Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi All
I still consider myself a newbie so I have a wood selection question.
I have an killer AAAAA set of koa that I plan on using for an OM or SJ
fingerstyle guitar. What top tonewood do you think would match up well
with this set of backs and sides???

Thanks
Andy

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Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

European.

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Lutz

Either of the two two great suggestions above.

Euro is unbeatable for the fingerstyler, (in my humble opinion). I've built 20 with it now and it's the wood I always reach for unless I have good reason not to.

Colin

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

I've got a flamed Koa jumbo with what I'm guessing is a Sitka top. Sounds
great.

How about using some of your fine koa for the top too?
I don't know how the tone would be but it sure would look great OR....Carpathian spruce

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Again, Lutz is very very very very beautiful, very very tight grained it has the dreamt stiffness, i just can't praise it enuff, my english vocabulary is not developped enuff!

PS, Shane is not paying me to say this in anyway, shape or form, but i'm considering sending him a PM

My experience, so take it for what its worth has been --
Ceder = warm, rich, great fingerstyle top, not a lot of head room but you realy dont need that with a finger style guitar, it also has a very very quick responce.

Redwood (LS) Not quite as warm as cedar, fuller, with a broader spectrum of tone and a nice sparkle with better headroom.

Englmann (never used it, but I did own a dread with an englman top, it had a nice full overtone filled sound.

Carpathian, im using that for the first time now, but it appears to be a very fundemental sounding top when tapped. Strong and full.

Sitka, and addy, not sure id use either for a fingerstyle, ALTHOUGH, I know of some builders that make great fingerstyle guitars using booth.

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Redwood, period, hands down, no question about it, nothing else will even come close!

Or maybe White Spruce...

Oh, wait, Western Red Cedar, that's it, choose no other top wood, or the guitar is doomed to failure!!!

On third thought, Italian Spruce would be the ideal...

Maybe I had better go think about this some more. I'm beginning to sound as if I believe that a wide variety of different soundboard materials could ALL produce a great guitar...

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Andy what kind of tone would you like to hear? Rich, warm, bright, sparkle, lots of headroom, fingerstyle, strummer?

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Thank You and Best To All

Andy,

European would be great. Shane's Lutz is pretty darn close to European in looks, feel and tap tone although I'm only just in the process of building with this wood.

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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

Thanks
I have built 3 cocobolo/cedar OM that have had awesome sound. I have several more sets as well as 2 awesome flamed redwood top sets(From the Zootman). I was just thinking that flamed redwood wouldn't look very good with the flamed koa. Maybe a lighter top color would be better. I cannot get a koa top to match this set. I do have another set of koa with a matching top that I am building for another customer.

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Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

Italian spruce must be delightful as well!

[QUOTE=Serge Poirier] Italian spruce must be delightful as well![/QUOTE]

It is indeed

I'm with Dennis: almost anything can work well, if you do it right. There's a lot of overlap in the relevant properties: I've got a Sitka top, a Euro top and a WRC top that all fall within about 5% of each other in long- and cross-grain stiffness and density. They'd probably sound a bit different, all else equal, but maybe not all that much. I've also got a Sitka top that is a dead-up match in properties for one of Western Hemlock, so....

Remember, too, the Koa is a widely variable wood itself. Some of it is like soft Honduras mahogany, and some is more like a hard walnut. Although the top is _most_ of the sound, you still have to match it with the back.

And then there's the real question: what sound do you want to get? The OM, in particular, is a protean guitar, capable of almost anything. Are you after a flatpicking boomer or a nuanced fingerstyle machine? Or do you want an 'all-around' guitar?

Whenever I see this sort of question, I think of something one of Tolkien's elves said: that advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise. I can't know everything about your situation, so how can I choose better than you?

I'm a hawker of redwood...so that's what I think would be best!

It really all depends on what kind of sound you're looking for. They all have there strengths.

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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."

[QUOTE=Don Williams]

It really all depends on what kind of sound you're looking for. They all have there strengths.[/QUOTE]

The quality of sound sought is IMHO very subjective from one individual to another, and what sounds good to your ears now might sound aweful in 20 years from now, i guess that only skill, testing and long term experience can help gather more information on what sounds right with the right combo of wood. So Don, i agree with you but said it differently! Serge Poirier38787.796412037

Or you could do like Harry Fleishman, who builds half and half tops. One half cedar (or redwood) the other half Sitka (or Engelmann). That way, when it is less than stellar, you won't be blaming any one species too critically.

Now, in all seriousness, for a Koa top, why does it have to match the back / sides? I think a contrasting piece would keep it from looking too homogenous. Ask the supplier for a wild piece that will have all the zoot that a guitar can handle. Tone it all down with the bindings, and you'll have a killer.

By the way, I've used Koa twice for top material, and it sounded great. Different from spruce, but still great. Really surprising.

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Thanks
Andy

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Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com