Non Traditional Woods For Making Guitars Part 2 A Follow Up

[@edilsonbertino5893]

Saudações, aqui no Brasil temos muitas opções de madeiras para contrução de guitarras, as mais conhecidas são Marupá, Cedro Rosa, Imbuía, Pau Marfim, Pau Ferro... Recentemente esperimentei usar outras alternativas: Ypê, Tauarí, Cambará e os resultados foram excelentes🙂

[@HighlineGuitars]

Uau, algumas dessas opções eu nunca tinha ouvido falar. Obrigado por compartilhar.

[@luce7831]

Também quero usar madeiras diferentes para fazer guitarras. Eu tentei com cajueiro, é uma boa madeira mas precisa de tratamento com alguns produtos químicos, ela pode rachar se não secar adequadamente e também mofar, acabei desistindo dela, agora vou tentar usar madeira de uma mangueira (pé de manga).

[@joshpointoh]

I have a 95 Epiphone S300 (Strat), made of plywood. It's resonate, light, and it's a black body, so the grain isn't visible either way. I love it enough to put a set of handwound american made pickups in it. It will keep up with any Strat in the tone and comfort departments

[@dougotto1451]

I’ve got a leopardwood neck. It looks amazing and feels great.

[@paulwaldrop]

I routinely build customer guitars out of Pine, Cedar, Pallet Wood, and others, as well as the main woods you mentioned. I have built most of my business on using the "non Traditional" woods and substances for building guitars, including making one completely out of legos. Love the stuff you do, and congrats on hitting 100K.

[@marvinbernard2566]

My first ever guitar, bought used about 28 years ago, is a 40-50 year old Hondo II les paul special. I am re-fretting it right now. The body is plywood and it is VERY heavy but has remained very stable throughout its years.

[@1-eye-willy]

i just had to replace the neck on my hondo acoustic. i tried to reset the neck and it was glued straight to the block with nothing but two dowels, and there was a twist in the neck so i cut it off and bolted on a taylor style neck

[@PeterHBoer]

Purpleheart and Wenge are great woods for extra long scale bass necks, build some with them. Cherry is very nice for bodies. I recently made a fretboards of Satinwood, works well and looks good.

[@laydbac714]

I own a 1981 Fender Bullet that is American made. It has a metal pick guard that also holds the bridge saddles. The body is plywood and the neck is a Telecaster neck with a super thin rosewood fret board. It plays amazing and will out " twang " a Tele. But the plywood makes it weigh almost 10 lbs.

[@Markdernell]

I replaced a top on a thrift store Harmony with an old cedar fence post (4 pc.). Also used cherry for the fretboard. It looks and sounds really cool. Even used cedar for the braces.

[@timziegler3765]

Thanks for more thoughts and truth

[@joncrowley1818]

I used southern yellow pine (2x10s and 2x12s) with great results. Bodies feel really resonant. Yes, they get dented easily, but I don't care. The distressed look is fashionable right? If you have a convection oven, you can use it as a dehydrator. 180F for as long as you can stand the smell. If I do it again, I should weigh it before and after, or maybe measure with a moisture meter.

[@totallyunmemorable]

It's heavy as all get out. And there is a great difference in hardness between the early and late wood which makes coming out of it with a flat surface after sanding ain't easy. It's very resinous, and pitch pockets are an ugly surprise that can ruin your project midstream. There's a reason it's not used for fine woodworking. The softer lighter white pine works better.

[@TopShelfGear]

OD Guitars has some insane flamed eucalyptus tops. Pretty cool & unique IMO.

[@eddie_saunders]

Boxelder is UV light reactive and often displays a slight fluorescence when exposed.

[@omegahiker]

Zebrawood does make great fretboards, however it can be porous so if the fretboard is machined before gluing to the neck blank you may get glue/epoxy into the fret slots. Changing the machining order prevents this. Thanks for your years of content. Helped me get in the ring.

[@garysroufe4527]

Hey Chris, love your channel and just started building. My absolute favorite wood so far, is cherry. Wish I could show pics, but it’s absolutely gorgeous wood.

[@flatroc1]

I would really love to make a solid plywood tele body with high end hardware and electrics. Obviously a roasted hard wood neck though.

