Official Luthiers Forum!

Here in my area of TN, there are many sawmills which deal mostly with local types of lumber which grow in this area, below are some:
Ash
Beech
Cherry
Hard Maple
Hickory
Pecan
Red Oak
Soft Maple
Poplar
Walnut

I personally would like to use some of these species; could some of you guys tell me which, if any of these woods can be used for luthier material? If not too much trouble, When you name one of these, give me an idea as to where it can be used? Particulary, I am interested in if any of these can be used for bracing.
Thanks, for your help.
Kevin, TN

Pretty much every one of them is suitable for most parts of an instrument. For your top and bracing you're still best off with a softwood: preferably one you know works well, like spruce, unless you're experienced enough to pick a good piece.

With the exceptions of tops and top bracing, I know that all kinds of maple, cherry, walnut, oak, and ash work fine (and the first three have been used a LOT)

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Pretty much what Bob said. I'll add that there is (and always will be) disagreement about how much effect the back and side woods have on the final sound. That said, I agree that almost anything can be used for the sides and back, just remember to spend some time test bending scrap so you don't get any surprises when you start your build. A good example would be the spalted maple I did the other day...really lucky that the owner to be is okay with a 'hard cutaway' since it cracked really bad trying to do a softer one.

Historically, most instruments were made out of whatever was available locally and was reasonably easy to work and finish... This is how you get the Pennsylvania traditional Sycamore fiddles... and why you don't see Oak used too much (Too much work to finish it.)

All the woods you mention will make a fine musical instrument. You may have a hard time selling it or getting a commission for anything outside of the "Traditional" woods (Which is kinda funny if you think of it.. Mahogany has only been "Common" on guitars for 100 years and Rosewood for maybe 150 years or so.. Compare that to Maple and Cypress which have been used FOREVER..)

Based on my own personal experience... I would start with Non-porous woods 1st... They are so much easier to finish!

Thanks

John

Of the woods on your list, I'd tend to use poplar for blocks and liners, and the rest would be fine for B&S wood. Try to get them well quartered: it makes a big difference in the cross grain stiffness and stability.

There are lots of other 'local' woods that can be used for various parts of instruments. Persimmon makes good fingerboard, bridge, and bridge plate stock, for example. Osage orange ('hedge' or 'bodark'), which may well grow fairly large in your area, is a decent substitute for Brazilian rosewood if you can get good stock.

If you really want to be a 'localuthier', get familair with the methods of measuring the properties of woods, and try to develop a sense of what it is about certain woods that makes them suitable for diferent uses. You can measure the Young's modulus along and across the grain with a simple deflection rig, and a good scale will allow you to find the density. If you have some way to vibrate samples of the wood you can use that to find the Young's moduli, and also the damping: how fast the wood dissipates energy as it vibrates. Data like this will allow you to compare woods you don't know with ones you do know that work, and will give you an idea of how things might turn out before you put in all the effort of making something.

Walnut is nice for the neck and backs/sides; it looks good and is easy to work. Getting the pores filled to get a gloss finish is a bit of a challenge but really only requires a bit of care and persistence. I finished the walnut on an electric with Tru-Oil, didn't worry about the pores and it looked just fine. I would go with spruce for braces and tops, especially at first.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I've actually built with soft maple (silver maple) on my first guitar - a Dreadnought.

I don't think I'd build with it again - although it bends very easily, works easily, and has a pleasing "striped" appearance, with grey, cream and reddish highlights, I don't think the sound properties are very good - tap tone is anything but "glassy" - more of a "Thunk", and it's just not very hard.

I was a bit surprised when I first read that osage orange was also known as "hedge apple". I remember the hedge apple trees (and the "fruit") from many years ago when I was growing up in Virginia. I never thought that there would be a use for that wood.

black locust is another great local along with sycamore

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

The hardest part will be to find quartersawn stuff, maybe... but these woods are good for lutherie...

Ash and Cherry are good for electric bodies (maybe cherry for acoustic b&s?)
Hard maple is great for necks, laminate necks (you can turn flatsawn into quartersawn this way), and fingerboards
Soft maple could make nice and cheap electric tops, if you find figured stuff, same for hard maple
Walnut is good for electric top, acoustic back and sides, neck laminations, necks
Could also use red oak for back and sides, or for electrics, but with few coats of pore filling i guess

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Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

Re-read Al Carruth's post for what can be used where. Cherry and Walnut and Maple make good necks. Again, for soundboard bracing, you'd be in experimental territory to use any hardwoods for soundboard bracing (I'd expect trebles, but with a huge loss of bass), and may want to stick with Spruce or (to stay local) Cedar or maybe even Fir for soundboards and soundboard bracing. I can't see any reason not to use any and all of your local species for back bracing.

