MYRTLE

Myrtle is a wonderful wood to work with. I used to bend it wet, but I have found that bending with no water actually works better- you get little to no cupping effect, whereas when I've used is wet it has often cupped quite a bit (not unlike maple).

Tonally, it seems to be bright and reverberant. I think it supports a crispness in the sound, and seems overall brighter than mahogany or walnut. I don't think that the bass suffers though- the high frequencies enhance the definition of the bass tones, and possibly the sustain as well.

Take this all with a grain of salt of course- I believe that most of the voice of the guitar comes from the bracing design and execution above wood choice, by a large amount. The wood just seems to accent or reinforce certain tonal aspects more than others depending on the species.

INSTRUMENT VOICING

The most useful technique I have found is what I would describe as a sort of creative process of imagining the sound transformed by guitar strings/tension. If you tap every piece of wood regularly as you shape and construct the guitar, and also tap parts of completed instruments and various instruments you own, you begin to develop a sense of what the wood sounds like, and how that sound interacts with the vibration of strings under tension. As you refine this perceptive ability, you can begin to creatively imagine how each part will sound in the completed instrument by tapping as you work on it.

More specifically, by tapping I mean holding the piece of wood approx. 1/9 of the length in from the edge, lightly pinched between two fingers. This is derived from Young's modulus, or the vibration of free bars (which most pieces of wood resemble before being glued into a box shape). Each piece of wood will sound different, and some are more musical than others.

For example, dense wood such as rosewood and ebony tend to have a loud and clear pitch, like a marimba bar. Softer or less dry woods will have a muted, unclear note, and most other woods are somewhere else in between. I believe that all pieces of wood in an instrument contribute (even if an imperceptibly small amount) to the overall musical vibration/resonance, so in a handcrafted instrument it is essential to select the most musical sounding wood, or to shape the piece sin such a way as to accent that characteristic, regardless of the species.

Good compilation of tonewood sources

http://www.coneguitar.com/tonewood.html

Thanks Cone Guitars for this thorough list.

Oregon locals should add:

Urban Lumber
2440 Main Street
Springfield, OR 97477

(541) 988-9663

Apple wood as tone wood for bouzouki

Lately I've been experimenting with apple wood as tonewood. It compares in density with cherry, a bit softer than maple, beautiful color, and is stiff and musical when tapped.

Apple tonewood is all but impossible to come by. About 6 years ago I had a huge (almost 4' diameter) apple felled in my back yard. I had it milled and dehumidifier kilned, and then it air dried for about 5 years. Just now, it is coming into it's own sound-wise- I resawed a piece of it and the nice tap tone made me want to try building with it.

Here is an Irish bouzouki I recently built with the apple from my yard.:

The sides bent easily and the wood has a smooth surface feel that takes finish beautifully. I am also encouraged by the tone- I would say it is more in the warm type of tonewoods like mahogany or walnut, but it also seems to have clarity and sustain in the high register. It's actually right in the pocket of what I seem to go for- granted design, bracing and top wood play a much more substantial role in the equation, but the apple seems well suited for stringed instruments.

Cocobolo: a dream to bend!

It was exciting to bend cocobolo for the first time- one of the most dense woods I've ever worked with! It rang like a marimba bar when struck, and planed smoothly, but I dreaded the actual bending. Then- surprise!- it bent so smoothly!! Perhaps the best wood I've ever bent. I absolutely love bending the wood, by hand, over my propane fueled bending pipe. At any rate, I was surprised, but ended up with the smoothest sides.

I had some alaskan yellow cedar that was not quite right for instrument material, but it made an excellent kalimba case! Aaron Chavez, master player of the chromatic kalimba, custom ordered this four-octave (yes, four octaves!) fully chromatic instrument, of his design.

The bass keys hang over the treble keys, so that you can double a note or chord with a bass note two octaves below simply by touching the key 1/2" or so below it! The chromatic notes are on the back side, the flat notes behind their corresponding naturals on the front.

The kalimba is imbuia and walnut, and that gray foam padding inside the case is IMPOSSIBLE to find- even though it comes with virtually every electronic you'll ever buy!

 

This apple tree stood in the back yard of our last home- one we built in Eugene, Oregon. It had been long neglected and despite several years of careful pruning, it never produced many apples, and had some serious rot issues. We cut it down, sadly, but the result ended up being great. The garden saw much more sunlight, and I managed to get about 1000 board feet of usable lumber out of it!

The tree was over 3 feet in diameter at the base. It yielded several sections of 18 to 20" wide trunk wood, which when sawn on the quarter gave me a bit of wood I thought might work as tonewood. The sections ranged from about 4 to 7 feet long, so there is plenty of material to use for some cabinetry in the future.

After an initial run in a dehumidification kiln (no heat, just blows air over it to carry away moisture quickly) I stickered and air dried a few pieces that looked like possible tonewood for about 4 years. I finally had a chance to build with it, and created this octave mandolin/ bouzouki. It looks and sounds incredible, and I am very happy to know that the apple turned out to be a useful tonewood. I would compare it's feel/workability/tone somewhere in the range of walnut or mahogany.

Federated Teachers Service Corporation parlor guitar

On the bench this week is a Federated Teachers Service Corporation parlor guitar. It appears to be from the 1950's or earlier. Through a little Googling, it seems the instrument is in the same jumble as Regal, Harmony, Stella, Galiano, having derived from Oscar Schmidt's work. It has dyed maple bridge, and a dyed maple or birch fingerboard. It seems the neck is poplar, which was commonly used for these instruments. In my research another mention was made of a lap steel- interesting since this guitar came with two nuts- one for normal playing and a tall steel one, presumably for lap steel playing! The fingerboard also has fret numbers at each fret written in by hand, in yellow!

An interesting thing about this instrument- I tried removing the bridge to either reglue or replace it, and even with all of my forces (heating iron, heated spatula knife, various wedges and prying devices) I couldn't even begin to budge it. I think it may be epoxied in place, as that is the only other adhesive I have encountered with that much staying power!