Tone Wood

[olddog]

I was just wondering about silver maple as a tonewood. I have a huge silver maple I have to cut down, and before I give it away for firewood, I was wondering if it had any qualities for a tone wood. Any ideas? If it's just marginal or experimental I won't even bother. It takes too much work if the ax doesn't sound any good. Thanks.

[q83]

Godin makes its SD's out of Silver Leaf Maple and poplar. I'm sure it's a good tone wood.

[jmrentis]

I wouldn't give it away, cut it up so you could build a bunch of bodies and tops then let it dry for a year or two, or a lot longer some let it dry for years and years. Then when you feel it's nice and dry and won't do any moving on you, test it, knock on it and get a feel for it. If it's anything like the other maples I think it would be worth a try. They all seem to be fairly good tone woods, and most are great looking, and you never know what kind of figure you might find. Flame, quilt, stepped who knows until you check it out.

I used to think that only certain species of trees had certain figures, but recently I found out that almost any tree can have almost any type of figure. So just keep it and see how it turns out, even if it's not the best tonewise, if it had a great unique figure you could just do a thin veneer on a body for it's looks. Anyways thats just how I feel, I wouldn't get rid of any of it, you will always find a use for wood, be it for guitars, something for your shop, or for practice, or hell even a bird house. You'll find a use for it I'm sure. Good luck with that and have fun with it! Jason

[orgmorg]

Silver maple is very nice. It is a soft maple. The big old ones often have rotten spots in them, especially if they have been topped a lot as is often done to silver maples, but you may still get some usable wood out of it.

And besides, it makes lousy firewood, so you might as well use it for a guitar.