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I've been cruising the tonewood sites and haven't seen much walnut, black walnut and such being sold for building guitars. Is there some fundamental reason for this? Do people find it unattractive or not stable or something? I've seen some amazing figuring and color in Black Walnut, and it seems especially hard.

On the same line of reasoning. what about Oak? OK not much figuring but for structural parts it's hard as heck. Seems like it would make a great neck wood.

Plenty of walnut here. Built a few from walnut myself. I like it.

Seen a couple built out of oak, and the figure was fine - the guitars sounded good.
It's not boring to look at IMO. Don't know as I'd want to build with it.

I don't see any wood prejudice here.
Well... OK, I'm not crazy about lauan for instruments.

Look around in here - lots of variety.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I have a huge slab cut piece of walnut that will eventually turn into guitars of some kind.

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Jim Hansen

I used red oak as practice wood when I was learning how to carve neck profiles.

From my experiences with it, there's no way I would ever want to use it for a neck, but I suppose it'd make a nice body, if a bit heavy. I have seen some highly figured white oak.

This gentleman has a nice selection of curly oak.

No prejudice against walnut in my shop. I love it in all its forms! I'm lucky, though. Black walnut is really easy to scrounge where I live in central Missouri. Consequently, I've never given any thought to buying it from a tonewood supplier. If it doesn't seem to be offered everywhere, maybe it's because those companies just have more demand for the more traditional tonewoods. Thus far, I haven't used oak for an instrument project, but I've seen some pretty instruments made from it. I'm using walnut on three right now. Walnut machines beautifully, often shows great figure, can be "warmed up" with a hint of color in the finish, it bends easily, it's not too heavy, is plenty stable and to my ear it sounds just like it looks: Mellow, warm and alive. What's not to like? One thing about oak: It's actually pretty flexible and sort of "whippy" in longer sticks. It's also a little heavy. For those reasons, I'd be disinclined to use it for necks, but I'll bet a lot of builders have made good necks with it. Oak is very abrasion resistant, but can be a little tedious to pore fill. I don't think walnut is quite as abrasion resistant, but it's tremendously shock resistant in compression (think "gunstock") and its pores are small and easy to fill.

The consensus seems to be "don't use oak for necks". Except for whippy and flexy (same thing?) is this why? I know that it does seem to be more brittle based on a totally non-scientific study of laying it across something to break it.

I'm not advocating for any particular species, just more curious then anything, (the "prejudice" title is used jokingly). The reason I'm asking is because I'm trying to learn about wood. IME on other materials the resonant frequencies sustained in a material are directly related to the hardness and mass of that material (simplified). A softer material will dampen higher frequencies more/sooner. Also, the more mass per cubic inch in a material will be harder to introduce a vibration, but will continue to vibrate longer. Obviously in an instrument there are other considerations; strength, brittleness, machinability, beauty etc.. I'm trying to figure out where wood species fit into this, also knowing that each piece of wood has different characteristics then the next (arrg!)

This is what I think is going on here. I build electric guitars and basses, and I try not to buy body blanks or neck wood from luthier suppliers because it is often at least 2-3 times more costly than if I buy from local hardwood dealers. And locally, at least in the U.S., walnut and oak(as well as ash, maple, cedar, etc.) is available in abundance. So there's really not as much demand for it from luthiers because they can get these woods much cheaper locally than they could buying from a tonewood supplier.
The rosewoods, and to a lesser extent, mahogany( in some areas), is harder for them to find locally, so therefore the demand for them is higher from the luthier supply places. Also, they are more available from those places because they have been the "standard" for back and side woods for generations, so the dealers naturally have a larger supply, and push them a little more because they're an easier sell in most cases.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Walnut used to be my favorite guitar wood. I think it probably still is my favorite for for finger style acoustics. It sounds like the mountains to me. A while back I picked up about 6bf of Bubinga though, and it's really grown on me. It's just been so predictable, straight grained, and of course, very hard. You can build really thin stuff with it. And it tends to be pretty free from checks and knots, which is part of the reason I've lost a little love for the walnut. It can be a real mess sometimes. Even carving into an 8/4 piece, there are often surprises.

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David Morris

I think wood Prejudice comes mostly from the market. It's a pretty common fact that Mahogany is more stable & Lighter than maple for use on necks. However, If you are building a guitar that isn't painted a solid color & you ask your customer whether he wants a flamed maple neck, or mahogany...He'll want that maple every time. As another example... If you look at many of the custom boutique builders out there, many of the people having a lot of success are building with highly flamed or exotic woods that have a unique visual quality to them.
Personally, I like building with wood that is easy to work. If I could build everything out of spruce I would!!!

personally walnut is one of my absolute favorite woods to work with i use it all the time. Oak, hickory, and other such woods dont do much for me. I have seen some gorgeously figured oak in the lumber yard, but it still just isnt my thing. I like it for cabinets not guitars.

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~shad peters

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I have some Port Orchard Cedar coming in next week....enough to build two bodies and two necks for my electrics. I'm trying out different woods to provide an option when a customer wants a dark droptop over a lighter wood. Maple would be the conventional choice I suppose but that's why I went with the cedar. Who knows?...using a tonewood with an extremely chambered body might actually produce noticable difference in tone compared to the Sapele I've been using.

My first build with this will be using Verawood for the droptop, fretboard, and headstock facing. I also may use ebony on the fretboard but I'll at least be making a few Verawood fretboards to see how they look.

I'm also goofing around with Tagua Nut which, if you don't know, is a very, large dense seed like pod that has an incredibly smooth, beautiful, white texture....like ivory. This will make very nice position markers on dark colored fretboards. These things are about the size of a golf ball and usually have a small occlusion in the middle. They are kind of a pain. You have to bandsaw it in half, glue each face to a flat board, and then you can resaw the thing into little slabs. Each slab is glued to it's own board then I can put it on the cnc to cut a nest of postion markers. Since each slab has its own shape and size a lot of the dots get throw away....but the perfect ones are pretty exclusive stuff!

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic