Elm

[RGman]

I have some Elm you see and i was looking at it. It looks nice...is fairly hard and looks fairly suitable for a body blank or a laminated neck or even a top.

There is one thing i need to hear before i use it to build future projects (there is about a million guitars i want to build at the moment and the amount of free elm i have would take care of half of them)

And that one thing is:

Does anyone have experience or is this something i will have to find out for myself? Personally i'd rather hear someone say "it works" than to end up waisting time on a possible failure, you see.

Anyway, Got any clues?

[bz2]

I have some Elm you see and i was looking at it. It looks nice...is fairly hard and looks fairly suitable for a body blank or a laminated neck or even a top.

There is one thing i need to hear before i use it to build future projects (there is about a million guitars i want to build at the moment and the amount of free elm i have would take care of half of them)

And that one thing is:

Does anyone have experience or is this something i will have to find out for myself? Personally i'd rather hear someone say "it works" than to end up waisting time on a possible failure, you see.

Anyway, Got any clues?

From what I have heard it is a good body wood. Haven't seen it on so many guitars but there are quite a few elm basses out there, I think it is suited for a deeper and more bassy sound. I say go for it. Only bad thing with it is that it smells quite bad when you work it.

[fryovanni]

There are a few varietys of Elm(some are a little stiffer and denser than others). Generally it is a medium density wood, with med/low stiffness. It's stability is similar to many commonly used woods (Maples, Ash, Alder). It should work fine for a body. I would expect it to not be radically bright, or especially bassy. I don't think it would be my first choice for a neck because I look for a little better weight to stiffness from a neck wood (I doubt it would break though if you used it).

Peace,Rich

[Bozo Destructo]

There are a few varietys of Elm(some are a little stiffer and denser than others). Generally it is a medium density wood, with med/low stiffness. It's stability is similar to many commonly used woods (Maples, Ash, Alder). It should work fine for a body. I would expect it to not be radically bright, or especially bassy. I don't think it would be my first choice for a neck because I look for a little better weight to stiffness from a neck wood (I doubt it would break though if you used it).

Peace,Rich

I also wouldn't use it, unless there's some species in Australia that DIDN'T get Dutch Elm's Disease.

[fryovanni]

There are a few varietys of Elm(some are a little stiffer and denser than others). Generally it is a medium density wood, with med/low stiffness. It's stability is similar to many commonly used woods (Maples, Ash, Alder). It should work fine for a body. I would expect it to not be radically bright, or especially bassy. I don't think it would be my first choice for a neck because I look for a little better weight to stiffness from a neck wood (I doubt it would break though if you used it).

Peace,Rich

I also wouldn't use it, unless there's some species in Australia that DIDN'T get Dutch Elm's Disease.

It was my understanding that DED had not reached Australia, and that they have been doing their darndest to prevent the beetles from getting in. Europe, Asia, North America are all pretty much screwed.

Peace,Rich

[SwedishLuthier]

Does anyone have experience or is this something i will have to find out for myself? Personally i'd rather hear someone say "it works" than to end up waisting time on a possible failure, you see.

Not me personaly but Robert Sarhling at Ares guitars http://www.aresguitar.se/ have made a couple of guitars with elm bodies. He claims that it is a VERY god substitute for mahogany, both structural and sound wise. You can always shoot him a mail and see what he says. He is usually very helpful.