[@mechajabo]

I dont see it as commonly but have a custom built bass that has a ziricote fretboard. Very beautiful grain

[@Guitar_Builder]

Congrats on 100k, Appreciate this video, Thanks for doing what you do.

[@Peter12662]

I've used hickory for a fretboard. It's super hard and you can find it cheap. It's great for fretboards. it's so hard it damaged my router bit

[@strumminronin]

Thanks for the video. Jokings aside, I would love to try a maple bodied guitar with e.g. mahogany, or "body wood" neck. Hopefully no one is crazy enough to use eucalyptus...?

[@meadish]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="658">10:58</a> - I think that should be pronounced pretty close to "Polonia" even though the spelling is Paulownia. I've build two guitars out of it. The grain is really nice, and the Tele I dyed teal with Keda dyes came out looking amazing. For fixed bridge guitars no problem (not sure about Tune-o-matic, I would probably add a block of denser wood for attaching it), but I do know the wood is not strong enough to hold a Strat vibrato reliably in the long term. I know because I put one on the Strat build before realizing - it is now immobilized. For stability, I think you would have to add blocks of denser, heavier wood if you're hell bent on making one with a vibrato.

[@HighlineGuitars]

I pronounce it the way my lumber distributors pronounce it.

[@meadish]

@@HighlineGuitars Not intended as criticism, I was hoping it would be helpful. If you google it you will see your distributors got it wrong.

[@HighlineGuitars]

@ sorry, but I’m laughing too hard to type.

[@zeusapollo8688]

Always meant to try blue mahoe

[@frankiechan9651]

There is the story about Leo Fender just using whatever wood was cheap and available - if you look into the cavities of guitars made in the early days you'd probably see different woods used per batch. I also saw a build on YT for an all-pine guitar that has stayed stable through a few years of use. I have an 80's Washburn that I discovered was plywood - after I started stripping it for a refinish project. Apparently it was luck of the draw whether you got plywood or solid wood. I love that other woods are being explored - while I am still not convinced about tonewood for an electric guitar playing distorted/ overdriven music - certainly the look and feel of woods contributes to the desire to pick it up and play it. Taking notice of weight, as you pointed out. BTW I think Kauri is a type of Pine from New Zealand/ Pacific Islands.

[@richard_alvarez_1972]

Would you mind making a step-by-step on how you carve the necks on Easel? Thanks

[@blb2388]

I have a couple of blanks made from single-piece cottonwood. I’ve never tried it, but should be an interesting experiment. I welcome comments!

[@HighlineGuitars]

Cottonwood is really soft and doesn't hold screws very well.

[@Notso_Wild_Bill]

Have you used Kingwood?

[@rvaguitars]

I’ve done a lot of work on boats in my past and my experience with teak is that it does not take glue well and it has alternating grain hardness that can make it difficult to flatten well. Also stupid heavy

[@boddumblues]

I once made a guitar with a teak body, it sounded surprisingly good, but yes the oily nature of it is not ideal. Yang Teak is a whole other chapter (not teak at all)

[@hobertgordon7465]

I’ve used OKOUME before and it was easy to work with and the weight is good

[@kaptajnthomsen]

I have a slab of Iroko, poor mans teak, that im going to use for a chaimbered body and neck along with wenge top and fretboard. Both are heavy though.

[@gabrielstern4992]

Chris I had mentioned red oak wood for a solid body that I am thinking about trying maybe with a maple top or popler top maybe you could do the Lowes experiment with red oak for a body with a thin peice of popler or maple for the top with maple neck or red oak neck. Would be curios to what you think maybe try cherry wood. Either way I am really leaning towards trying that as an experiment it's just red oak is very grainy. As for beech wood chris they make excelent drum shells. Sonar uses beech wood especially when they were a, strictly German company Nicko mcbrains sonar kits are made of beech wood the late ingo swichtemberg of helloweens sonars were also beechwood shells. And those sonor phonic kits had excelent tone and resonance. Ingo had two of those kits one the regular white phonic kit and a. Bubinga finish phonic kit. So I would be curios if that same resonance would work on an acoustic guitar or even solid body.

