Official Luthiers Forum!

because Oak is cheap, ugly, boring, doesn't have a ringing taptone, doesn't sound nice, too plentiful available, looks like .....wood....but sometimes....I change my mind.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1157931855 ... shBrownOak


English Brown Oak / Copper Oak / White Oak with mushroom changing the colour. Perfectly quatersawn with sap and flakes. Very stable, taptone not so bad.

cheers, alex

Its beautiful... I hope i stumble up on a similar one in the future

I have some wonderful Chestnut Oak drying as I write this . It has some gorgeous flake , but alas , it grew in North America .
I'll be sure to keep you off of the list once it becomes ready since it is so common .
In fact , I have some lowly Pin Oak that taps nicely and vibrates like it has Parkinson's , but it is so common .

Nicest looking oak I have ever seen. Gorgeous!

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Some people will build with anything!

I hear there is talk of using carbon fiber to make a guitar!! Shameful!

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Oak can look good. Here are a couple of picture of two white oak guitars I made. Oak supplied by the Zoot Man himself.

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

Dang! Looks good to me!

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Nice sets and guitars, there! I love oak, too -- this one was $6.50/bdft.

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David Malicky

Seems perfectly adequate to me, as does Ash, Cherry, Walnut. . . You don't have to go exotic to get a very nice sounding instrument.

Figured Ash lute bowl:

Taptone for backs is way overrated imho. I've built a couple guitars from really poor tapping Indian rosewood and they don't sound worse than guitars I've built with Madagascar that tapped like sheet steel. A little warmer and rounder in the trebles that's all, and this is not a bad thing.

Mahogany, ebony or maple sound like cardboard when tapped and they make nice guitars all the time. I don't see how oak could be worse than these.

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Build log

Some really nice stringed instruments posted here guys. The natural variation in wood makes for really interesting and attractive back and sides; I want to try them all.

I've built a few electric guitars out of white oak from an old broken down barn in my back yard. Beautiful stuff. This thread is inspiring me to saw some up for an acoustic guild.

The table is white oak too.

funny how the topic started with just pictures of wood and how those pieces of wood look could change an opinion. Nothing about what guitars made of it SOUND like.

Isn't the bottom line the fact that a great guitar could be built out of any hardwood for the back, sides and neck, and that our current notions of what is acceptable are just preconceptions based on decades of conditioning ?

Oh yeah I forgot to mention that. That electric guitar sounded excellent. After a while I put in some Duncan pickups and it sounded even better