Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello, My name is Tom Lenartz. This is my first post to the OLF (dang, I hope my avatar isn't animated - that would be embarrasing). I have been reading and lurking here for few months and have decided to join in the fun. Eventually, my topic is regarding alternative neck woods but I feel I should introduce myself first.

I am a hobbyist guitar maker struggling to be an amateur luthier (Ha! Whatever that means.) I have been a member of the GAL for 19 years and enjoyed a stint with A.S.I.A. for a while. My building career is as follows:
One really bad curly hard maple banjo (aren't they all... what? "bad" or "curly maple"? )
Steel String Dreadnought - Bear Claw Sitka/Mahogany
Steel String Dreadnought - Redwood/E.I. Rosewood
A lot of Craftsman style White Oak living room tables (what!?... well, it made my wife happy - so there.)
Steel String Travel Guitar - Sitka/Zebra wood
Steel String Dreadnought - Bear Claw Sitka/Zebra wood
My first three guitars were finished with Tru-Oil and the fourth was french polished shellac (I just finished guitar #4 this last month - May, 2006).
My current project is building a bagful (12 to 15) of travel guitars - similiar in shape to one sold by a "popular guitar manufacture" but with alternate woods and a sound that I am confident of being great! I am building each permutation of wood combination: Soundboards: Sitka, Engleman, W. R. Cedar; Back/Sides: Zebra Wood, Jatabo, Lyptus, Popular.

Now on to my question. What alternate neck woods can you all suggest? Is there anything else but H. Mahogany? Electric guitars do hard maple; some classical and flamenco do spanish cedar; and everything else seems to be H. Mahogany. I have seen many suggestions on alternate back/side woods but very little on alternate neck woods. Can I use spanish cedar for a steel string? What about soft maple? - the hard maple is awful difficult to spokeshave and sand smooth. It seems to me it is not just a technical wood issue but a wood
availability issue - it is difficult to find alternate wood that is quartersawn - everything seems to be flatsawn which I'm pretty sure I shouldn't use. Any suggestions would be great - I'm hoping to hear your experiences, guesses, thoughts, references to articles you've read - yup, anything.
Thanks,
Tom

Hi Tom, welcome to the OLF my friend, i'm sure you will enjoy participating in the fun more than just lurking!

As for your question, i'm still a newb and i'm building no 2, i used soft maple on my first and it wasn't so hard to carve for me but i used my drum sander to get rid of most of the meat and for the rest, i used rasps. Others have suggested walnut here as well as cherry. i'll now let the pros give ya more choices!

Have fun and please post pics of what you build!

Serge

African Mahoganies - Sapele in particular - make a great neck. Walnut, Cherry get bandied about quite a bit, but not used all that often. If you can get dead-on flatsawn wood, turn it 90 degrees, laminate, and go.

(and for the record, millions upon millions of flatsawn maple necks are out there and doing fine: Fender-style bolt on necks). I find hard maple sands great and works just fine with abrasive tools/rasps, which have replaced my spokeshaves for neck shaping.

I've JUST finshed a guitar shaped mando using wood salvaged from a Shopfitter's dumpster.

Walnut Back & sides and I THINK the neck is Iroko

_________________
My soundclick xx luthier blog xx luthier soundclick

Hi Tom and welcome!

I'm another newbie here.

I like the laminated neck concept. This makes a "one-piece" neck with no scarf joint and no heel buildup. I'm of the opinion that many many different woods could be used for necks, if laminated (because laminated necks are so strong.) I would avoid extremely heavy woods, and extremely open-pored woods, woods soft enough to easily dent, and woods that have a tendency to twist. I see that you're in the US, so an easy color palette of woods that are "tried-and-tested-true" would include Maple, Cherry, and Walnut. For other home grown woods, I have also seen Koa and at least one example of Ash used. To add to that palette, you could take a look at a chart like this: Physical Properties of Common Woods, and look at the properties for Honduras Mahogany (S. macrophylla), and then compare and contrast. The MOE (modulus of elasticity) is the stiffness. If you prefer a very thin and/or narrow neck, you may want to make sure the MOE is relatively high. (For example, Hickory intrigues me...) But the process of laminating will create a pretty darn stiff neck out of just about anything.

