Official Luthiers Forum!

just curious if anyone has tried Elm for acoustic tonewood? if so , what was it like to work with and tonally ? thanks jody

Wow - 91 views and not a single reply.

Jody, my take on elm is it's not very hard and tends to be a bit "splitty". Not sure it's suitable.

I know that people have used it successfully. It is a beautiful wood and easy to machine, but a little bit fibrous. It bends SO easy.

I have quite a bit of it but haven't used it for guitars...yet.

_________________
Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

Jody, I haven't used it myself but I'm also curious. I have some quartered, silky elm that was removed from a barn built in 1860. It has a very nice, mahogany sounding tap. I know that at least one (Martin) manufacturer has had stock models made from elm. I can't believe that it wouldn't make a good sounding guitar. Some of the stuff is a bit stringy while others are hard and more brittle. I'd stick to the brittle/hard stuff.

Thanks for the input, I guess it is worth a try, my neighbor has a very tall elm in his back yard , which is growing very straight with no branches for the first 25' or so . I jokingly said " one day I am going to bring my chain saw over here and remove this tree for you "! he said he didnt care one way or the other, so if he still feels that way in january I will have a go at it ! thanks again jody

Elm isn't splitty , in fact it is one of the most split resistant woods out there. That is why it is used for wheel hubs on buggy whells. Also it isn't soft, it is pretty hard .

_________________
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

John is right about it not spliting very easy and easy to bend. It bends easy because it is so weak and gives to bending. It is however hard to work with. It is very durable and can take alot of abuse.

Thanks John - guess I was mistaken about "splittiness" - must have misremembered. It's a bit strange as the "Janka" rating of "elm" on one of the sites I saw was quite low - 800 or so. THere are likely many different elms. Perhaps I was looking at the wrong one.

Here's one vote for leaving the tree standing if it's not diseased or ready to come down anyway... American elms were ravaged by the Dutch Elm disease years ago, and they are just starting to come back. If you've got a healthy one nearby it may be resistant to the blight - leave it standing. Go find someone's black walnut that's keeping them from growing tomatoes somewhere - great wood for guitars, beautiful, and relatively common.