Thread: Solid Body Native Wood Choice

Well for a fingerboard She Oak and bull Oak will work both very dense.
Cheers Bob

i am big fan of figured mountain ash/tassie oak for solid bodies

Originally Posted by woodturner777

Well for a fingerboard She Oak and bull Oak will work both very dense.
Cheers Bob

Thanks Bob - Will check those out... looking for a darker wood that we don't have to ebonize as we don't put dots on our necks. guess we can go Leo's route and use rock maple if we decide to go for a lighter colored wood but then that kinda squashes our desire to build a Tassie-caster

appreciate the input.

- Riggsy

Originally Posted by R3R

i am big fan of figured mountain ash/tassie oak for solid bodies

WOW R3 - smokin lookin piece. really dig the green finish. is it one that you cobbled together? Skaggs, Gill, Jerry, Burton, Fred Carter (Nashville session guy) and i'll hazzard a guess that even Keith Richards would love to have that gear in their stable. very nice, indeed.

tas oak is in ready supply around these parts... the two detractors for us are open grain & weight.

grew up playing an '83 Strat that weighed in at just over 10.5lbs and like the feel of such pieces but am a recent convert to the John Carruthers (google carruthers guitars) school of thought that well-matched lighter woods resonate, carry, sustain, and harbor higher-order harmonics better than heavier woods.
not to mention a caning back - been cutting loads of firewood of late as we were under prepared for our first Tassie winter.

Thanks for the input... btw, what does that piece weigh? does she have a name?

- Riggsy

Originally Posted by highfieldtonewerks

WOW R3 - smokin lookin piece. really dig the green finish. is it one that you cobbled together? Skaggs, Gill, Jerry, Burton, Fred Carter (Nashville session guy) and i'll hazzard a guess that even Keith Richards would love to have that gear in their stable. very nice, indeed.

tas oak is in ready supply around these parts... the two detractors for us are open grain & weight.

grew up playing an '83 Strat that weighed in at just over 10.5lbs and like the feel of such pieces but am a recent convert to the John Carruthers (google carruthers guitars) school of thought that well-matched lighter woods resonate, carry, sustain, and harbor higher-order harmonics better than heavier woods.
not to mention a caning back - been cutting loads of firewood of late as we were under prepared for our first Tassie winter.

Thanks for the input... btw, what does that piece weigh? does she have a name?

- Riggsy

thank you Riggsy

and yes i did the green body myself (neck from ebay) and the guitar as picced is around 7 and a half pounds

so it is not too bad if you are used to LPs and a pound or so heavier if you are a typical strat/tele player

the neck is not maple but vietnamese rosewood (or at least i think it is ...could be bubinga...not absolutely sure) and so it contributes more to guitar weight than typical maple neck

the body is also 1-piece

here is the back


here's another one using mountain ash


also one piece body but cocobolo neck ...again guitar around the 7 - 8 lb mark

as for your points on tassie oak

1. i agree the open grain can be a problem; i did not use grain filler nor even a sanding sealer... merely wipe on poly many many coats over many days heh

i assume it would not be such a pain if grain filler and/or sanding sealer is used

the open grain problem should not be a problem for anyone used to working with hard american ash

2. as for weight...i find it to be slightly heavier than alder but not as heavy as either rock maple nor hard ash

it is more comparable to soft american maple ...some call it big leaf maple ...

i have a guitar with body made of big leaf maple and the weight is quite similar indeed

3. the beauty of tassie oak/mountain ash is tht it is local to us so SHOULD be readily available ....AND SHOULD be cheaper (relative to figured american maple)....

and it can be had in BIG sizes....

and it can have figure comparable to the finest maple curls

AND it is lighter than rock maple (try doing a one piece tele body completely out of curly rock maple )

Blackwood, myrtle and tassie oak.

Gotta be selective for weight with all these timbers as you can come across some real backbreakers, especially blackwood and tassie oak.

Tassie oak also is prone to quite pronounced gum pockets which should also be looked out for.

one would have to be a bloody masochist to build anything more than the smallest-mass-neck-possible out of rock maple. heh.

love me some cocobolo and have used it for fretboards plenty - only two drawbacks that we have found:

can be a bit of a female pooch to glue
and
being waxy like most (not all) dalbergias the vibration tends to get dampened, especially the higher-order harmonics

gonna see if we can find some pao ferro, goncalo alves, or macassar here in oz if we don't go with one of the scrub-country-hard-as-buggery timbers. anyone know what mulga is like?

can we tell that the Yank likes electrics that ring like church bells when unplugged?

will revisit the tas oak now as the in-house conjecture was that ya either used a microbead filler, slathers of poly or, G*d forbid 32 coats of nitro to get that finish.