As Mattia mentioned, for a laminated neck, look for well flatsawn wood. Because there are virtually no huge monster trees that can provide a board that is truly flatsawn across 8" of width, the better boards will be flatsawn down the middle, and riftsawn along both edges. Looking at the endgrain of the wood, look for a balanced "smile" of annular rings. A board about 8" wide ripped right down the middle and the two 4" wide pieces can then be rotated 90°, and glued up in a sandwich. That sandwich can be bandsawn to provide 2 guitar neck blanks, one with a quartersawn face beneath the fingerboard, and the other one will be a little bit more quartered on the neck shaft and rift under the fingerboard.

There was a discussion here a while ago (Alan Carruth?) where it was suggested to rotate the two ripped pieces like this:
)))(((

instead of like this:
((()))

so that you are protecting the glue seam by working with rather than against the natural cupping of the board.

This )))((( method also gives more quartersawn wood on the curved shaft. If you cut two neck blanks from one sandwich, one neck blank will be "better" than the other one in terms of ideal grain, so some luthiers just aim for one neck from the sandwich. I'll use the second one as well.

Depending on the thickness of your original board, you may need a center stripe of wood to provide the total desired thickness. You may also elect to add the stripe (same wood or different woods) just for aesthetics. Veneer can be used as well. It makes sense to me to make that center wood all from flatsawn stock as well, so that seasonal wood movement does not leave ridges at wood junctions.

Here's an example in lightly curly Cherry. (There were a couple of pitch pockets in this Cherry, but when filled with epoxy could no longer be felt.) I was lucky enough to find some nice 6/4 Cherry, so I did not have to put a stripe in - I just wanted to. I used Walnut/Birdseye Maple/Walnut veneers as a stripe.


Hope this helps!

DennisDennisLeahy38891.4355902778

_________________
Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

It's funny, but I have never used mahogany for a guitar neck... my first was a 12-string so I used maple for strength. I've used padauk, walnut and more maple. I like the look of birdseye maple in particular. Next guitar will have a tasmanian blackwood neck - maybe one day I will get around to trying mahogany

[QUOTE=DennisLeahy] Hi Tom and welcome!

I'm another newbie here.

I like the laminated neck concept. This makes a "one-piece" neck with no scarf joint and no heel buildup. I'm of the opinion that many many different woods could be used for necks, if laminated (because laminated necks are so strong.) I would avoid extremely heavy woods, and extremely open-pored woods, woods soft enough to easily dent, and woods that have a tendency to twist. I see that you're in the US, so an easy color palette of woods that are "tried-and-tested-true" would include Maple, Cherry, and Walnut. For other home grown woods, I have also seen Koa and at least one example of Ash used. To add to that palette, you could take a look at a chart like this: Physical Properties of Common Woods, and look at the properties for Honduras Mahogany (S. macrophylla), and then compare and contrast. The MOE (modulus of elasticity) is the stiffness. If you prefer a very thin and/or narrow neck, you may want to make sure the MOE is relatively high. (For example, Hickory intrigues me...) But the process of laminating will create a pretty darn stiff neck out of just about anything.



Dennis[/QUOTE]

Hi, Dennis

I don't agree with you about laminating resulting in higher stiffness. The stiffness depends on the wood(s) you use, and that's it. Think about ripping a board into strips and gluing it back together - it won't be any stiffer. The reason laminations are used in construction is to reduce the effects of defects ( splits and knots) in the wood, and to increase stability, by mixing up the grain directions.

A guitar maker would (I hope) never use wood for a neck that had defects like that (or, a lot of runout) anyway, so laminating, by itself, won't make a neck stiffer.

