Official Luthiers Forum!

Owned and operated by Lance Kragenbrink
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 6:13 am


All times are UTC - 5 hours


Forum rules


Be nice, no cussin and enjoy!




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 20 posts ] 
Author Message
PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 10:31 pm 
Offline
Cocobolo
Cocobolo

Joined: Tue Nov 24, 2015 8:33 pm
Posts: 169
First name: David
Last Name: Riedmiller
State: WI
Country: United States
Focus: Build
Status: Amateur
Any one out there ever used North American Cherry for necks? I Scarf-join my necks together with built up heels. Without spending time trying to find my copy of Hoadly's book, I recall it as being a reasonably stable wood. Of the 12 (I think) builds under my belt, I've never used anything but Honduran Mahogany. Never had an issue with the necks moving. Other than the shrinking fret board (and the rest of the guitar) of one build which ended up in a very dry area in Colorado. The owner of that one and I had a "talk".
I figure if builders use maple, certainly Cherry would work just fine. Whaddya think?

_________________
"It is easier to fool a man, than it is to convince him that he has been fooled"
Mark Twain



These users thanked the author Rocky Road for the post: Theo (Mon Oct 30, 2017 11:04 pm)
Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Mon Oct 30, 2017 10:44 pm 
Offline
Contributing Member
Contributing Member
User avatar

Joined: Fri Jan 22, 2010 9:59 pm
Posts: 3552
First name: Dennis
Last Name: Kincheloe
City: Kansas City
State: MO
Country: USA
Focus: Build
Status: Amateur
Yep, it's an excellent neck wood. The only bad thing is that it tends to have dark spots hidden inside, so if you want a "perfect" look then that could ruin your day.



These users thanked the author DennisK for the post: Bryan Bear (Tue Oct 31, 2017 10:07 am)
Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 4:57 am 
Offline
Koa
Koa

Joined: Tue Jan 18, 2005 11:36 am
Posts: 1595
State: ON
Country: Canada
Status: Professional
Yes, Cherry does work fine for necks. However it is not as nice to work with as Mahogany. For carving and shaping a neck it is hard to find a nicer wood to work with than Honduran Mahogany. But you can make fine necks out of a variety of hardwoods. Remember than many of these other woods are heavier than Mahogany and so the guitar will balance differently with one of these necks.

_________________
Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
https://www.facebook.com/canadianluthiersupply?ref=hl
House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 7:23 am 
Offline
Brazilian Rosewood
Brazilian Rosewood

Joined: Tue May 13, 2008 10:44 am
Posts: 6232
Location: Virginia
I've used it on about 3 guitars. I love the look of QS cherry. It kind of works a lot like maple iirc.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 8:01 am 
Offline
Brazilian Rosewood
Brazilian Rosewood

Joined: Thu Feb 12, 2009 10:27 pm
Posts: 2082
Location: South Carolina
First name: John
Last Name: Cox
Focus: Build
Status: Amateur
Qs cherry is a very good neck wood.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 9:04 am 
Offline
Brazilian Rosewood
Brazilian Rosewood
User avatar

Joined: Thu Jan 06, 2011 6:08 pm
Posts: 2712
First name: ernest
Last Name: kleinman
City: lee's summit
State: mo
Zip/Postal Code: 64081
Country: usa
Focus: Build
Status: Professional
Hope your strong and workout at the gym. LOl the cherry grown here locally in the KC metroplex is nice and hard. as dennis mentioned black (mineral)streaks here locally or nicer curly cherry etc . Density varies, I/ve made abt 2 gtr necks and 1 uke neck I personally like the look . But frankly it is way harder to carve IMHO. I will not use it any more unless asked to , and with an upcharge, sapele , H mahog or afrikan, mahog , bliss or spanish cedar is way easier to carve , local woods to consider depending on your access and it/s intended use sassafras , aspen, butternut. walnut sapwood etc.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 10:14 am 
Offline
Brazilian Rosewood
Brazilian Rosewood
User avatar

Joined: Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:12 pm
Posts: 3290
First name: Bryan
Last Name: Bear
City: St. Louis
State: Mo
Country: USA
Focus: Build
Status: Amateur
DennisK wrote:
Yep, it's an excellent neck wood. The only bad thing is that it tends to have dark spots hidden inside, so if you want a "perfect" look then that could ruin your day.


Yeah with cherry you pretty much have to accept that those dark spots are part of the charm of cherry. You either love it or you don't. I love it!

