Official Luthiers Forum!

I'm just curious when did all of you decide to start using "expensive" wood to build your guitars? I know the term "Expensive" could vary from one person to another, but just in General what did you use for your first guitar (Back/Sides and Top) and then at what point were you confident enough to use something more exotic?

I'm still working on number one which is Walnut Back & Sides and a fairly low cost Spruce Top. Number Two will be the same and then my plan is to probably build #3 and #4 using Mahogany Back & Sides with a slightly more expensive top (maybe one with a Mahogany Top) and from there hopefully #5 using a nice Rosewood or Figured Walnut or really whatever.

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Thanks,
Blain

http://www.ullrichguitar.com

"89.67% of all statistics are made up on the spot."

Well Blain, I'm no help. I'm planning on doing just about the same. The only difference is I'm planning on cedar to go with the walnut for the first couple. Then I'll move into mahogany for a while. Then I'll step back and assess the situation.

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Aoibeann

A dealer friend I know said I should'nt use brazilian till # 100, I did it on # 25, I say atleast 20!
Lance

Blain,

Ironically, I started out using some pretty pricey woods, but the more I build, the more I am drawn to woods with a lower zoot factor (and therefore lower cost).

When I look at a back/side set by itself, my eyes are drawn to the most dramatic. "Zoot." But when that same eye-catching zoot is coupled with binding, rosettes, purfling, finish, etc., I find myself more and more thinking "it's too much."

On the other hand, the simpler woods accompanied by well-selected appointments look spectacular to me. Check out Bob Long's thread on his Granadillo guitar with Cocobolo appointments. Granadillo is on the less expensive side, but I don't think anyone's posted a more beautiful guitar here in a long time. Change that granadillo out for some highly-figured zoot, and Bob's guitar would not be nearly so appealing to me.

My first flat top guitar was an EIR/Sitka dread. When I was done, I thought "Nice, but this is way too plain." Now I'm finishing up another EIR/Sitka dread for my brother, with a set of Allied's $25/set "opportunity grade" EIR. I think it's the prettiest guitar I've built yet. I made better choices for binding, fretboard, purfling, rosette, etc., and instead of plain, it's really elegant.

I have a good stash of wild zoot in my shop, and it'll come in handy when someone wants to pay me to build a guitar out of it. But whenever I'm picking out the woods, I find myself reaching for the simpler stuff. Which also tends to be the cheaper stuff.

With that said, if you like the pricey stuff, then buy it and build it. Life's too short to invest dozens or hundreds of hours building a guitar that you wish you were building out of something else.

I'll never use expensive woods until at LEAST the 50th build. At the moment I am willing to spend up to $80 for a guitar set and $60 for a top, although I have sometimes spent half that on really nice sets of wood.

I think the simple answer is when you can afford to

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

If one follows this logic all the way out, we'd all start with plywood everything.

I agree with the comment, "Use the best woods you can afford."

Isn't it counter-productive to build with low quality when attempting to build quality guitars?

My first was a kit from Martin, East Indian Rosewood with Sitka top. Now for my experience level it was an extravagant cost. It exceeded all expectations in build quality, therefore it was a success.

I think when considering this question, you have to consider the question is how good is the builder.

Being a skills teacher years ago on a high school level, I found students abilities in other areas transferred well to abilities in the shop. Much like students going to college lay down a four year track record for evaluation of future performance.

Build well, build often, use good woods.

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

great wood deserves to be used wisely. personally, i think using rare woods whilst you are still trying to develop your building skills, trying to learn how to develop and control the sound of your guitars, is grossly insensitive and wasteful. the attitude that your can waste fine wood to learn on just because you have the money to buy it, just because you can, simply demonstrates a lack of respect for the art, and an .... EDIT EDIT   EDIT.... i had better stop here or i shall be going way over the bounds of civility required to be observed by the code of conduct.

as one poster pointed out, there are very good woods available fairly cheaply. consider also that the major factory standard instruments are not built with top grade wood. most martin/taylor/gibson. etc., standard line guitars are built using aa tops and b&s.

i know of one veteran luthier and wood dealer who actively discourages inexperienced builders from using top end woods.

by all means, buy them, store them properly. and when you know you can do a good job of realizing their maximum potential, or at least close to it, then use it, but don't waste it when you still have to ask the question.

