Using non-traditional or non-tropical woods

[LouieAtienza]

Originally Posted by Alan Carruth

I published an article back in '98 comparing oak and Brazilian rosewood guitars. They were not much different. Luthiers have known for a long time that tropical woods are more a luxury than a necessity. Now we have to convince the buyers. It takes a lot of convincing...

Alan, do you think the more "porous" nature of oak contributes somewhat to its properties? Also, had you tested with red oak, white oak, and other variants? I have some really nice quartered and figured white oak that I'd love to use; extremely dense, though the color being the way it is I'd like to fume it to get a richer color; that would be done before installing bindings...

[Alan Carruth]

Brazilian rosewood can be pretty darn 'porous' as well. So long as the pores are plugged by the finish I don't see how that could make any difference. So far as I can tell, the most important properties of the back are it's density, stiffness, and damping factor, in that order.

I've built a fair number of oak guitars, and have liked them all. They are, however, hard to sell. If that were not so I'd make a lot more.

[perttime]

Is it possible to judge from this photo what kind of oak was used?

I thought that this guitar sounded very similar to the same builder's rosewood guitar that was done with identical layout.



Photo is from the luthier's Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/hemisphere.honkonen

[runamuck]

I'd say quarter-sawn white oak - not bookmatched.

Jim McCarthy

[perttime]

The side pieces of the back look sort of matched... Apparently, he had a pretty small piece of oak.

(warning, a slow website. Or runs some script that makes it hard to load for me)
http://ikataleonardo.blogspot.fi/201...volved-in.html

[perttime]

Now that I think of it... the back, sides and neck wood of the guitar in the photo must be:
Quercus robur, commonly known as the English oak or pedunculate oak or French oak.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quercus_robur

It is supposed to be "domestic wood", and that is the only kind of oak that is somewhat widespread in this country. If figures quoted in Wikipedia are comparable, it is slightly lighter than American Quercus alba, the white oak, on average.

[LouieAtienza]

Originally Posted by runamuck

I'd say quarter-sawn white oak - not bookmatched.

Jim McCarthy

The two "halves" do look bookmatched judging from the coloration. It's not always easy to get a perfect match on the ray flecks depending on the cut of the wood.

[perttime]

Fretboards...

A while ago, I spotted a builder of electric guitars, who had got himself some pretty non-traditional wood that made some different looking fingerboards: Lilac. I think his piece was Syringa vulgaris or "common lilac". Finding a piece that is large and clean enough may be a challenge, as well as babying it through drying slowly and evenly enough to keep it from splitting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syringa :
"The wood of lilac is close-grained, diffuse-porous, extremely hard and one of the densest in Europe. The sapwood is typically cream-coloured and the heartwood has various shades of brown and purple. Lilac wood has traditionally been used for engraving, musical instruments, knife handles etc.[citation needed] When drying, the wood has a tendency to be encurved as a twisted material, and to split into narrow sticks."

[LouieAtienza]

Originally Posted by perttime

Fretboards...

A while ago, I spotted a builder of electric guitars, who had got himself some pretty non-traditional wood that made some different looking fingerboards: Lilac. I think his piece was Syringa vulgaris or "common lilac". Finding a piece that is large and clean enough may be a challenge, as well as babying it through drying slowly and evenly enough to keep it from splitting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syringa :
"The wood of lilac is close-grained, diffuse-porous, extremely hard and one of the densest in Europe. The sapwood is typically cream-coloured and the heartwood has various shades of brown and purple. Lilac wood has traditionally been used for engraving, musical instruments, knife handles etc.[citation needed] When drying, the wood has a tendency to be encurved as a twisted material, and to split into narrow sticks."

Well there`s the rub... what benefit toward conservancy when the yield for a particular wood is particularly low, due to the characteristic nature of the species? If we are to be stewards of our reaources, we should be at least wise enough to use that which will yield us the most useable material per tree...

[printer2]

Originally Posted by perttime

Fretboards...

A while ago, I spotted a builder of electric guitars, who had got himself some pretty non-traditional wood that made some different looking fingerboards: Lilac. I think his piece was Syringa vulgaris or "common lilac". Finding a piece that is large and clean enough may be a challenge, as well as babying it through drying slowly and evenly enough to keep it from splitting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syringa :
"The wood of lilac is close-grained, diffuse-porous, extremely hard and one of the densest in Europe. The sapwood is typically cream-coloured and the heartwood has various shades of brown and purple. Lilac wood has traditionally been used for engraving, musical instruments, knife handles etc.[citation needed] When drying, the wood has a tendency to be encurved as a twisted material, and to split into narrow sticks."

I used red oak for one fretboard. I was going to fume it black but I liked the look of it as it was so I left it natural.

[perttime]

Originally Posted by LouieAtienza

Well there`s the rub... what benefit toward conservancy when the yield for a particular wood is particularly low, due to the characteristic nature of the species? If we are to be stewards of our reaources, we should be at least wise enough to use that which will yield us the most useable material per tree...

I suppose something like Lilac is no good for mass production.

For one-offs it can be quite feasible - even good. The plant is plentiful and sometimes they will be cut down anyway. The ones that the electric guitar builder got were from a cemetery.

Some time ago I saw a guitar that used Elm for fretboard and bridge. I think the nut and saddle on that one were bone from a Moose's leg.

[redir]

Originally Posted by printer2

I used red oak for one fretboard. I was going to fume it black but I liked the look of it as it was so I left it natural.

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.

[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".

Originally Posted by murrmac123

I have yet to encounter a guitar with either teak or balsa as a *tonewood* ... approaching the question from the other end of the spectrum, presumably it would be possible to compile a list of woods which are not accepted as *tonewoods* ?

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.

[LouieAtienza]

Originally Posted by perttime

I suppose something like Lilac is no good for mass production.

For one-offs it can be quite feasible - even good. The plant is plentiful and sometimes they will be cut down anyway. The ones that the electric guitar builder got were from a cemetery.

Some time ago I saw a guitar that used Elm for fretboard and bridge. I think the nut and saddle on that one were bone from a Moose's leg.

Well we can substitute most plentiful trees in the above sentence - they are plentiful and sometimes they will be cut down anyway. I'm all for using trees that were recovered or felled for reasons other than use for lumber.

I know most people here shun it but I think composites may be the future for fretboards. While there will always be people who just have to have wood, I think the properties of phenolics make them an excellent choice for fretboards. HPL (high-pressure laminates) and carbon fiber are just other forms of phenolics which are used now; and I feel that in the future they will be engineered to more mimic the characteristics of the woods they replace - and without worrying about the scarcity of wider boards and without the problems associated with natural woods.

[charles Tauber]

Originally Posted by LouieAtienza

I know most people here shun it but I think composites may be the future for fretboards.

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).