Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi, I have been lurking for a while and this is my first post. I'm 13 and have become obsessed with guitar building. I haven't finished a guitar yet, but all my strat and les paul junior need is lacquer. I had the opportunity to visit John Monteleone at his shop and showed him my fail at acoustic guitar building. I want to try again and not spend nearly the same amount of money. John Arnold was telling me how hard ash could work very well for an acoustic guitar and I happen to have a lot of left over ash from my strat. What does every one else think about using ash for a guitar. Also, if your on UMGF, my username is henderson is go.

What kind of ash is it? White ash makes a nice sounding acoustic instrument. I don't have any experience with swamp ash for acoustics.

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Ken Franklin
clumsy yet persistent
https://www.kenfranklinukulele.com

it is white ash.

Ash is one of my favorite tone woods. I do build most of my acoustics with ash back& sides for that very reason. It is harder to pore fill and finish, but it's welll worth the extra effort to get a nice sounding guitar.

Hey Brian,

Welcome to the board.

On the hunt for back and sides sets -- If you can find an Ash set -- Use it. It will certainly be easy to bend, reasonably easy to work, and takes glue very well. It will make a fine guitar.... If you can't find a source or can't resaw... you might look into a set of plain, straight grain soft maple or plain Quartersawn Mahogany... Both are commonly available from almost every luthier supply in the planet and run somewhere in the $40.00/set range... so not a huge capital outlay. Both also make quite a nice instrument...

The most important thing I can emphasize is that you should start building your guitar... Don't worry so much about the Wood itself -- the guitar will be the Instrument that you build.. Not the sum of the Wood... Spend a little time each and every night on building -- even if it is only 5 minutes.... You would be amazed at what you can do in 5-minutes alone...

Good luck.

John

You'll probably also be amazed at how long 5 minutes can actually end up taking.

I've been using local Green Ash for classical guitars recently. I like it a lot, and it is so easy to bend. Use it with no hesitation.

Build this one as well as you can, then build the next one better. Repeat till you can't get any better...which is never!

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Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
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