redwood seems stiff, and did not want to bend easily, so #14 and #16 will have walnut sides.

Maple seemed okay to bend. The domestic maple I went through bent well. The German Maple with Tiger Striping looked awesome as neck, sides and back, but was a little more of challenge to bend than straight grain maple. Oh, and that nice figuring like to grab your chisels, scrapers, and planes and take them to different directions that I had planned for.

I hope this helps,

Lisa

[perttime]

Yet another tonewood discussion got me thinking again.

At the listening test I've been mentioning, some guitar pairs sounded very different. They were mainly pairs with a rosewood and a birch guitar of basically the same design, built by student luthiers. The rosewood/oak pair were not all that different. With some more experimentation with thicknesses, bracing, etc. those luthiers could probably make the rosewood guitars sound more like birch guitars - or the other way round if that is your preference.