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A freiend has asked me to make a guitar from all European woods.
Inevitably, I'm stuck on the finger board and gridge.
Checking out data on the Wood Data Base I've come up with the idea of using Pear.
Questions are these:
Is pear a good choice?
Why is always so bloody hard to buy anything in the UK? Any Brits know of a source for suitable pear wood?
Anyone have any other suggestions?

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

Hornbeam would be another option.

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

Pear too soft. I just made a tenor FB using american hornbeam , used for plane bodies in europe.Olivewood if you can find it, or yew is good too.

Both would be good choices Joe. I believe pear dyed black was used quite often in 19th century European stringed instruments. Contact Colin Symonds, ColinS on this forum or over at LuthierCom.org. He is in the UK and uses quite a bit of pear as trim on his guitars.

Steve

I've used bog oak on a couple of instruments - it's hard and can be very dark brown or black. On the downside, it can be deep grained and a little brittle. I can dig out some photos if you're interested. I've also got some native hornbeam, but I'm not sure how such a light coloured timber will look, so I haven't used it yet.

On the wood data base it give the janka hardness as:
pear 7,380N
european hornbeam 7,260N
African ebony 14,320

so it would seems that pear was harder than hornbeam, or am I misleading myself that the janka hardness relates to the woods possible performance as a fingerboard?
Hornbeam was my first, instinctual choice as it's reputed to be hard, like horn.

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

Thanks, Steven, I'll do that.
Jon, do you want to sell any of your hornbeam?

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

http://www.exotichardwoods.co.uk/

This guy has everything.

I've been trying to address this very issue for a few years.
I'm pretty sure that Pear will indent more than Hornbeam. The 'problem' with both of those woods is the light colour. A dye or stain is OK but if you nick the fretboard when shaping the Neck etc you are left with a problem. Dyes do not penetrate very far into hard woods unless you use pressure dyeing. Pressure cookers aren't big enough and home rigged affairs can be very dangerous. Without pressure you'll be lucky to get it to go much deeper than 0.2 mm's.
Putting a dark coloured trim/edging on the fretboard is one solution. The other is to use Bog Oak or Beech/Oak and cook it in the oven. Both woods are hard enough for fretboard purposes. You can quite easily get it to a Rosewood shade, especially the Oak. The colour goes deep. Oak has large pores but they can be filled, you don't really need to fill them to the usual standard either. I've cooked AB.Walnut (for head plates, not fretboards) and obtained a pretty convincing Black! Wrap the stuff in foil and place a tray of water in the oven.
As ever, test first. Let the wood sit in the workshop before using it. Just make sure it isn't going to crack/warp badly.

Michael, does it need to be black?

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

Plum wood is very hard, compact and beautiful. Boxwood might be hard to find in a large enough size for the fingerboard but the bridge should be easy. Both of these are harder than pear.

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Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

Iv'e used both bog oak (see my newbie build thread) and am currently making a mandolin and using Laburnum for the fretboard which is also nice and hard.

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Nick

Follow my musings on getting started in luthiery http://www.tredwellinstruments.co.uk

That's a good call, thanks.
The wood data base give janka hardness of plum at 6.900N. That's less than pear or hornbeam yet you say it's harder than both.
WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH THIS JANKA HARDNESS?

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

It's an empirical test IIRC, that uses a standard steel ball and either measures the pressure required for a predetermined dent depth, or uses a standard pressure and measures the dent depth. The Janka hardness may not be a good indication of wear resistance, but it's probably the best indication we have.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

I didn't state that it needed to be Black, dark is good enough. Obviously light coloured woods will quickly show dirt and grime though. Pear is usually a Pinkish/light Brown, I've used it on a Vihuela. I don't think it was the best choice. Laburnum I've also used and that's not a bad option as it oxidises to Rosewood type Brown. Limited widths though and not easily available, same with Plum. You can get these woods but obtaining a regular supply, fairly straight grained, knot free - isn't so easy.

That's true Michael.

Any suggestions for suppliers in UK?

Thanks for that, Rodger. So pear might well be the best choice so far. Olive was a good suggestion but I was put off by it's unstability.
Thanks to all those who have suggested oak. I'm using oak for back and sides so I want a different wood for FB. If it was bog oak could work though. We'll see...

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

And now you see why it's so hard to build guitars in the UK - it sometimes seems like we have no wood here apart from oak...

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"I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it."
Pablo Picasso

https://www.facebook.com/FenskeGuitars

Well, you have got lots of shrubberies...

+1 on the boxwood and plum, or some combination of the two.

BTW, I've used rock maple for fingerboards before, which is lighter in color than boxwood. Superthin superglue was soaked into it as a finish. It doesn't show grime at all.

It might be but it might get dirty from the playing fingers. I've just finished this Terz guitar in Western Red Cedar/Figured pear with a figured pear fingerboard so we'll see how it fares:







Bob Smith at Timberline (Exotic Hardwoods as in the link above) is your man.



Bog oak (or "Sinker Red Oak" as the Americans would call it ) is probably a better bet - looks very similar to ebony and is pretty hard. I've used these for a few fingerboards now. Again Bob Smith is your man. This one has a Bog Oak fingerboard:

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Well apart from English Walnut, Yew, Sycamore, London plane, pear . . .

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

I have used both European pear and English plum in lute construction. Pear is used for bridges and plum is used for pegs. Plum is way harder and dense than pear. I have used American hornbeam for a few things, but not in instruments. I don't know how European and American hornbeam differ, but English plum is harder than American hornbeam.

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Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

Yeah but they're all fairly bland - there's not much in the way of amazingly figured/wild coloured wood like you can get in America.

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"I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it."
Pablo Picasso

https://www.facebook.com/FenskeGuitars

You need to shop around more. They can all be obtained 'figured', some of it spectacular if you are prepared to pay for it. There's just a lot more of it in the US, for obvious reasons.
Don't forget English Ash and Cherry. Much underrated IMO.

Can you not use European walnut? They are dark and fairly hard. You could use maple too... if you like Fender style, the only problem is that it's really light. Stella makes all birch guitars that sounds fine, although the fingerboard has to be dyed black...

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Why on earth does the guitar need to be made only from European woods?
That's like telling a portrait artist they can only use half the colours available....

Tell the customer that you can't comply, but he can have Euro-wood for everything except the fretboard.

Or make the fretboard out of delrin or something else....

Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"