Ta yet again for the input.

PS - Jerry Garcia had more than one mostly-cocobolo piece and the Alembic folks dig the stuff and they don't do too badly

Originally Posted by R3R

thank you Riggsy

and yes i did the green body myself (neck from ebay) and the guitar as picced is around 7 and a half pounds

so it is not too bad if you are used to LPs and a pound or so heavier if you are a typical strat/tele player

the neck is not maple but vietnamese rosewood (or at least i think it is ...could be bubinga...not absolutely sure) and so it contributes more to guitar weight than typical maple neck

the body is also 1-piece

here is the back


here's another one using mountain ash


also one piece body but cocobolo neck ...again guitar around the 7 - 8 lb mark

as for your points on tassie oak

1. i agree the open grain can be a problem; i did not use grain filler nor even a sanding sealer... merely wipe on poly many many coats over many days heh

i assume it would not be such a pain if grain filler and/or sanding sealer is used

the open grain problem should not be a problem for anyone used to working with hard american ash

2. as for weight...i find it to be slightly heavier than alder but not as heavy as either rock maple nor hard ash

it is more comparable to soft american maple ...some call it big leaf maple ...

i have a guitar with body made of big leaf maple and the weight is quite similar indeed

3. the beauty of tassie oak/mountain ash is tht it is local to us so SHOULD be readily available ....AND SHOULD be cheaper (relative to figured american maple)....

and it can be had in BIG sizes....

and it can have figure comparable to the finest maple curls

AND it is lighter than rock maple (try doing a one piece tele body completely out of curly rock maple )

Originally Posted by highfieldtonewerks

one would have to be a bloody masochist to build anything more than the smallest-mass-neck-possible out of rock maple. heh.

love me some cocobolo and have used it for fretboards plenty - only two drawbacks that we have found:

can be a bit of a female pooch to glue
and
being waxy like most (not all) dalbergias the vibration tends to get dampened, especially the higher-order harmonics

gonna see if we can find some pao ferro, goncalo alves, or macassar here in oz if we don't go with one of the scrub-country-hard-as-buggery timbers. anyone know what mulga is like?

can we tell that the Yank likes electrics that ring like church bells when unplugged?

will revisit the tas oak now as the in-house conjecture was that ya either used a microbead filler, slathers of poly or, G*d forbid 32 coats of nitro to get that finish.

Ta yet again for the input.

PS - Jerry Garcia had more than one mostly-cocobolo piece and the Alembic folks dig the stuff and they don't do too badly

no probs

as for cocobolo neck... it is indeed waxy ...very sensual to the touch ...it has no finish

i did glue up headstock ears on tht coco neck...araldite works...

but i am not sure what you mean by dampening higher order harmonics due to wax

i would characterise the sound as a stronger fundamental tone with less overtones ...a more 'steely' sound ...with greater clarity

i attribute this to the greater stiffness due to the density of the cocobolo

sustain loong time and very fast attack

i do have some pau ferro and macassar and might get round to doing some necks from them but the macassar frightens me somewhat as it is the hardest wood i have ever experienced

i too am interested in mulga but some have told me they dont get very big at all (timber size) and quite rare in pieces big enough to be fingerboards let alone whole necks...

Originally Posted by R3R

but i am not sure what you mean by dampening higher order harmonics due to wax

i would characterise the sound as a stronger fundamental tone with less overtones ...a more 'steely' sound ...with greater clarity

R3 - we are in agreement:

dampening higher order harmonics = tone geek's way of saying

stronger fundamental tone with less overtones

Originally Posted by highfieldtonewerks

R3 - we are in agreement:

dampening higher order harmonics = tone geek's way of saying

stronger fundamental tone with less overtones

lol

anyways, the weather is looking up and i am preparing some pieces for necks...

hope the rain dunt come and dampen my enthusiasm

i shall hopefully contribute more to the trend of global tone-geekiness in the near future

I’ve used quartered Port Arthur Plum (Cenerrhenes nitida) as a fretboard and it came up very well (but a cream colour). I don’t know what the black wattle in Tas is like but the one we have in North Queensland is hard enough and a bit darker than tas blackwood.


Cheers
James

stu the master maker round here recomends blackwood but i dont like as it is brittle and find it very tricky to work with - it burns easily and is an edge killer on any blade - my skills are not up to using it -

myrtle on the other hand is very friendly to work with