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It's a little different, but how about an 0 or 00 guitar with back and sides made from these boards? It's Eastern Aromatic Red Cedar. I picked these up as you don't find a lot of cedar this wide without knots. I have no idea what wood it would compare to tonally.......but I would guess not far from soft mahogany. Eastern cedar has about 80% the strength of oak. It looses the pinkish/purplish hue when it dries so may not look that great, not sure. It turns more orange/brown looking like the board on the left.

Here's a pic:

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

Well you will never have to worry about moths in your music room....

Nice looking zoot!

Darryl,
I built several blanket chests made of this wood many years ago. The finish held up very well, except at the knots. The knots shrink, so the finish moves a bit. I noticed a couple of knots on your sides. Beware of the knots. The wood is easy to work, except when you cut it. Very very fine dust. It is actually known to be toxic. Not good for the lungs. But it smells great.

Ha, maybe this is the cure for stinky guitars that get used and abused in smoke filled bars......just make the guitar form cedar!

You know, you put so much time in a guitar.....sometimes it's difficult to make yourself try something different. This may be a little too radical for me to try though I think it would sound fine.

Someone needs to come up with a way to stabilize color in wood so it doesn't oxidize......keep the orange in osage orange, the pink/purple in eastern cedar, etc.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

Yes Mike, I would avoid the knots for sure......which are on one end of each board. The rest of the board is clear.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

I built some ERC guitars in the mid-1980's. A couple of small dreads and two OMs. The first OM was a prototype, and I still have it. My maternal grandfather instilled the wood butcher bug in me long before I picked up a guitar, and his two favorite woods were black walnut and ERC. Other than the vicious springback when bending the sides, the wood is very easy to build with.
The first guitar I ever sold to a music store was an ERC/Engelmann small dreadnought that the original owner still has. I reset the neck on it last year.
Here are photos of the ERC OM prototype (1985) with an incense cedar top and African mahogany neck. The bridge and fingerboard are red karra, sourced from a shipping crate that had held lauan paneling.











I would characterize the sound of that guitar as a bit bright, but I doubt that is a particular characteristic of the ERC back and sides. It is just that my building style back then tended toward the brighter. Being a fingerstyle player without picks, it suited my playing.

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John

That's a wonderful guitar, John. What can you tell us about it's voice?

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

I have often wondered about building a unit and incorporation the natural knot holes as sound holes . Has anyone ever done somthing like that ?


Beautifull guitar btw

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Darryl, those boards are flat sawn and may have been cut near the pith of the log. A photo of the endgrain would help us determine that. Be careful using these as the pith is a region of great instability.

Darryl, how wide are those boards?

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

The board are 16" wide (17" on the widest end) and about 2 1/2" thick. The boards are cut just off center in the tree so the very center rings of the tree aren't part of these boards. The grain is quartered on each side and runs off to flatsawn through the center of the board. You could easily cut sides on each side of these boards that are quartersawn edge to edge. A back would run quartersawn to rift to close to flatsawn. Alternatively, you could make a 4 piece back that was quartersawn with no sapwood.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

It would be interesting to make a top out of ERC. Of course it would be difficult to find a board large enough for it to be quartersawn across the entire width. Seems it would sound as good as a mahogany top and I would guess better.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

John, did the color of the ERC on this guitar darken significantly over time?

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

Darryl, why bother with 4 piecers when you could easily make one piece top and back from them? Now that would be interesting... don't worry about the grin starting to run flat near the edges.


blessings
Padma

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Audiences and dispensations on Thursdays ~ by appointment only.


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Not much. The color is pretty true in those photos, which were taken outside in the last year or so. The guitar stays in the case all the time I am not playing it, so I doubt that it has had much UV exposure. Notice how pale the mahogany neck is. Plus, it is finished with automotive acrylic lacquer, which has UV absorbers.
It is hard to see in the photos, but that back is slab cut with a narrow heart. The heart is just outside the waist.
ERC is so stable that I doubt that you should worry at all about the grain orientation. My reservation about using it for a top is because it is not very stiff along the grain for its density. Actually, I had similar concerns about the incense cedar, which just seems to be "ERC light". I only built two OM's with incense cedar tops, and they were the only IC guitars I had ever seen or heard of....until Bruce Sexauer posted photos of one he made a few years ago.

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John

Hey John-

That is a nice OM. Is incense cedar the same as pencil cedar? How do you find tonewood-grade incense cedar?

Thanks-



P.S. I have bought red spruce from you in the past and it was always fun talking with you. I hope you hang around here on a regular basis.

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John Lewis
Wannabe builder owned by 2 crazy dachshunds

hey darryl, after seeing that guitar arnold made, i would go at it.
that thing is a beaut!

hey darryl, after seeing that guitar arnold made, i would go at it.
that thing is a beaut!

darn reverb is on again.
thanx comcast.

I was on my great western auto tour in the summer of 1984 when I met a logger in Shingletown CA who cut a tree for me. It was about 30" in diameter at the butt, and over 100 feet tall.
Even though most pencils seem to be made of incense cedar these days, I prefer not to use the term 'pencil cedar' because it is also another name for ERC.

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John

John, how did that work out with no binding? I've always wanted to do that, but never had the nerve.
Extremely nice looking guitar btw.

Nice looking boards.

Now you've got the wheels turing in my head. But I'd want it for top wood rather than b/s.

Dave