Official Luthiers Forum!

Being a guitarist, I pretty much know the tonal qualities of standard tonewood varieties for guitar back and sides such as Rosewood, mahogany, etc...

But after yesterday's opportunity of scabbing some local wood, I'm wondering whether any of you for a change forsook the exotic woods from an exotic place and chose tonewoods from your locality. Why did you choose it over some other zoot?

For example, the local woods I am thinking of are Cherry, Sycamore, Oak, Walnut, Ash and Beech. What are the tonal "shades" of each type?

I was inspired by a recent trip to a museum where someone had built a bass guitar from native species.

I would appreciate your comments, as I am in the planning stages of a bouzouki/cittern....

Sam Price38980.699849537

We've been gradually adding more domestic woods to our building here in the US for the last several years. Maple has been a staple in the industry for years, and birch was once used without much hoopla, but more and more native species like Cherry, Walnut, Osage Orange, and others are being added to the luthier's palletes. I'm not familiar enough with Walnut to say how it sounds, but Cherry will sound similar to Maple, and Osage Orange will sound virtually identical to Brazilian Rosewood. Yes, I know that may be laughable to some folks, but Al Carruth tested the stuff, and in every way - density, damping factor, etc., its numbers test out nearly identical to BRW. Whooda thunkit? Now if we could get customers to see the virtue behind that bright yellow color, or learn to stain it brick red or chocolate brown with spider-webbing lines...

Needless to say, pretty much any hardwood will work, but with differing results.

Lots of folks use maple for bazouki/citerns, and Cherry would substitute nicely. I'll bet English Brown Oak might be nice too.Don Williams38980.7015393519

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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."

I am soon to add Mesquite to my mix

One thing to consider is the stabilty of the wood also. You might check Understanding Wood by Bruce Hodley (SP?). He has a bunch of information on wood stabilty in there.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

I have used walnut and would describe it's tone as between Rosewood and Mahogany. A Crisp tone if that makes sence.

Don--have you a source for Osage Orange is sizes big enough for backs/sides? I've made a few bridges and tool handles out of it and would love to build a guitar from it. The stuff I've used turns much darker over time. I kinda' like the look of it!

Jim

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James Warwick
J. Warwick Guitars, LLC
http://www.jwarwickguitars.com

Osage Orange is added to my kist of must have also , i'm now curious to see what it looks like, must be nice and my wife's favorite color IS orange!

Take a look here
I'll have more sets soon.

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

Osage really is orange. One of the luthiers in the New England Luthiers club had a stack of the stuff and I know he sold some of it. I hope Don gets a bunch. I'm anxious to try some out. Even though the color is weird, it does mellow a bit with age. When Al Carruth first started experimenting with it, he had a hard time selling the resulting instruments even though they sounded great. However, he had made the instrument quite plain because it was, after all, an experiment. Later, he decided to go all out and make them fancy with all the inlay and fine details. He sold the guitar in the 1st hour of Healdsberg. The instrument he had in Newport is already with a customer. In short, he's have no difficulting moving osage instruments.

I know that Al also uses walnut. I have a set in my stash and it is earmarked for my next project. Walnut and yellow cedar.

Thanks Bob, i'll definitely buy a set from you soon, gorgeous stuff to my eyes!

I own a beautiful walnut OM-H that has a very bright and ringing sound, the figure in it reminds me of Angel wings! Thanks to my bro Hesh!

Sam, I've completed one out of cherry and nearly finished two more out of cherry. I love the sound, loud and rich.
My next build will be an OM from curly white oak.

Ron

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

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

Wow! You built that Serge!! Nice work!

Billy Dean Thomas

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

Sam, here's a pic of a guitar my brother built a while back. It uses curly cherry back / sides (neck, too), and you see the curly maple binding / trim. I think the woods are beautiful, and I'd like to see more of this kind of thing:





Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Thankyou, some great replies here...

That Walnut OM just looks stunning....

Steve..I don't think I've seen cherry looking that blingy!! Wow! Those ripples!!!

I carve cherry, and it's a tough but lovely wood. It blunts my blades faster than you can say zircote...

Sam, English Walnut makes a beautiful guitar which is fairly neutral in tone allowing the top to express itself without too much colour. I'm currently working on one with an Italian spruce top. Russell recently posted one using a sister set.

This is the set I'm using (only got three more )



Cherry is a fine tone wood as well, though this should be the native Prunus avens, rather than the domesticated species. I've only used it for necks so far as this is the timber I've got, My 8-course lute used it as is the Walnut OM I'm making, head and tail block as well. Russell also uses it a lot for necks.



