unconventional woods

[HairyChris]

I've got no idea what the tonal difference is but I like me some weird-assed wood pr0nz.  :)

*Possesses a few oddities*

[MDV]

Looks like most of us dont really care what the wood is called.

Anyone actually got any guitars made largely from a non-standard wood? I'm not just talking about a fretboard here, either!

[Philly Q]

Does korina count?  Probably not, they were using it 50 years ago!

[Zaned]

I'm up for a non-conventional wood as long as I know somewhat what the characteristics are.

MDV mentioned birch, so I'll wander a bit into that. Might actually be useful information for some! I don't own any guitar with birch (yet!), but a finnish company here uses it very much. Ruokangas guitars, http://www.ruokangas.com/. Below is an example picture of one of their models with (Duke), which has a flamed birch top. The body and neck are spanish cedar, the fretboard ebony.

Birch is very much like maple in tone. I also mentioned spanish cedar, which is what Ruokangas found is very close in tone to the mahogany used in the old Gibsons and such. And lightweight too. If you do the math, you probably know what sort of tone that guitar model goes for ;)

[Bob Johnson]

I'm really interested in trying stuff that is definitely not (usually) on the menu for guitars. In real terms though most of us have a guitar that contains material we have never actually heard of. Manufacturers use all sorts of sorts of timbers that are universally described as "mahogany" (anything vaguely pink) maple (anything white that is relative;y strong) and so on. A guitar with a "mahogany" body could in reality be made of Sapele, Afromosia, Meranti, Luan and god knows how many other pinkish woods. So I guess we're all up for trying things that are not on the list of usual suspects; intentionally or not.

Cheers,

[Zaned]

The main interest for me would be to find a species close to in tone to the 'traditional' woods; like Juha Ruokangas did with spanish cedar, as getting good and (relatively) lightweight mahogany is getting harder, at least in large quantities.

Grr, off-topic but I don't want to start another thread about it. For the luthiers here, what exactly do you do when you rate wood for instrument use? Weight, visual aspects, tap tone (what do you listen for..?), grain? I genuinely want to know :) I guess it's up to the individual luthier..

Why I want to know is that it would be nice to find a plank of really nice wood laying around somewhere in my familys possession, and then having a luthier build me a guitar from that ;) That would bring a certain vibe.

-Zaned

[MDV]

The main interest for me would be to find a species close to in tone to the 'traditional' woods;

Well, I'm sure there are a lot out there that are similar in archetypal sound to the standard stuff, but surely its at least as interesting to use woods that have their own strengths not normally found in the traditional woods?

Meranti for example, that Bob mentions, has the best qualities of mahogany (low end and mids) and swamp ash (chimey high end and more of it, and more tightness in the lows), and bobs making a guitar for me now thats mostly meranti for this reason.

[Zaned]

Well, I'm sure there are a lot out there that are similar in archetypal sound to the standard stuff, but surely its at least as interesting to use woods that have their own strengths not normally found in the traditional woods?

Meranti for example, that Bob mentions, has the best qualities of mahogany (low end and mids) and swamp ash (chimey high end and more of it, and more tightness in the lows), and bobs making a guitar for me now thats mostly meranti for this reason.

Good point. I guess my desire for a 'substitute' is about finding a good quality replacement for something that is not found anymore for a reasonable price. We guitarist are sometimes (read that as 'almost always') a quite traditionalist bunch :) We compare new things to what has been used for decades.

But what I like is that sort of tone reference what you gave on Meranti. You know what to expect, at least to some extenct. It's nice to hear if the luthier can say how the wood would generally sounds in an LP style guitar, or in a bolt-on strat.

-Zaned

[Lucifuge]

Surely any discussion of this type needs a mention of the Taylor 'Pallet Guitar'

This was an acoustic guitar made by Bob Taylor from an old (probably oak) shipping pallet that had been in the back of the factory for a few years, and a piece of 2x4, of unknown wood type, complete with nail holes. It was basically made to demonstrate how the skill of the luthier and the guitar design is more important than the materials;  it was taken to many guitar shows and by all accounts it sounded amazing, though I never heard it myself (and don't much like acoustic guitars in any case.)

[badgermark]

I've got some unconventional wood. In my pants.

[PhilKing]

I have quite a lot of different woods in my guitars (especially in necks).  I have had an all walnut guitar for almost 20 years and that probably started me (though years ago I had a custom built LP Special with an all mahogany body and a birdseye maple neck - very 70's!). 

Besides the standards,  I have necks in aframosa, wenge, goncalo alves, bloodwood (satine), purpleheart, anigre and rosewood with fingerboards in kingwood, pau ferro, bloodwood and aframosa.  All of them came from Warmoth and some were special orders for me to see what they sounded like. 

I am one of the people who does believe that the wood makes a difference to the tone and having these different woods has shown me that I am right!  The pickups can then make a big difference to the overall sounds, but the initial characteristics are from the wood, and so the final sound of the guitar will still have that in it, and the overall attack comes just from the wood imho.

[Philly Q]

Besides the standards,  I have necks in aframosa, wenge, goncalo alves, bloodwood (satine), purpleheart, anigre and rosewood with fingerboards in kingwood, pau ferro, bloodwood and aframosa.  All of them came from Warmoth and some were special orders for me to see what they sounded like. 

Do you have any particular favourites (for necks, fingerboards or neck/fingerboard combinations) out of all those, Phil?

[PhilKing]

Besides the standards,  I have necks in aframosa, wenge, goncalo alves, bloodwood (satine), purpleheart, anigre and rosewood with fingerboards in kingwood, pau ferro, bloodwood and aframosa.  All of them came from Warmoth and some were special orders for me to see what they sounded like. 

Do you have any particular favourites (for necks, fingerboards or neck/fingerboard combinations) out of all those, Phil?

I like the goncalo alves/kingwood and the bloodwood/ebony a lot.  I forgot that I also have a ziracote fingerboard on my Wez JB SG, which is really nice too.  Probably the one that I think doesn't do a lot for the tone would be the aframosa (it is a one piece neck too), though it might be that I was expecting too much or it might work better with different body wood and pickups (I have it with swamp ash and a set of apaches with baseplates).

[gwEm]

normal stuff here - boring i know ;)

[Simon D]

I went for option 2, on the basis that most of my guitars are made from the usual suspects, but I went for a koa top on my Warmoth Soloist, and will almost certainly build/have something built in the future that uses some 'different' timber as a major part of it.