Laminating a neck from flat-sawn pieces is still a great idea, for several reasons. Any instability in the pieces would tend to average out, so the final neck would probably be more stable that a solid piece. And, using a denser, stiffer wood for the center lamination would give you a stiffer neck for the same weight, since the center section is deeper and contributes more the neck stiffness.
But, the laminating process itself doesn't automatically add stiffness or strength - it's the choice and placement of the woods you use that's important.

Phil

[QUOTE=Phil Marino] And, using a denser, stiffer wood for the center lamination would give you a stiffer neck for the same weight, since the center section is deeper and contributes more the neck stiffness.
Phil[/QUOTE]

I would disagree with you on this one. Most of the center lamination gets cut out to allow for the truss rod. I think it does improve the neck's strength in the peghead area and the peghead might be less likely to get broken due to the laminations.

_________________
Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Dave that depends on the width of the center lam. If the center lam is 3/8" or smaller, then I agree with you 100%, but some layups use a center strip 1/2" to 3/4", and with these the type of wood in the center would definately make a big difference.

Al

I stand corrected.

Thanks Al!

_________________
Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Very interesting thread. I've learned something today thanks to all of you!!!

Welcome to the Forum Tom. Great Thread Joe Beaver38892.5637268519

_________________
Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

I use an ebony center strip for the classicals I build. No truss rods, so in my guitars, the ebony is at the peak thickness of the neck.

With classicals, weight is always an issue, as is tradition. Especially the latter. Hence I stick with the "acceptable" woods -- either H. mahogany or cedro. Recently I've been building with cedro because the stuff I have is a bit lighter than the mahogany I've been using.

I like laminations for the reasons described above. In fact I have built necks from four pieces of flatsawn cedro (with ebony in the center) which were flipped 90 degrees so they would be qs.

On other occasions I've had wood that was about 30 degrees off from quarter, and I oriented them so that the grain came together in a peak -- sorta like this: /\ I think that this also stabilizes a neck nicely.

Best,

Michael

_________________
Live to Play, Play to Live

    this is a great subject. I have used Walnut , sherry and spanish cedar along with maple and mahogany. All and in fact most woods will make a neck.
     You need to look for a few things in the wood you select. Stability and stifness. Cherry is excellent. Some guys and gals like to laminate the neck blank. This isn't a bad idea though I have yet to do that. I usually make 1 piece necks though I have skunk striped a few by slotting them and inlaying a different wood.
       Good luck and welcome to the olf
john hall
Blus Creek Guitars

ditto on what Joe Beaver said.

Great thread, learned alot, thanks to all so far and I hope it keeps rolling

Mike
White Oak, Texas

I prefer laminate necks myself. Basically for the same reasons as mentioned above (strength,stability,grain orientaion, and economy). It also provides a nice detail.

I have used Maples(Eastern hard, and Western soft),Mahogany, Sapele (a real favorite of mine),Walnut, Tzalam, Padauk, Wenge. I am going to give Honduran RW or Pau Ferro a try on my next.

Peace,Rich

Hi Rich, in case i didnt do it before, welcome to the OLF too! And thanks for your input!

Sergio

For Flamenco I have had success with Alaskan Yellow Cedar and Port Orford Cedar. Both have fine grain and while not as light as cedar, they are stiff and light in color which for a flamenco works great.

Wow! The use of all this alternate neck wood is very encouraging - I had no idea. Thanks so much to everyone for replying. For my bagful of travel guitars I've decided to experiment and bought the following for my necks: Walnut, Lyptus, Maple, & Ash. All flatsawn boards so I will flip them and laminate as suggested. If you're curious, here are the per board foot prices for 4/4 lumber that I paid at my local Woodcraft store - plus I threw in a few of wood types that I did not buy so you can compare.

Walnut - $5.53
Lyptus - $5.06
Maple - $4.87
Ash - $2.67
Mahogany - $9.76
Cherry - $6.28
Paduak - $5.81
Spanish Cedar - $6.30
Curly or Birdseye Maple - $10.32

Thanks again,

Tom

Y'know, whenever I see those board foot prices, I remember how absurdly good you guys have it...