Acoustic - Qld maple vs Silky Oak

[damienb]

Building 2 000-28VSs, one 6, one 12 string. Both spruce tops/silky oak back/sides. Back is 3-piece (don't have big enough pieces of oak). First Guitars (made lots of Ukes).

I have both Qld Maple and Silky oak suitable for the neck. Maple is lighter, silky oak stiffer and better figure. Any thoughts? I have used both successfully for tenor and soprano ukuleles, and stiffness for both is adequate given it is a truss rod instrument.

Can I use silky oak or maple for top bracing too if I run out of spruce?

Cheers,

Damien

[Sebastiaan56]

Seems like it is an aesthetic choice. Both would be great IMO. As for the top I would try to find a lighter material. Even cedar would be better than either of the others. Or balsa reinforced with carbon fibre. If you have no choice pick the lightest of the maple and be scrupulous about the sawing so you can get the brace as light as possible.


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[damienb]

Silky oak vs maple necks. Both oiled. The maple is still being worked on.
mvss.jpg
I'm going with maple. Got a lot in just the right length.

I'll stick to spruce for the top braces. I might have enough.

[Sebastiaan56]

Silky Oak necks look great IMO but the total bling factor needs to be considered as well. It can easily be overdone. Was this stuff from Greg Ward? It looks very familiar.

[damienb]

No, the maple is from a now shut miller on the sunshine coast. The northern silky (darker, including the necks) is recycled from a door and someone's kitchen. The southern silky is from a big tree that was milled some 20 years ago in Coolum. Bridge and fingerboard some random hardwood (ironbark I think).

Here's some more pictures.ukes.jpg
/Damien

[kamusur]

Like em both but I prefer Qld M for the neck and the look of Silky b&s sets but nothing scientific going on here

Steve

[damienb]

Finally got started on this. The silky oak looks awesome but can see it will be a to bend. It bends easily on the flat, hard on the quarter. This is obviously on the 1/4.

Still got no braces. Based on pricing I can find, these are looking at being the single most expensive part of the build ($35-$40 for 2 guitars). I have WRC but everyone online says it's poor as bracing.

Anyone in Brisbane want to swap sitka bracing stock for silky B&S (3 piece back)?


Necks SAM_0906.JPG
Top (sitka)SAM_0908.JPG
B&S SAM_0910.JPG 3 piece back.

[Toymaker Len]

Just a thought. Has anyone tried polonia as bracing. P.S. the ukes look great in silky.

[damienb]

In the end I had enough spruce for top bracing. Backs are braced with maple. Guitars are coming along great.

The oak sides bent very nicely.

The necks do look great in maple.

/Damien

[kevjed]

Looking forward to more pics. Looking good so far. 000's are very popular just now.

[damienb]

Looking forward to more pics. Looking good so far. 000's are very popular just now.

Sorry this took a while. 1st almost finished, second coming along nicely. Lots of first build screw-ups will do a dedicated thread soon warts and all .

Anyway, most of them are hidden in these photos
Top20140808_203350.jpg Engelmann. Needs to darken in in a few places (very old timber originally).
Back - 3 piece - spot the nail holes 20140808_203322.jpg Yes, I need to finish the slots off on the headstock.

Sides - Northern Silky back/sides Southern Silky binding 20140808_203417.jpg

[Sebastiaan56]

Looking good! What's the finish?

[damienb]

Looking good! What's the finish?

Tung - Organoil HBO. Put the bridge on today, finished the neck and did the initial fit.

Gets strung up tomorrow!

[damienb]

Got strung up with medium phosphor bronze. Did initial setup and neck set (needed very little adjustment). Sounds and plays amazing. Only one bad buzz on the bass 13th fret - to be fixed when I pull the neck off prior to gluing the fretboard. Relief was perfect (luckily, the adjustment nut twisted off the stewmac trussrod during initial adjustment).

Perfect amount of top belly. Very happy overall. Will let the fretboard float while it settles in over the next week then do final setup and glue the fb.

/Damien

20140810_133951.jpg20140810_134013.jpg

[kamusur]

It looks pretty good Damien, well done.

Steve