A friend, a professional builder, told me to use lower grade EIR for the first few builds because it bends fairly easily, works easily, etc., and I can hone my chops on it. But...EIR is considered to be one of the staple tonewoods, so there's a fine line there. My first was mahogany (kit), my second an EIR/Lutz combo. So I'm sticking with the basics for now.

IF, on the other hand, you're talking about $1000 sets of brazilian, that sort of thing, I won't be building with any of that stuff until my skill level allows me to work comfortably with it. I plan on breaking several sets of lower cost sides before I snap a braz set. Like Hesh, I'm NEVER building with the intent to sell guitars...so it's purely an economic thing for me.

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

ah freedom --- a remarkable commodity. but all to often claims of freedom to do as we wish are asserted for behavior which is devoid of personal or social responsibility. just as it is still currently a "freedom" to conspicuously and wastefully consume energy "because i can", with it's concomitant excessive pollution, etc., it is not personally or socially responible to do so. i consider the wasteful use of rare woods to fall into the same sort of behavioral category. and yes, it is a personal opinion, which is what the original poster asked for. it is his choice whether he wishes to give credence to it, or not.

ISFP???

I'm guessing he means one of the 16 different Myers-Briggs personality type... One of the characteristics is "Extreme dislike of conflict and criticism."

http://www.personalitypage.com/ISFP.html

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Blain this is a question only you can answer. When you have the confidence in your bending ability and are happy with the guitars you are building then it's time to move on to some better woods. You choices mentioned above are far removed from rare exotics.

"my plan is to probably build #3 and #4 using Mahogany Back & Sides with a slightly more expensive top (maybe one with a Mahogany Top) and from there hopefully #5 using a nice Rosewood or Figured Walnut or really whatever."

So I don't quite understand how this thread has moved in that direction. Heck a Lutz top @ $50 is one of the best bargains out there and your getting a first class soundboard. Secondly there a literally hundreds of woods suitable for guitar building that are as far removed from rare and exotic as you can get. For example a set ribbon stripe sapele for $40-45 coupled with a Lutz or Cedar top and you have about $100 invested in what could be a great sounding guitar. There are also many many nice woods in the $100 to $300 range that you can migrate to as you continue to build.

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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

I have heard it said on these guitar forums that there is exceptional quality in some of the lower quality woods out there, if you just build the guitar correctly. I have found this to be true so far. If you are patient, you can sometimes find really good woods from the most unlikely of places and for far less than the traditional wood suppliers charge.

I have a couple of sets of the more expensive woods tucked away for a special build, but for the most part I just purchase and use the easier to find woods. So far, anyone who plays one of my guitars is well pleased with the tonal quality and the playability and I have a backlog of builds waiting on me at a price that I can make money at and the customer is pleased with.

To me, the answer to the question is to use the more expensive woods when you have a customer that is willing to pay for it and when your confidence level is great enough to know in advance that you can build with it without screwing anything up.

just my $.02 worth

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Reguards,

Ken H

As Bob states...There's lots of zoot to be had for not a lot of money. A few that I have used on early models included Curly Cherry and Figured Black Walnut. Both were easy to bend and look fantastic beyond their low relative cost. In addition, Bob makes some great choices as well.

As far as other wood that would not have you labeled as a raper and pillager of our natural resources, I'll have to leave that to "those who are more equal than others" to provide guidance.

Perhaps an official pronouncement permitting usage of only certain species based upon experience would be in order. It might look like this:

#1 through #5...you can select from only these species
#6 through #10...add these species to your list
#11 through #25...etc.

Of course, if you choose to use a species outside of your permitted category, you could always pay a species credit ($$$) to "those who are more equal than others" and thus render yourself species neutral.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Cheaper wood is not synonomous with a cheap guitar necessarily. You can make as fine a guitar from cherry, walnut, EIR, and others that are just as fine sounding instrument as BR or striped ebony, or mad-rose, etc. Just because the wood costs less does not make it inferior, it only means it is more available. With fancy woods you are paying for mystique, bling, rarity, not a better guitar.

My first three were cherry. My fourth is mad-rose (big jump for me) and a master grade top.   But my fifth is curly oak. It really doesn't matter, as long as the particular set of wood has a great tone. A great guitar is created by the craftsman, not the wood.

