Official Luthiers Forum!

 What makes woods suitable for guitar making? Could I buy garden variety Bubinga and resaw it for a guitar? If I went to a regular hardwood outlet what would I be looking for. Quarter sawing-dryness-special figures. I quess my question is what makes instrument wood special?

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Mistakes are mandatory-learning from them is optional. http://www.opensourceluthiersupply.com

Most woods are kiln dried if you get them from a store who sell exotics. Your bubinga mentioned is likely kiln dried so that's not an issue.

Just about any wood will build a guitar.

There are reasons to stick with mahogany and rosewood.

Welcome to the OLF.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Bill,
I see you are an artist teacher slash woodworker. You'l find those skills will transfer to building guitars nicely.

No doubt you are familiar with the term quartersawn. That's important for sides and tops, helps give you the best surface for strength of the wood and stability, not to mention flatness of tops and sides after bending.

Good luck, even if you are a little green man.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

PS We around the OLF have been encouraged to use our real names. You may have missed that on the way in. I don't know why that's a rule. I see you used your real name on the profile, so folks will get to know your real name eventually. Got an example of any of your work?

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

[QUOTE=Bruce Dickey] Most woods are kiln dried if you get them from a store who sell exotics. Your bubinga mentioned is likely kiln dried so that's not an issue.

Just about any wood will build a guitar.

There are reasons to stick with mahogany and rosewood.

Welcome to the OLF.[/QUOTE]


Now I know why you gave us all your bubinga at the first Arkansas gathering!

Ron

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

[QUOTE=old man]

Now I know why you gave us all your bubinga at the first Arkansas gathering!

Ron[/QUOTE]

Clue me in, WHY?

I thought the reason was that I got an incredible deal from one of the owners of www.fqms.com in Louisville Kentucky and wanted to share. And it was a little gimme 'cause I didn't have to buy gas to get anywhere.

Matter of fact, while I sold that repeatedly on Ebay for $64.50, I've turned some of the sets with sapwood for $145 on Ebay. It's great wood.

I've not actually used bubinga though. The first Bubinga that appeared here on the OLF was sliced up by BobCef. I jumped on a couple sets of waterfall at a hunerd a pop. Brock got the rest.

I was going to get rid of a bunch of orphan sides but have now decided it'll make really killer binding. That along with a bunch of maple orphans I got on the bay and I'm set for binding a bazillion guitfiddles.

Hey Ron, how's the sleep going? You subbing any now that school started? I totally admire teachers you know. My wife is still at it in year 29. T-droppin' to beat the band! Yea!

Okay you deadbeats lets see some bubinga guitars.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

I dont have any bubinga nor have I built a guitar with it. I have, however, built one guitar with American Sycamore and another with Ash. I just put the z-poxy on the ash guitar tonight and I am soooooo hyper to get this one finished so that I can play it! its beeeeeuteeeeful!!

 

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Reguards,

Ken H

I somehow missed in this thread why one should stick to mahogany and rosewood. Whilst my thoughts are biased as a sponsor/vendor can anyone afford me some tangible reason for recommending only traditional tonewoods such as rosewood and mahogany to beginning luthiers.

Was it the price?

There are many alternative tonewoods that would be quite suitable and significantly less than a "good" set of mahogany or rosewood. I didn't quite see in the thread where the line was drawn in the rosewood range with sets ranging from $50 to $3000 USD.

Was it the ease of use?

Given the modern trend with thermal blankets a lot of issues related to wood manipulation are now redundent.


The range in colour,figure and tone in non-traditional tonewoods provides beginning luthiers with a great opportunity to construct guitars without any preconceptions.


So Greenman if you have a yearning to take the leap send me a PM

regards

Tim

I often wonder what Campiano and Natelson would recommend for a beginner today if they were undertaking a re-write? I know that both Jim Williams and C&N recommended starting out with a nice 1/4 sawn set of Mahogany, but this was advice relevant to the 1970's when those books were penned. This was a time when Mahogany was so readily available that a well quartered set could be had for the price of a six pack so it was an obvious choice. But I think we all now accept that those days have now come to and end.

I feel that today, those of us involved in this craft are on the down hill slope of a transitional period in relation to wood choice and this does not necessarily have to be a bad thing. It is however a period in which some of the alternative woods of today are fast becoming the traditional woods of tomorrow and at the same time, the traditional woods of today are fast becoming elite.

Fortunately, as Tim suggested, the silicone heat blanket has greatly broadened the available choices of what can be used by a beginner. Today, if we wish to identify those woods that are most likely to become traditional to us in the future or the new standards in our shops, all we realy need do is determine which woods are readily available, reasonably workable, (after all, most feedback on this forum would have me believe that mahogany presents a challenge in the bending department even for those with quite a few under their belt) looks cool and sounds OK as a tonewood. After all, other than the broadened range of acceptably workable woods presented by the introduction of the heat blanket, this is exactly the criteria used in the past to establish what we today call traditional.

The answer to this question for me is very welcome because that criteria accurately describes a lot of hardwoods that are native to Australia So sure Mahogany and even EIR were the standards that seen many good factories come and go, but today when you walk into a standard guitar store, there is a lot of variety hanging on the wall.

So I think we should remain open minded about this question, after all, once upon a time the first choice even for a beginner would have been BRW, simply because that is what one should use when building a guitar, it was cheap, it was readily available and it was traditional. One thing I do know for sure in all of this Greenman, a wise man would take the leap and send that PM

Cheers

Kim

Yeah, Australia and the surrounding Islands are blessed with some unique and wonderful woods.

