Wood Tone

[matte87]

im am in the prosses of building my first guitar and i was wondering what would be the best wood for the my guitar. but you must know the design of my body has weak spots so i need some thing strong but light. i was thinking about doing a three layered patern where i alternate the grain paterns 90 degrees what do you think would be the best wood for sound duribility and weight like i said this is my first guitar im building so i also want something easy to work with.

thanx,

matte87

[RGGR]

but you must know the design of my body has weak spots

Makes me wonder what freaky design you came up with???

[LukeR]

Having absolutely NO IDEA about the style of guitar you are wanting to build, what music you play, or ANY information, Melvyn Hiscock suggests that Mahogany is a good choice for a first time builder.

The above isnt advice, just an answer to what you have posted.

Please share more info, thjen more complete advice can be given.

luke

[unclej]

mahogany, poplar and alder are all pretty good guitar woods that are fairly easy to work with. they make a "normal" weight guitar as opposed to some of the mesquite and walnut ones that i make that are pretty heavy.

i can't tell which way you're considering gluing up your three layer pattern. if you're stacking three pieces from back to front that's a fairly easy glue up. if you're gluing three pices left to right you need to have or have access to an edge joiner and a good flat gluing table.

since this is your first guitar you might consider making it out of one solid piece of wood. especially if it's going to have "weak spots".

anyway, there's my two cents. good luck.

[32251]

"Weak" spots does not sound to good to me for some reason.

If you are going to have areas where lots of wood will be removed for what ever reason then I would go with maple. Yes it is heavy, but you can remove more of it and still have good integrity when you finish. Hopefully your "weak" spots are a result of some sort of outside shaping or decorative foray. Surly your design will be such that these areas won't compromise the integrity of the instrument.

[matte87]

to anwser some of the questions yes my guitar has week spots yes it is for decration no i dont think it will effect the sound of the guitar at least i hope not i tryed to download a pic of the plans but i was unsuccufuli play all typs of music so i was hoping to make a guitar with fietures that will suit all the stilles i play the shape of the design is hard to explain but ill do my best its almost like two elongated S's one of them is backwords with a fancy ovel peice between them the S's are conected two the main body (the fancy ovel) w/ two hourglass shaped peaces on each. the reason i was going to use the stacked wood apposed to the solid pice is becaus the altenarting grain parterns will give it that much more strenth.