Official Luthiers Forum!

I was wondering about a couple of things. 1) Would you use maple as a finger board on an accoustic? 2) Does the size, specifically the thickness of the saddle have any effect on sound. Most are 1/8" or so. How thick is too thick? 3) Would you build out of wood you don't know for sure what kind it is?

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Mark Ewing
Columbus Ohio
"Trees are an important and precious thing. We should build good things with them. Building good guitars with heart are the best use for them." K. Yairi.

1) I wouldn't but it could be done....

2) Yes but not for the reasons that you might think. The weight of anything and everything in the region of the bridge may impact the guitar's ability to efficiently use the energy of the strings. I use 1/8" saddles and like them but lots of thicknesses would be fine too, again when considering the weight of the "system."

3) No but that is me. I used to be keen to build out of any wood that looked cool. These days I am more concerned with eliminating necessary variables in my building and less daring.... The real trouble with unknown wood is unless you do trial runs and test on scrap how the wood will work, glue, etc you may run into issues with it's suitability for guitar building down the road. If it's a early guitar for you I would stick to well known woods but again you can do anything that you wish.

Good luck.

Tapping the wood is no guarantee of it's sonic suitability for use with a guitar. Although we all wanna hear the ping or pong or what ever some woods don't tap well but still make good guitars.

No - I believe that I understood you and I also believe that you are incorrect.

There are woods that may tap like cardboard but still make a decent guitar - tapping and even comparing to the tap of known woods is no guarantee of success or failure in terms of the suitability of a wood for guitar building... from a sonic standpoint.

I'll add that building style makes a difference too.

A builder who builds guitars and subscribes to the reflective back camp may use woods that do not ring well in as much as they are only looking for the ability of the wood to reflect sound and not absorb or respond to sound.

I like my saddles at 1/8 inch ,this gives me the depth for compensation if I need it . I like to see about .150 to .180 above the bridge. I never used Maple but have seen a wide example of maple as fret boards on acoustics. Most are "ebonized" and made black to simulate ebony that I see . They make a decent fretboard but you do need some kind of finish , be it raw on maple or dying and making it look like ebony.
As for using a wood I don't know anything about , well you won't learn much from tapping other than it isn't cracked. I like Todd's advice ,the more you build and the more familiar you become with the woods used , the better you are at making a judgment call. If you are early in your building career accept the fact that most of your early builds will be more of a learning process on how to make good glue joints and learning fit and finish .
Do not expect your first guitars to be your best. I just finished my 100th and I am still learning.

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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

Mark,
Maple seems to be a good choice for a fingerboard (IMHO).
Stable.
Clean.
Bright.
But at the end of the planning and visualizations, is it good to have a fretboard that is brighter than the rest of the guitar as a whole?
I`m finishing up on a hollobody electric, walnut body, maple fretboard, and think that the fretboard may be too " bright".
Gonna follow through with the smug knowledge that I can change it to ebony, or whatever species I wish. This is one of the blessings that we earn in our travels.
In a nutshell, think of what it would look like in a picture.
Coe Franklin

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Give me 50 cents worth of regular.
Check my oil too, if you don`t mind,,,

This is where I disagree with you: I have worked with woods such as mahogany that can be either highly resonant or tap like cardboard. Yes - I have some mahogany here that does tap like cardboard.

I also have worked with Tiger Myrtle and Tiger has a tap not unlike cardboard, wet cardboard I'll add. Others who built with it compared it's tap tone to Koa, mahogany, wet cardboard etc. Once the guitars were completed no one was willing to maintain their previous assessment that Tiger sounded like what ever they found it similar to initially.

Where I am going with this is that in my opinion the tap tone of a free plate is not an accurate indication of the potential of that wood to be suitable, or not..., for guitar building. A wood that may tap like mahogany does not in and of itself indicate that this wood may sound like mahogany or sound good at all on a finished guitar.

I know that many of us including me will tap wood to get an indication of it's potential but my view is that this is NOT a good way to determine the suitability of wood for Lutherie use - it's too subjective.... When I built my shop and had visitors interested in Lutherie they were amazed when I showed them how well my exposed 2 X 4 studs rang when tapped.... But I am not going to build a guitar, or not, based upon something as subjective as what wood sounds like when tapped.

When we brace our tops and backs all bets are off and any experienced builder should know this. And the similarity or not of one wood to another when doing something as arbitrary as tapping it is no indication of what may result when that wood is used in a guitar. That's my point.

Usually I am on the subjective-is-good-enough-for-me side of a debate and you are demanding or requiring empirical data to support arbitrary statements. Maybe I am learning from you Todd.

Along this line, I recently read a post by Jeffrey Yong that he is only building with Monkey Pod now, and that it does not have a particularly good tap. As a matter of fact, he may have mentioned the word "cardboard", but I can't remember for sure.

I was right. Here is a quote from The Acoustic Guitar Forum.
Jeffyongguitars said: "For me, I started with all those traditional tonewood and now I'm only using Monkeypod wood including the Top. I still have piles of rosewood, spruce other branded wood. Monkeypod wood tap tone sound like cardboard."

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Yep Jeff is a great example and it's cool to see him taking the Monkey Pod even further now. He won a blind listening test several years ago with one of his very fine Monkey Pod guitars.

I have two sets of MP here and they both tap like kicking dirt.....

My only regret is that I don't live near Jeff since he has no use for his stash of traditional woods now....

I must admit that I am another wood bit builder without $. I'm not able to spend a lot on materials and as a result I find myself scrounging around for free and cheap wood. I got some Doug Fir bleacher boards and used it with some walnut I had. (see pic) The bridge is made out of an unknown material. It is kind of pinkish but fades to dark brown, I use just about anything I can get at no or little cost. I watch out for important stuff like hardwood back and sides, softwood for tops, quarters sawn as best as can be. I like recycled wood.
I found the mystery wood in a barn. It weighs a ton. I doubt it would float. I showed it to the guys over at wood crafters and they quessed it to be Teak. It is may have to many checks in it to be able to use it. I will re-saw a bit of it and post a pic. If it is teak, would that be good for building with?
The last pic is a bridge I got from a plan another builder was so gracious to give me that is 1/4" thick.

_________________
Mark Ewing
Columbus Ohio
"Trees are an important and precious thing. We should build good things with them. Building good guitars with heart are the best use for them." K. Yairi.