Ron

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

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

Thanks for the replies everyone.

To address a few posts....
I didn't mean to imply that my thoughts of using a cheaper wood meant using an inferior wood and using a more expensive wood would yeild a better guitar. I started off using Walnut because the price was right and I thought it looked appealing to me. I also like the look of a Mahagony guitar and the price for Mahagony is affordable as well. So I've picked Mahagony to use for my next couple of builds because it's price is such that if I make a mistake (which would be very likely since I'm still at the learning stage), I can just write it off as a mistake and move on and not have to worry that I just ruined a costly piece of wood. I am also very attracted to the high figured maple and to the Rosewood, but in my opinion those are fairly expensive and didn't want to jump into using something like that until I was ready.

I could afford to buy a nice piece of zoot (maybe one that I'm not "worthy" of building with yet), but my thoughts on that are that I'd like to wait until I'm ready because it would be disappointing to me to build using an expensive or exotic wood and to incorporate a lot of mistakes into my build. Or to not yet have the experience and end up snaping a side. It would be like a Dodge Viper with Hail damage.

But I also agree with others, that when I think I'm ready and I want to use an Exotic wood for a build, that should be my choice. What may be a waste of perfectly good wood to some, could be a priceless piece of work from it's creator.

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Thanks,
Blain

http://www.ullrichguitar.com

"89.67% of all statistics are made up on the spot."

Blain...sounds like you have a reasonable approach. Good luck and be sure to post some pics along the way.

Todd... That's hilarious but unfortunately, this is serious stuff. You have brought up some valid points (aka loopholes) for which there will never be an appropriate answer. Instead, you'll be referred by "those who are more equal than others" to some woman named Nurse Ratchett for an hour long session after which everything will become clear in your mind. BTW...you just have been moved to the top of my list of "Guys Who Would be Fun to Have a Few Beers With"!!!

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

I think EIR is the best "bang for the buck" wood out there; inexpensive, easy to work, sounds great -- what's not to like? Great woods for starting out, much better than mahogany which can be difficult to bend in my experience. Avoid curls and crazy figure and ziricote (!) until you have built a few, you will thank me for this advice.

As for how you should spend your money you are on your own.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Thanks Arnt,

Thank you for your advice.
(You must be a psychic since you already knew I was going to thank you for that advice)

Seriously though, that does help. I knew Walnut was easy to work with which is yet another reason I chose it (Thanks to John Hall for that at the time I bought my bending machine from him), but knowing that EIR is easy to work helps in making my decisions for future builds.

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Thanks,
Blain

http://www.ullrichguitar.com

"89.67% of all statistics are made up on the spot."

I think the question in inherently unanswerable. If a builder thinks he has the chops to make a great instrument out of some exotic wood, he is not making a bad decision by using that wood. The builder may be wrong about his skill level and that is a shame but there is not unethical behavior. It is just a mistake in judgment.

If, on the other hand, a builder knows that his is just a hack and that he'll ruin a perfectly good piece of tonewood and he uses it anyway, then he has an ethical problem. I think that this is very rare, however. Most people try to do the right thing. The newbie may not understand that the exotic tonewood is a scarce resource and that is why it is expensive but, then again, the error is in education and self evaluation.

So, if you honestly believe you are up to using rare wood, then go ahead and do it. But, do us all a favor and show your existing work to some experts and ask for an honest appraisal.

By "you" I don't mean the original poster of this thread. I mean any of us.

I've just finished guitar #30 and I'm still not using expensive B&S wood. Why? because I like to build musical instruments and in my opinion the best sounding steel string guitars are made with Mahogany, walnut etc. Where I do put the money is in top quality soundboards, that's 90% of the sound and I want to get that right so the best quality Euro goes on most of my guitars. If I lived on the Western side of the pond I'd probably vary that with Lutz.

You can split guitars into four basic sound types Mahogany/spruce, Mahogany/cedar, Rosewood/spruce, Rosewood/cedar. All the rest are basically variations on the type. Can you really (be honest now) tell the tonal difference between a BRW/spruce guitar and the same build but using EIR?

Some of the greatest guitars I've ever hearduse vey plain, Honduran mahogany.

Now I'm starting into classical guitars I've lashed out $150 on Madagascan Rosewood from Madinter. What the heck, give the cat another goldfish.

Colin

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