Official Luthiers Forum!

What do you use? Side material? Mahogony? Birch? And, generally, how thick?

Mike

Laminated sugar maple with cross-grain Brazilian RW, Honduran RW, cocobolo or bloodwood. Stack is .090"/.095" thick.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Mike my friend I use Honduran Rosewood or BRW.

EIrw back cutoffs from the Larrivee factory !!! Local wood shop had a huge box of them - cheap too - already thicknessed to 90 thou ... quick scrape and they are ready to go.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

I have used maple, osage, brazilian and also african blackwood a few times but now I prefer a thin strip of pernambuco(.08-.09 thick and 3/4 wide) to anchor the pins over a larger spruce patch (.04 app.) glued with the grain going the same direction as the top.

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

Any thoughts about Mad RW for the bridge plate?

Thx!

Glenn

I think anything fairly hard that doesn't crack when flexed across its length should make a fine bridge plate. Mad RW should be an excellent choice!

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

I've recently switched to Padauk because of a few guitars I've played that are basically Martin braced seemed to have a more open woody tone to my ear. Not sure it is true, but the wood is hard and dense enough for string wear. Also, I learned that Goodall uses this too, and I like the tone of his guitars. Mine are slightly over 2mm thick and quarter sawn.

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Tracy
http://www.luthiersuppliers.com

.09 thick riff cut suger maple

Am currently partial to pau rosa. Usually a two piece laminate with grain running in a shallow X pattern--each side about 20º off from perpendicular to the top grain, and the outside layer running opposite to the bridge pin line (which I angle with the saddle), so the pin line is well off from parallel to the outer grain line.

I also use other woods: osage orange, EIR, BR.

No reason not to use Mad rose.

Rift sawn is best. Since I use back cutoffs and orphan sides, usually it's more like quarter-to-rift.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Same here.

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Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)

Why riff instead of slightly off-quarter?

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Here is what a Parlor Guitar is for!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEa8PkjO6_I

Rift cut, with the annual ring lines at 45 degrees to the surface, has the lowest cross grain stiiffness, so that it can flex with the top, and the greatest resistance to splitting.

I used osage for several years as it is hard and resists splitting, but then I found something even better: persimmon. The biggest problem with osage is that it's ring-porous, so that a string ball could end up on a soft part of the grain and chew righht through. Persimmon is diffuse porous, very tight grained, and hard, so that's not an issue. It's also the hardest wood to split I've run into.