Redgum ???

[old_picker]

Found a pack of redgum slabs today with a fair bit of fiddleback figuring. Is it worth getting some of it for drop tops or thinline tops??

Any one out there used regum on electrics??
It would look killer

[kiwigeo]

I recall seeing a redgum solid body somewhere along time ago. Its a very dense wood and prone to cracking.

[Malibu]

My experience with redgum is limited to lugging sleepers and firewood around and I know it's heavy stuff... Would it add too much weight to the guitar?
Just a thought

[kiwigeo]

If a guitar weighs a ton then less chance of someone nicking it

[bricks]

Havn't used red gum for guitars yet but iv'e heard you can have trouble with the finish not working properly due to the oil's in the wood. Obviously you can finish it somehow but standard laquers i think react and dont dry properly.??????

[soundman]

Redgum....mmmmmm nice

It would be worth finding a way just so you could see it.

All that sort of eucalipt are hard & heavy and of course prone to cracking if that particular piece of wood is that way inclined.

From my knoweledge most solid bodies are made out of relativly soft, light timbers "compared to the hard eucalipts"

Its a hard dense timber & would therefore be heavy and dead acousticaly (yeh I know its an electric)

It would be worth thinking about carefully selecting a prime piece and maybe making a profile with more cutaways and enlarging the cavities just to get the weight down to something manageable........ just to say.

I've got a solid redgum guitar isn't it beauuuudiffuuuulll.

Hell it would be worth a back brace and a hydraulic guitar strap just to see it

may bee veneering & edging with a lightweight core.

What ever it takes it would be worth it.

cheers

[martrix]

Surely you could use it for a nice 1/4" drop top, as long as its kiln dried.

If you wanted a solid body, maybe you could slice up a blank and re-laminate it back together with some contrasting veneers in the layers.

[old_picker]

Not a solid redgum guitar for sure. I had two ideas and the first is a thinline style with the a 1/4" top of RG. Or I have some real light blackwood that would be light enough to have the RG 1/4" slab on top. It is not unheard of to have a hard, dense slab on a softer more light weight timber. eg Les Paul Maple slab on a mahogany back. They work pretty good. Not sayin redgum is equal to maple but you can see the similarities.

My concerns are that it is renowned for cracking, difficulty in glueing and apparently not easy to lacquer either.

Maybe its just a bad idea. I saw this great looking figured redgum yesterday and it is pretty had to resist. I keep seein that tele in my head with that rich red RG top.

I could maybe do someting like this to the core:



to make it nice and light.apparently they have great tone

[Malibu]

Your idea of redgum has been churning around in my mind and the more I think of it, the more it sounds like it will be a good look.
I did a bit of searching on the web and found that the two things contributing to cracking is 1) the method of drying and 2) the luck of the draw in the timber structure, both are something you can't control. (There wasn't all that much technical info on redgum, that I could find)
But with a drop top being fixed to a more stable timber, it might have enough glued strength to keep the redgum from splitting initially. Even if at a later date it DID split beyond repair, you could have the option of replacing the top with somethings else.
For glueing, I couldn't see going past Titebond... that stuff seems to stick pretty well to anything, but as a second option, maybe some hide glue would be another way to tackle it. Carbatec have stuff called 'liquid hide glue' and that might be another idea.
Maybe for finishing, you could go with a soft look and use some oil with bee's wax and steer away from the high-gloss nitro look.
I was in a display home a few years ago and the kitchen was decked out with redgum cupboard doors. Typical style doors with glued joints and a high gloss laquer finish so it must be able to be done.
Give it a go I recon. It sounds like it would look like a unique guitar

[old_picker]

I am fading a bit on the idea....

I scored a pack of 7 pieces of 3/4" [8x24's & 7x40's] curly maply from the us last nite and i guess that will do for most of what I planned for this year...

I tried to buy some qld curly off a guy up there but when I started makin the spec of what i wanted he lost interest in the sale so i guess he was just pulling it off the top of a stack not worryin too much about what it was. pretty cheap though at $40 for a metre x200x50 and if you had the room to stack and dry it and didn't need it for a year or so would be well worth getting some. Be easy to resaw the green stuff but you would lose some i guess to checking and cracking. You would have to clamp it up flat or it would twist all over the place.

What I might do is just grab 1 small pice of the RG, slice it up and let it settle to see how it goes before i try gluing up a body. If it goes pretty good I will post progress shots of the job.

What guitar??? has to be tele I reckon.