The Wood Stash
Soundboards
The engine room of the guitar. No single piece of wood has more of an impact on the sound of your guitar than the soundboard. Here’s what I have available and how I think this might shape the sound of the guitar.
European Spruce - Picea abies
Pale, almost white in colour, it has one of the best stiffness to weight ratios in the natural world and sounds fantastic. The perfect choice for fingerstyle guitarists with a lighter touch.
Western Red Cedar - Thuja plicata
Presents a few problems, it can be temperamental to work with, dents easily, but can make an exceptional guitar.
Redwood - Sequoia Sempervirens
Tends to give a very warm, slightly muted tone to the guitar, which can be desirable if you plan to do a lot of fast, single note playing.
Mahogany - Sweitenia mahogani
A traditional alternative to the spruces. It can make a stunning guitar, not particularly loud, but beautiful all the same.
Backs & Sides
Bog Oak - Quercus rubur
Dark and mysterious. Having been submerged in the soil for thousands of years this ancient oak has transformed and petrified to this glorious black colour, and sometimes fades naturally from a tan brown to black. It can yield an exceptional guitar. It’s sometimes tortuous to work with a significant blunting effect on edge tools. Not all Bog Oak is equal though, some can be extremely brittle and crumbly other examples can be more vitreous. When cut perfectly on the quarter it exhibits wonderful medullary rays or “silking”.
Rippled Maple - Acer saccharum
An all time favourite, for me and the entire violin family of instruments. Typically, folks say maple yields a “bright” sounding guitar, but could that just be because it’s very bright in colour? To my ears, Maple is a wonderfully warm, rich tonewood.
Yew - Taxus baccata
An absolutely lovely timber, gorgeous orange colour with little pippy knots and swirls running through it. Technically a softwood, it actually presents, like Cypress, as a hardwood. It finishes beautifully with oil & wax.
Black Walnut - Juglans nigra
A good sustainable option. Darkens to a lovely pale chocolate colour under lacquer. It's relatively dense and stable. Sonically, its a decent all-rounder, modest & plain, but gorgeous all the same.
English Walnut - Juglans Regia
More colorful in appearance than Black Walnut, but I'd say I yields a warmer sound. This piece has a little knot on the left hand side (circled in yellow) which either adds character or makes the piece unusable depending on your opinion. Not a structural concern.
Cherry - Prunus avium
Gorgeous creamy pink colour. It can sound quite dry, which makes an excellent recording guitar, with a focussed sound.
Pear - Pyrus communis
This is a lovely piece with rippled figure running through it. Pinkish in colour. Guitar makers used to use a lot of pear wood before tropical woods landed on european shores. Warm sounding.
Cyprus - Cupressus sempervirens
A curveball choice for a steel string electric. Normally only seen on Flamenco guitars. I would expect plenty of snap to the sound. And it would smell delightful. Pale, creamy yellow in colour.
Wenge - Milletia laurentii
Chocolate brown and stripy. A pig to work with, but is one of the most resonant woods out there. It rings for days. Expect a guitar akin to rosewood.
London Plane - Platanus x acerifolia
The ubiquitous city tree, and close cousin to Maple, shows off a striking grain pattern when quartersawn. Stunning orangy brown, with little lace-like flecks running through it. Makes a lovely guitar, not too dissimilar to Black walnut.
Indian Rosewood - Dalbergia latifolia
The archetypical choice for guitars for centuries. Expect a brighter sounding guitar with plenty of overtones and natural reverb. Lovely dark purple colours