We used Mahogany and Brazilian Rosewood in this country simply because they were widely available at one time and they provided excellent results. Mahogany was so plentiful it was considered a budget wood, and was preferred for necks because it works so well and is very stable.
As CITES has had favorable results in keeping the worlds' supply of woods from disappearing, it also has handcuffed us from accessing woods that probably could still be available in reasonable amounts. 'nuff about that...

Part of the global economy of today is that wood from across the globe is now available, albeit at sometimes unreasonable prices. I've said it before, and I'll say it again...the wood industry is far more aware of the world of lutherie than ever before, and I believe that this factor is somewhat responsible for how the prices have been driven up. While the supply for much of these woods remains somewhat constant, the demand for them has risen greatly, and with so many hobbiest and professional luthiers and suppliers looking for specific woods, the supply gets stretched and the price goes up due to increased demand.

Regarding Bubinga, the price was roughly $10/bf cheaper just a few years ago, but it is still relatively cheap compared to other exotic species, unless it has figure such as waterfall, quilt, or flame. Then it can get very expensive. Tonally, it is very good. It can be very hard and glassy like rosewoods, and make a fine guitar.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

WMHCG B & S, Honduran Mahog., jumbo In Stock   $54.35 $48.35

This is LMI, Luthier's Mercantile. Mahogany is simply a great guitar wood, ask Colin.

WIJ B & S, East Indian Rosewood, 1st grade, jumbo In Stock $83.10 $73.95 $64.80

This is LMI too in Windsor, California. Their Indian Rosewood makes a great guitar, one of my favorites. Matter of fact I have an Olson SJ style guitar nearly done with a Red Cedar top for my son. He is a very good fingerstylist and this is a great combo. Good enough for Keaggy... ....and me.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

I was just joking about the bubinga.

I'm not subbing, I'm just semi-retired. They let me come in and work half a day. I'm drawing my retirement, but can still work in teaching as long as I don't earn too much.    So, I go in and teach three honors algebra II classes and leave work at 11 A.M. Not a bad gig.

Ron

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

[QUOTE=Don Williams] Yeah, Australia and the surrounding Islands are blessed with some unique and wonderful woods.
[/QUOTE]

Amen to that. I am working with a sample of Tassie blackwood that Tim sent me recently, and the stuff GLOWS like burnished copper. As soon as the money comes in, I'm going to purchase a set.

http://www.australiantonewoods.com/TMMA051.jpg

Also here is a set from another sponsor. $380 Quite beautiful.

I wish sets like this grew on trees here in the US. I think we have oak, cherry, and black walnut locally. Which too can make excellent guitars.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Hesh

No offense taken. I just thought it would be useful to stimulate the discussion and get a little more information from those who made the original suggestions. Obviuously beginning the journey in lutherie is helped by the experience of others so as to avoid the pitfalls and variables that the construction process presents. In fact when I started the journey a forum like this would have been very useful. My pile of sawdust and broken side would have been less.

regards

Tim

Hesh wrote:
"If I had it all to do over I would not repeat what I have already done. Instead I would concentrate on the basics, what is really important, and that is learning to build a first class guitar."

Bingo!

I try to get my students to build their first one out of East Indian rosewood and Spruce of one sort or another. Tonally it's a hard combination to beat in general, and much easier to work with than the more exotic stuff. I guarantee that unless you're a very experienced wood worker and very gifted acoustically it will take you a while to learn all those woods can teach you. Then it's time to move on to the 'good stuff'.

That said, there are probably hundreds of woods that can be used to make good guitars. I'm sure there are suitable local woods wherever you are, so long as you're in a place where you can grow trees! Tops and backs have different jobs to do, and the woods that work well for one are not likely to be ideally suited for the other. On the other hand, any wood you're going to use on a guitar should probably be reasonably stable, not too prone to splitting, nor too soft. We often use _very_ hard woods indeed, though. Note that well quartered wood of whatever species tends to be both more stable in terms of warping and shrinking, and to have a higher cross grain stiffness. Sometimes that extra stiffness is bought at the price of more brittleness, and in woods that are prone to splitting anyway, such as padauk and redwood, can be probematic for some folks. Other woods, such as oak, are almost useless unless they're well quartered, IMO.

Tops need to be easy to drive with the limited energy in the strings. That means they need to end up being light in weight and stiff enough to take the loads. Usually if you start with a wood that has 'spruce' someplace in the name, and go for a reasonably light piece, you'll be happy. Other softwoods, such as the firs, cedars, and so on, are also good bets in general.

Sides need to bend. Some woods don't like to do that, either because they are so soft that they crush or so brittle or highly figured that they split. Some woods that bend easily when they are good quality pieces can be impossible in poorer quality: Brazilian rosewood is one such. Flat cut sides can cup and warp badly.

Backs can go in a couple of directions. Most guitars have been made with high density, low damping woods, that 'waste' less of the sound that they are getting from the top. A lighter, wood, such as mahogany, can contribute to the sound, especially in the low range, and add some 'punch' that often comes across as an enhanced high end.

It's not too hard to test the properties of different pieces of wood, especially if you've alreasdy got them cut into guitar sized sets. There are different ways to do this, using various levels of technology, and a little bit of this, along with some effort to correlate thjose wood properties with the resultint tone of the guitars, will teach you a lot about what to look for in alternatives. There are many more acceptible choices now than there were when I the variety will really explode. We may have to do more homework to get the best results, but it will be interesting, at any rate.