If you are not lucky enough to stumble across wood with figure for back and side sets, remember the medullary rays in some species can add something between moderately more visual interest and a spectacular show. Of North American species, medullary rays are most prominent in (absolutely dead-on 90° vertical grain quartersawn) Sycamore, then Beech and Oaks, and then to a lesser degree Cherry, and Maple, and Osage Orange.

Don't forget about the tricks to use narrower boards to make guitar backs: use the waste from the waist cutout as wings to widen the lower bouts, or make 3-piece backs, or make 4-piece backs. The multi-piece backs can be all the same species, or a combo. 4-piece backs with a wedge made up of a pair of bookmatched, quartersawn pieces is an easy way to preserve symmetry in a multi-piece back.

If you want to create darker-bodied guitars, Walnuts are about the only naturally dark species in your local area. You may want to also experiment with chemically "ebonizing" some of the lighter species, either for backs and sides, or for accent pieces. Ferrous acetate (steel wool dissolved in vinegar) will react with natural tannins in some woods to turn them deep charcoal gray to near black. Natural high-tannin content tree bark ("quebracho") can be made into a tea, painted on wood, and thus add or increase the tannin content of the wood so the ferrous acetate will do a better job of ebonizing. (I'm doing an Osage Orange guitar right now that I'm hoping to turn black.)

Have fun! There are treasures in every forest, not just the tropical forests.

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Some woods can be 'artificially aged' with a wash of a mild alkaline solution. A teaspoon of lye in a pint of water will work, but wood ash is much better and more 'interesting'. The solution should just feel 'soapy'. Try it on a scrap first, of course. I find it works best on cherry, and pretty well on maple.

Oak, and possibly some other woods, can be toned by exposure to ammonia fumes. That's how they got that 'Golden Oak' look that was so popular a hundred years ago.

I've made a nice walnut stain by boiling black walnut hulls in water. It's surprising how dark you can get a pice of maple with this stuff.

I have used red cedar, (not really a cedar but I think a Juniper, anyway, the wood used in making cedar chests) for making dulcimers, and have seen some dreadnaught guitars built with the stuff that were georgeous. The guitars I saw utilized the sap wood which runs irregularly throughout the wood and of course selected a section with no knots and it looked like the instrument was made out of something quite exotic. If you have ever cutdown a red cedar and sawed up the trunk into chunks you know that the wood is very musical. It rings loudly when struck (dropped) even when green. I think it must have an impedence near 0 I am seriously thinking of making a guitar entirely out of red cedar, including the neck, as an experiment. It seems a little fragile so probably a builder would do well to leave the thickness a little greater than normal but I have no doubt that it would be a loud guitar.

I don't think I would recommend pecan for anything on a guitar. Several years ago I purchased six 2 X 8 X 7 or 8 foot pieces that
were newly cut (not dried). The guy I bought them from told me to carefully sticker them which I did but probably not weighted down
enough. They cupped, bowed, and twisted in every possible way and I'm not talking minor cupping, bowing, and twisting. I wound up
using most of it in my smoker. I wouldn't recommend it for anything else. It was pretty wood though.

Dave

John, I've been curious about using eastern cedar on a guitar so I was glad to read your post. I've never seen a guitar made with it. It has 80% the strength of oak though it is not dense like oak. I've been thinking of using it for lining if nothig else.....would make the guitar smell great! It would be stiffer and more dense than sycamore I would think so no doubt it could be used for back and sides......not sure how crisp you could get the treble though. E. Cedar has a lot of limbs.......so it's difficlut to find a very long section without a knot. One day I hope to try it.

I would love to hear from anyone else who has tried E. Cedar or has played a guitar made from this wood. Thanks.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

Regarding Pecan. While in college I got a huge pecan log given to me by a friend. I had it milled and stacked. I built an electric guitar out of it, neck, body, and even FB. I'm going to pull it out and give it some new life. I used the best quartered cuts of the center part of the log. I didn't have a moisture meter, so I am sure it was above optimum moisture. It has turned out to be stable over the 30 years or so (yes, I'm old). The other projects, furniture and molding, have not fared as well, they have twisted, opened up at glue joints , etc. They used to use a lot of pecan in furniture.

The point of my rambling is well qrted, well dried, pecan is OK, but more risky than walnut, maple, etc.

Danny R. Little

John Kinnaird jr wrote:
"I think it must have an impedence near 0"

I believe you're thinking of the damping factor: impedance has to do with mass and stiffness. The only way it could have impedance near zero would be to have 0 mass and 0 stiffness; not even balsa does that.

You are correct sir. I did mean damping, but thought that it was impedance. My bad.