Official Luthiers Forum!

I recently was talking to someone here on the OLF who was figuring on cutting some alder B&S {perhaps they will chime in} and they asked if I was interested in giving it a try on a build.
I have never heard of someone building with alder much less seen it - I have however seen it on electric guitars namely tele type instruments with brighter tone,
Mind you I have seen alot of different woods being tried/used in instruments lately that arent exactly traditional woods.
Has anyone here built an acoustic with alder at all?
Im curious, and although im willing to give it a try I wouldnt want to spend a whole heck of alot of time on something that wasnt going to work out for some reason or other,
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
Cheers
Charliewood

You can make a guitar with nearly any wood and it will sound like a guitar. I think of guitar sound from wet to dry, basically how controlled the overtone structure is. Alder is a lightweight wood which would place it in the dry camp. Other lightweight woods used to good effect are: mahogany, cypress, sycamore, primavera. Alder was used by Uncle Leo because it was cheap,easy to finish, and available on the West Coast. Ironic that it turned out to define the Strat sound.
I would base any decision on whether to build an alder guitar on what the wood felt like and sounded like once it was dried and cut into a set. If it had some interesting resonances then I might be tempted to try it. However, it would have to exhibit some strong characteristics for me to try it since it would be a hard guitar to sell and would look about as plain as dirt.

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