Another nice wood is London Plane, a close relative to the US "Sycamore" not to be confused with the UK sycamore) again Russell has built a fabulous guitar from it, so search for London Plane on the archives as he usually posts a sound clip as well. The UK Sycamore Acer pseudoplatanus, has long been used a a wood in musical instruments and I see no reason not to give it a try.

As to other native woods, my principle is "if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck". So if it looks like a tonewood and taps like a tonewood, then it is a tonewood, give it a go.

ColinColin S38981.1875231481

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Oh, I love this forum!! I am now a sufferer of GAS and WAS!!

I quite like the duck reference.I'm kinda hoping to discover a tonewood the way you described.

Thanks Colin, I'll hunt the archives using different keywords this time.   

Also a good idea to look up your wood candidates in the local reference books. There's a bunch of timbers in this neck of the woods that seem ideal until you see how liable they are to split/check/warp/cup etc etc. Stability is the key here me thinks.

I am partial to Bob's QS Sycamore. Its gorgeous and the tone is very well balanced. Bredlove has been building with it for a while--thats where I got my interest.

[QUOTE=Steve Kinnaird] Sam, here's a pic of a guitar my brother built a while back. It uses curly cherry back / sides (neck, too), and you see the curly maple binding / trim. I think the woods are beautiful, and I'd like to see more of this kind of thing:
Steve[/QUOTE]

You am me both brother! That cherry is WOW!

My daughter has a Karol parlor made of cherry and it sounds great...very crisp and defined tone.

Alas, regardless of the tonewood its really up to the skill of the builder to make it sing.

Mike, Bob Cefalu often has some very nice Osage. I find it more yellow than orange, but then I'm color blind anyway.   

I don't know if I'll run into a supply of osage anytime soon, but for those who are in the hunt now...Bob's the man.

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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."

I agree with JimW and PaulB. Learn about the
properties of the wood you build with.
If you know the Coefficient of dimensional change
you can get an idea of how stable the wood is.
Coefficient of dimensional change relates to what happens when there is a change to the moisture content
of wood. The lower the number, the less wood moves
with humidity changes.




Tom

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http://www.moriciguitar.com

Guy's all good advice but don't forget that Sam is talking about English timbers, not those growing in the US, or more exotic climes. And often we use different common names (the Sycamore is the prime example.)

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Yeah, Osage is great stuff, but a bit tricky to work with hand tools, as it tends to chip. Pre-scribe the sides before you rout the binding rabbets!

I tend to break woods down into a few broad classes, based on density and damping factor. The 'rosewood' class has high density and low damping. Most of the rosewoods live there, along with Osage and a couple of near-rosewoods like Morado and Macassar ebony. Oak, persimmon, rock maple, and such like woods, have high density, but also relatively high damping. They can sound pretty 'rosewoody', but might lack the 'sparkling' highs of the rosewoods in a classical guitar. Soft maple, the usual violin wood, has lower density and moderate damping, and is more or less closely matched by things like cherry and black walnut. Their tone is often 'clear' and 'dry'. The lighter weight woods, like mahogany, Peruvian walnut, and so on, usually have moderate to high damping as well, and tend to yeild similar tone color: 'punchy' is a good descriptor. There are some oddballs, such as Mediterranian cypress, that are light weight but have low damping: you know what that sounds like from Flamenco guitars.

As I say, these are broad classes. I'm a 'lumper', not a 'splitter'. There are folks who will debate the small differences between Italian and German spruce until the the grease slick rises on the cold coffee, but as far as I'm concerned they're both European spruce. Perhaps it's my lousy hearing that's making me miss some of these distinctions, but I have to say that as far as measureable properties that ought to influence tone, there's a lot of variation in any species, and much overlap. So, yeah, walnut tends to sound a little 'darker' maybe than European maple, but how much of that is in the ears and how much in the eyes? I've made some nice walnut fiddles and archtop guitars.

One bet I will make, though: no matter how well the wood works as a tone wood, you will probably have a lot easier time selling the guitar if the wood comes from some tropical country. There has been enough buzz about Osage that it's starting to be the exception, and maybe that will open some eyes. I hope so. I've got all sorts of 'local' stuff stashed in the back room that I'm itching to try out!

I went looking for osage orange guitar wood and ran across this website from a very happy customer of Al's
osage orange classical

If that was the Osage classical Al had at the Newport show, then it sure was a winner. That was one of the finest classicals I've ever had my hands on. Maybe even THE finest sounding. That is, if you like power, projection, and balanced tone etc. It was a show-stopper.

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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."