[@sunn_bass]

I tried Paulownia once and have no plans to try again because in my opinion its too soft. I couldn't get screws to hold. Can't imagine strap buttons staying tight. Its only 300 on the Janka scale. So any pine or basswood would be harder. And red alder is almost twice as hard at 590.

[@Endowug]

I tried Paulownia twice and used Epoxy as grain filler which significantly hardened the surface. I also improved screw holes with superglue, worked fine.

[@sunn_bass]

@Endowug epoxy is a great grain filler. And paulownia needs all the help it can get

[@ghosthawk65]

Interesting to note that Paul Reed Smith, whose always championing special tone woods, is shown on a recent KZbin video testing his new pickups on a test mule guitar that has huge chunks taken out of it so that the pickups can be swapped quickly. If his theory/perception of guitar tone depends on every single tiny component being especially selected, this setup must negate that! Could the emperor have a new set of clothes?

[@HighlineGuitars]

I got to see that!

[@ghosthawk65]

@@HighlineGuitars it’s called Behind the Tone: Crafting the New PRS McCarty III & DMO Pickups

[@HighlineGuitars]

@@ghosthawk65 Thanks for the title. I just watched it. If wood is so important, how can your test rig be that chopped up? Crazy!

[@scottakam]

I've used teak before but never on a guitar. Very beautiful but dense and oily. They used to use it on the flight deck of aircraft carriers instead of steel!

[@DiersakZelesnik]

There is some wood out there that has a dark brown heartwood and bright red sap wood that I always thought would make a really cool guitar top. Any chance you have an idea what species that is?

[@jburtonca]

Olive wood often has stunningly beautiful grain patterns. Only for veneer tops though.

[@mechajabo]

Have only seen a few guitars actually made from this but they have looked pretty excellent.

[@scottakam]

Tough to get good size boards I think. Nice looking though.

[@kenmccarthy-cg4xx]

Ipe pronounced epay. Great for fret boards

[@quartercirclebk]

Don't think I've seen mention of Limba/Korina across either video or their comments sections! Would we call that a "traditional" wood? Seems to be right on the line...obviously known for Gibson's use/rebranding in their Explorers and Vs but also seems to be becoming more popular these days.

[@HighlineGuitars]

I would call in traditional as it has been in limited use since the 1950s. However, its use is only a tiny percentage of all guitars made.

[@quartercirclebk]

@@HighlineGuitars Truth. Nevertheless, I'm a fan - works nicely and looks beautiful under a clearcoat!

[@86OEd]

👍👍👍

[@boddumblues]

IMO beech should not be used for instruments as it is very tricky over time even if dry, it shrinks in a bad way, also in length!!! You can use it for cutting boards all day, giving it plenty of linseed oil. FWIW. Beech is also not a good wood for furniture. Cheap furniture is often made with beech. It is easy to machine and sand, but, gluejoints don't hold up well. (I am a cabinet maker by trade)

[@1-eye-willy]

as long as the wood is hard it will make a fine solid body guitar.

[@allenmakowsky8249]

How do we obtain these kinds of wood that are nontraditional?

[@flamedmahoganytable9749]

Sorcerery

[@HighlineGuitars]

Lumber suppliers that carry exotic woods. Preferably locally, but online as well.

[@zeusapollo8688]

Edensaw

[@arlolambdin8710]

Zebrawood is gorgeous, but it is VERY splintery and is particularly prone to chipping and tearout. I've put it in my tier 5 woods, out of 5, to dissuade people from choosing it.

[@jamesonpace726]

Paulonia wood is very light weight & used in a sandwich on the Fender Brad Paisely signature Tele, coming in at about 6.5lbs & also in other less pricey guitars....

[@totallyunmemorable]

Teak is oily, heavy, kinda ugly. I once happened upon some wood (at a dealer in the Pacific Northwest) that looked exactly like Honduran Mahogany except that it was pure white. I forget what the guy called it. And I didn't buy any of it, so it's lost to time at this point. But I'd love to find that wood again.

[@geblaverde156]

Io ho usato noce europeo per back e acero campestre fiammato per il top e manico..per la tastiera ho usato melo selvatico e a volte pero selvatico..

[@Donking-g9h]

Dark wood tend to last longer