_________________
Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 11:44 am 
Offline
Brazilian Rosewood
Brazilian Rosewood

Joined: Sun Mar 30, 2008 8:20 am
Posts: 5924
Cherry varies a lot in density, and some of it can be twisty - same as maple. A good piece of cherry can make a fine neck and I believe it has been used commercially for necks in the past.
I like black walnut for domestic wood necks. I think it is generally a little better behaved than cherry and carves more like mahogany.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 11:52 am 
Offline
Contributing Member
Contributing Member
User avatar

Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2009 7:52 am
Posts: 4524
First name: Big
Last Name: Jim
State: Deep in the heart of Bluegrass
Country: usa
Focus: Build
Status: Amateur
Cherry Is Good , I agree that I like walnut better . Have used both

_________________
The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
Wanna Leave a Better Planet for our Kids? How about Working on BETTER KIDS for our Planet !
Forgiveness is the ability to accept an apology that you will probably NEVER GET
The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
http://wiksnwudwerks.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/groups/GatewayA ... rAssembly/


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 4:35 pm 
Offline
Cocobolo
Cocobolo
User avatar

Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2014 4:36 pm
Posts: 159
First name: Ed
Last Name: Miller
City: Wood Dale
State: Illinois
Country: USA
Focus: Build
Status: Amateur
WudWerkr wrote:
Cherry Is Good , I agree that I like walnut better . Have used both
I like cherry and I am using it for neck on a OO sized acoustic for the second time. Very easy to work but slightly heavier than mahogany.Image

Sent from my SM-T230NU using Tapatalk


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 8:19 pm 
Offline
Cocobolo
Cocobolo

Joined: Tue Nov 24, 2015 8:33 pm
Posts: 169
First name: David
Last Name: Riedmiller
State: WI
Country: United States
Focus: Build
Status: Amateur
edstrummer wrote:
WudWerkr wrote:
Cherry Is Good , I agree that I like walnut better . Have used both
I like cherry and I am using it for neck on a OO sized acoustic for the second time. Very easy to work but slightly heavier than mahogany.Image

Sent from my SM-T230NU using Tapatalk

That is a nice piece of quarter sawn Cherry. Nice colors. I have rummaged through my local hardwood suppliers lumber stacks in search of quartered. When I asked him if he had any he just laughed and said “help yourself”. Talk about getting a work out.
Good Honduran is getting harder to find.
Years ago my then woodworking partner and I took on a job of building a six panel Mahogany door for an upscale home on a lake. We drove to a lumber yard in Milwaukee WI named Behnke Lumber. They allowed us to pick through the Honduran Mahogany. It was stacked about 16 feet high. Many stacks. Some of the planks were over 24” wide. 12 and 16 quarter thick. Deep red in color. They are long since out of business. I’d like to have several of those planks now.
“The good ole days” Walnut is sounding better!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

_________________
"It is easier to fool a man, than it is to convince him that he has been fooled"
Mark Twain


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Tue Oct 31, 2017 10:00 pm 
Offline
Brazilian Rosewood
Brazilian Rosewood

Joined: Thu Feb 12, 2009 10:27 pm
Posts: 2082
Location: South Carolina
First name: John
Last Name: Cox
Focus: Build
Status: Amateur
Often you are better off buying it from fellows who are intentionally quartersawing it.

Most folks sawing cherry are going for maximum grade - which means its mostly flat sawn off the faces of the logs.... And basically no quartersawn...

Luckily most neck stock is small stuff... So a local miller quarter sawing a tree service chunk can easily get you what you need... 2' and 3' long x 3" or 4" wide boards are considered "hobby wood" and aren't really what most furniture guys are aiming for.... I have gotten some good deals on this stuff as a result.

The other option is to find a fellow who slabs it and buy the center slab....


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 10:52 am 
Offline
Brazilian Rosewood
Brazilian Rosewood

Joined: Sat Jan 15, 2005 12:50 pm
Posts: 3865
Location: United States
I often get 5/4 or thicker flat cut cherry seven or eight inches wide and make two-piece necks from it. You get the quartered face on the fingerboard gluing surface, and it's nice and stable because it's book matched. You may have to thumb through a stack to find it, though. There's a more-or-less local yard that regularly has decent stock in the 'shorts' bin, and I always check there first.

Cherry is more like Caribbean mahogany than Honduras, IMO; a tad denser and harder. When the Philadelphia cabinet makers wanted to copy the high-style Chippendale and Hepplewhite furniture a couple of hundred years ago, and could not get mahogany, they used cherry. Those old boys knew what they were doing....


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Thu Nov 02, 2017 7:27 am 
Offline
Contributing Member
Contributing Member
User avatar

Joined: Mon Dec 20, 2010 7:15 pm
Posts: 1041
First name: Gil
Last Name: Draper
City: Knoxville
State: Tennessee
Country: USA
Focus: Build
Status: Professional
I'm building a neck with cherry right now for the first time and I will echo mostly what others have said. It is stiffer and harder than mahogany and seems to be just as stable. I found it to be slightly more difficult to carve than mahogany but with freshly well sharpened tools it wasn't a problem. I haven't gotten to the finishing stage yet, but it appears there aren't any pores to fill, which is a nice bonus. So far I prefer cherry over mahogany for necks.

