Official Luthiers Forum!

OK, a weird question.

Let's say you were going to (for whatever demented, misguided reason) build a guitar out of stuff you could find down at the lumber yard. (Mine is going to be Douglas Fir for almost everything). What would you use for bridge, fretboard, bridge plate? Maple? Ipe?   I know I could use
oak for backs and sides, but I've been intrigued by the one all spruce guitar I have seen and have pretty much decided to build an all Doug Fir guitar.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Check Bob C's site, he has an sll spruce build there.

I've built a load out of offcuts from a shopfitter's dumpster.

Walnut, oak, mahogany, Port Orford Cedar.....

I buy Sprice tpsa and rosewood slotted fongerboards. All the rest is slavage...

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My soundclick xx luthier blog xx luthier soundclick

Jim, good idea to build with Douglas fir all around, i'd use BRW appointments, it would look pretty cool and would have lots of class!

I think Ronn Steiger used purple heart or bloodwood as appointments on his all spruce guitar though.

Alan Caruth would also encourage you to use oak for back and sides but i really love your idea, let us know what you choose please!

Cheers

Serge - BRW trim on a lumber guitar? Hmmm ... last time I checked, they didn't have any BRW down at the lumber yard

Would walnut stand up as a fingerboard or bridge?

tail and neck blocks will of course be plywood.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Walnut makes a nice bridge. Don't think it would be tough enough for a fingerboard though.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Ipe for the f''board, for sure. It's a bit dense for a bridge. Walnut and maple both would be good for that. Maple works Ok for a f'board, but it sure gets dirty fast.

Doug fir is about as dense as oak, sometimes, so it should work fine. Try to find a lighter piece for the top. Redwood is also a good lumberyard top wood, and you can sometimes find great looking western red cedar as shingles and siding. Rough spruce planking can also be found, and a lot of studs and such are spruce. I've gotten great Englemann(?) bracing stock from 2x4s.

As usual, good advice from Alan, Jim. You also might try this for a top. Look through the 2" X 12" stock at the yard--bring a tape measure. Find boards that were cut from the center of the tree--the ones that have the round pith right in the middle. The wood on either side will be quartersawn. Search out the boards that are spruce, not pine or fir, and that have the tightest grain. If you can find one with clear sections that would cover the length of your planned instrument, you could make a pretty nice multi-piece top that has the potential to sound good. Of course, the major problem here would be getting it resawn to the proper thickness.

In any case, good luck on your project!

Carlton's idea is very good. It's not the fault of the spruce tree that it ends
up at a home improvment store. It's sad but true, some great spruce is
used to build houses every day. Something to remember though is that
the wood you find in a stack of 2x12s will (most likely) be very wet. make
sure after you resaw the stuff, to sticker it up, put some wieght on top
and build with it next year.

long

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"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” -Heraclitus of Ephesus

hey does a marine lumber yard count??? If so, I got a 2.5" x 9" x10' piece of quartered sitka for about $150. a few years back.. I picked the lenght, so it could have been only 2 foot. it was 18-22 lines/inch. alot of tops in one peice at 2.5" thick. rounout was mininal also.. They also carry mohagony and ebony.. But its still lumber yard wood
And In the northern states, lowes carries maple in 3/4 by 10.. Some has decent flame.
Mike

There is a stone supplier (think huge quartz and granite slabs) down in Georgetown that gets a lot of his stuff from Brazil, at least that's what is painted,embossed, on some of the crating material. I've picked up some pieces that are dense and heavy. They look kind of like mahogany, but much heavier. My point is that if you scrounge around you will be amazed at whats out there that you can use and not have to pay top dollar for. I still kick myself for not buying a solid mahogany, real mahogany not luan, door that came out of a old church. They only wanted $30.

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Aoibeann

Carlton - I may hunt for some spruce - as Al says, the fir is heavy. I may have something in 2 by 6's laying around, though. I will be resawing everything myself.

Mike - If I included Hearne's Hardwoods as a local lumberyard, I could just go buy some already cut koa sets from Rick. (I've already cut 4 acoustic sets and a drop top for a Tele out of a piece of Myrtle I got there - as pretty as anything I've seen on the web.) Seems like cheating though.   

Jim

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

[QUOTE=CarltonM] Search out the boards that are spruce, not pine or fir, and that have the tightest grain. [/QUOTE]

how can one differentiate spruce from pine and fir? Indeed i've read people getting spruce from old doors and such for bracewood.

   I bought some pine (for jigs and whatnot) from a yard that recycles pallet wood. They were yellowy, wide & prominently grained, and has that familiar pine scent. 98% of softwood were like that in there.
   But a few pieces were unusual in that they were too white(as if it were bleached, but it's white all the way through), the late-wood lines aren't to prominent, the fibers on the surface were 'stringy' giving the plank a furry appearance before i planed it, and it didn't gave off pine scent even on fresh shavings. Can i definitely say that it is spruce?

       

HarryF
You may be looking at spruce, but you also may be looking at aspen, poplar, or even cottonwood.
As a general rule pallets are made from very low
grade lumber. If you have a picture of the planed
board, it would help to identify what you have.
Hope this helps.

Tom

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http://www.moriciguitar.com

Harry,

I'm far from being a wood expert, but after years of looking at soundboards, I've learned to spot the spruce in mixed lumber piles by its appearance. Spruce will, generally, have a whiter, or more "tan" coloring than pine, which in this part of the country tends to be yellowish.   The main giveaway, though, is spruce's much smaller grain lines. We don't get a lot of fir in my area, but the boards I've seen and touched are coarser and harder than the spruce. Another spruce identifier is its silking. Find a side or edge of the board that has some quartered grain. If it's spruce, it's likely to exhibit a shimmering cross-grain effect. Now, many other woods will show that effect as well, but won't have spruce's distinctive coloring and grain lines. If your lumberyard stocks cedar and/or redwood, you'll find silking there, too, but usually only if the grain lines are sufficiently close together.

If you're able to go through enough two-by lumber you may be able to find a board that has straight, quartered and tight grain lines and enough clear wood to make a very good multi-piece top. After all that work, though, I think you'll realize why we pay people to do that for us, and just how hard their jobs are!

If I remember correctly Benedetto made an arch top guitar out of construction grade lumber. I think I saw the pics in his book. There is also the pallet guitar made by Taylor.