On another note, I am also building a neck with flamed red maple which has similar working properties as cherry in my experience, maybe just slightly harder. It is also a fine neck wood IMO. Now I have to try black walnut!


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Thu Nov 02, 2017 3:45 pm 
Offline
Brazilian Rosewood
Brazilian Rosewood

Joined: Sat Jan 15, 2005 12:50 pm
Posts: 3865
Location: United States
Curly wood does sacrifice some stiffness along the grain; the curl comes from run out, after all. Curly soft maple is generally stiff enough to work well, although I always make sure I have a good truss rod. I once succumbed to the temptation to use highly flamed curly walnut on a 12-string neck, and was sorry all the way through the re-build.



These users thanked the author Alan Carruth for the post (total 3): Pmaj7 (Mon Nov 06, 2017 12:00 pm) • Goodin (Fri Nov 03, 2017 6:21 pm) • Bryan Bear (Thu Nov 02, 2017 4:20 pm)
Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Thu Nov 02, 2017 6:08 pm 
Offline
Koa
Koa

Joined: Tue Jan 22, 2008 8:57 pm
Posts: 735
Location: Austin, Texas
Alan, from this information would it be safe to assume that a laminated flamed wood neck would be far better than solid? I would think that as long as you aren't using TIII the resultant would be stiffer...been thinking of using some 4/4 red maple I got some 30 odd years ago and laminating a neck out of it for a neck through electric with a cap from the same board


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Fri Nov 03, 2017 8:01 pm 
Offline
Contributing Member
Contributing Member

Joined: Sun Feb 17, 2013 4:58 pm
Posts: 1449
First name: Ed
Last Name: Minch
City: Chestertown
State: MD
Zip/Postal Code: 21620
Country: United States
Focus: Build
Status: Amateur
80 years ago Stanley made their wooden level out of cherry and for a while they had a stamp on the side that said "the most stable wood for the purpose"

Ed


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sat Nov 04, 2017 5:36 pm 
Offline
Brazilian Rosewood
Brazilian Rosewood

Joined: Sat Jan 15, 2005 12:50 pm
Posts: 3865
Location: United States
I usually make curly maple necks as laminates. It does seem more stable, and its also much easier to get good stock to make them from. I can almost always find a decent curly neck blank if I'm willing to thumb through the stacks for a while.

As an aside: when I was learning the terminology 'flame' referred to how pronounced the figure was, and could be applied to different kinds of figure. You could have 'highly flamed' birds eye or quilt maple, for example. I find the current practice of saying 'flamed' when 'curly' is meant to be a diminution of the language, since it deprives us of a way of easily describing the degree of figure. I know I'm 'shoveling s(and) against the tide' , as we used to say in the Navy, but being an older guy I will exercise my curmudgeon's prerogative.



These users thanked the author Alan Carruth for the post (total 3): Mike_P (Sun Nov 05, 2017 12:18 pm) • Alex Kleon (Sat Nov 04, 2017 6:09 pm) • Bryan Bear (Sat Nov 04, 2017 5:38 pm)
Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sat Nov 04, 2017 6:06 pm 
Offline
Brazilian Rosewood
Brazilian Rosewood

Joined: Thu Feb 12, 2009 10:27 pm
Posts: 2082
Location: South Carolina
First name: John
Last Name: Cox
Focus: Build
Status: Amateur
Alan Carruth wrote:
being an older guy I will exercise my curmudgeon's prerogative.


You are hardly a curmudgeon... But you have certainly earned the right... ;) ;)



These users thanked the author truckjohn for the post: Bryan Bear (Sat Nov 04, 2017 6:19 pm)
Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sun Nov 05, 2017 12:22 pm 
Offline
Koa
Koa

Joined: Tue Jan 22, 2008 8:57 pm
Posts: 735
Location: Austin, Texas
Alan Carruth wrote:
I usually make curly maple necks as laminates. It does seem more stable, and its also much easier to get good stock to make them from. I can almost always find a decent curly neck blank if I'm willing to thumb through the stacks for a while.

As an aside: when I was learning the terminology 'flame' referred to how pronounced the figure was, and could be applied to different kinds of figure. You could have 'highly flamed' birds eye or quilt maple, for example. I find the current practice of saying 'flamed' when 'curly' is meant to be a diminution of the language, since it deprives us of a way of easily describing the degree of figure. I know I'm 'shoveling s(and) against the tide' , as we used to say in the Navy, but being an older guy I will exercise my curmudgeon's prerogative.


I've pretty much given up on trying to use "correct" terminology when describing woods...though I do get a very negative reaction to people calling flatsawn woods as "figured"...

curly is often used, but I intentionally used flamed since the board in question is AAA, or perhaps AAAAAAA if one wants to exaggerate, or hey let's call it "insignia grade" :lol:


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 20 posts ] 

All times are UTC - 5 hours


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 49 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group
phpBB customization services by 2by2host.com