Official Luthiers Forum!

I'm seriously going to look into what some of the Native American names for oak were. Come to think of it, maybe one of them was "oak". We get so many of our words from their languages, for all I know that's one of them... though I would guess "oak" is English, since they have a lot of them over there, too. Anyway, I'll bet there are some great sounding names for it in the various Iroquois, etc, languages. I'll let y'all know what I find.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

In the high end furniture trade, they
called all curly oaks, Tiger Oak.
Tom

Hello all, I am new here. I have a bunch of red oak that came from an old school house that was torn down. How would red oak work for a guitar?

Steve, that is a beautiful guitar. Did you build it?

[QUOTE=mikev]
But
i'd go with ALba for luthery.
Mike[/QUOTE]

I'm with Mike...I like "Alba". It's technically "accurate", and just confusing enough to work.   

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

[quote=Larry Davis]There's really no common sense reason to use it today, but some repairs on old furniture are fumed to match original fumed finish. [/quote]

   As I understand it, stains and dyes, interfere with the natural reflective properties of the wood, making it seem flat/dull. I am not personally familiar with fuming but sense it is a chemical process and not in reality a paint.

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

How 'bout some American Rubra? On it's way to GAL with a twin   

I have the one mark sold to SS. I think I'm going to start on it soon/ I'm thinking OM with redwood top, manzanita bindings, redwood burl rosette, book matched oak headstock.

I have some nice quarter sawn oak, I was thinking maybe I could make the neck oak.
Any thoughts on that?

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

[QUOTE=Larry Davis] How 'bout some American Rubra? On it's way to GAL with a twin   

[/QUOTE]
Larry is that curly red oak? I know Rubra means red in Latin. You carry that on your site? I love read oak more then I love white.

[QUOTE=SteveS] I have the one mark sold to SS. I think I'm going to start on it soon/ I'm thinking OM with redwood top, manzanita bindings, redwood burl rosette, book matched oak headstock.

I have some nice quarter sawn oak, I was thinking maybe I could make the neck oak.
Any thoughts on that?[/QUOTE]
Steve I had the same idea for oak neck too. My only concern is with the weight. I'm not sure if it would be to neck heavy. But I think it would look great though.

[QUOTE=Michael Shaw] [QUOTE=Larry Davis] How 'bout some American Rubra? On it's way to GAL with a twin   

[/QUOTE]
Larry is that curly red oak? I know Rubra means red in Latin. You carry that on your site? I love read oak more then I love white.[/QUOTE]

Michael, yes it is red oak American Rubra is much more attractive than red oak don't ya think? Rubra is the species for red oak.

It's not on the website as I just cut two sets this morning for GAL. I've cut probably 100 back sets in the past week for GAL so I should have a dandy website page full of acoustic sets left over. Matter of fact, other than acrylized and knife page I haven't had time to cut wood for speculation in two years. Those two gallery pages haven't seen a change for two years. I do several product lines and I'd need to get up at 2:30AM to get more done...instead of 4:00AM

By the way, there could be two stacked heel/scarf head neck blanks cut from that same oak timber.Larry Davis38886.8090393519

An oak neck would be heavier than a mahogany neck.
Other than the obvious balance issue, is there another reason(s) why oak or another more dense wood would be an issue?
Dampening? Too much sustain? ???

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

Steve...I dont think it would be dampening or to sustaining. By the way can you ever have to much sustain on an acoustic? I see the only issue as weight. Guitar that are neck heavy are uncomfortable to play in my opinion and i'm sure a lot of others. I think a 14 fretter might have more weight issues then a 12 fretter. I could be wrong though. That said I want to build a twelve fretter 000 with oak neck back and sides. I guess you really wont know about any issue with it until you try it out.

I believe a neck can be thinned below traditional sizing to reduce weight and CF added for strength. I'm showing an almost all acrylized electric 5 string bass (including the neck) at GAL and the builder thinned the neck way -way down and added CF. Worked like a charm, but electric bass builders are kinda weird that way.......

I give bass builders some credit. They always have been more willing to experiment. More then electric guitar builder and acoustic builders.

And their basses are usually soooo cool looking. I think a strat with a
warwick twist would be so awesome. Just had to get that out. It's a
totally different topic.

I agree with you James. No one has really done anything new in the past 50 years in the electric guitar field. They keep on building Fender and Gibson styled guitars. There have been a few like Steinberger, Klein and Turner. But now Gibson owns Steinberger guitars so thats the end of anynew inovations there. I thought the Parker Fly's were unique, but now they are going backwards and copying fender and gibson styles.

   You could probably make a perty nice bass with an old wine barrel and a broom stick. I made a nice conga drum out of a jamaican blue mountain coffee barrel though it wasn't oak. I think people could think of a guitar as more like a drum than a speaker. Those old lutes look like they were coopered sort of like a conga. For some reason my jumbled mind spits this out. I think its bed time now.

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"Preoccupation with an effect gives it power and enhances the error"
from "Your Owner's Manual" by Burt Hotchkiss.

I have made several guitars of white oak, and it's great. The trouble is that they're hard to sell. Sears used to have a white oak guitar in the catalog a hundred years ago for something like $2.95. I've seen one, and it was the equivalent of today's worst plywoood stuff in the way it was made. Sounded OK though.

One suggestion for a name was 'Norwegian Rosewood': it's blond, like the people....

I'd think oak would not be stable enough for a neck, as well as being heavy. The curly stuff can be denser than Brazilian rosewood.

I'd also be wary of making a neck too thin from front to back. It makes it harder to fret, believe it or not: you don't get the right leverage with the thumb. I did a couple of repairs for people that had guitars by another maker with necks like that, building them up to make them more comfortable. It's not a fun job.

[QUOTE=Alan Carruth] I'd also be wary of making a neck too thin from front to back. It makes it harder to fret, believe it or not: you don't get the right leverage with the thumb.[/QUOTE]
Thanks, Alan--finally someone who agrees with me! I hate those shallow, so-called "fast" necks. They hurt my hands.

As for oak necks...Oak really likes to chip and rip, so carving (and drilling) might be problematical.

ALAN THATS WHY I NEVER CARED TO MUCH FOR THE NEW IBANEZ ELECTRIC GUITARS. THEY HAD WHAT THEY CALL WIZARD NECKS. SUPER THIN, TO THIN FOR MY TASTE. I LIKE SOMETHING TO GRIP ON TO.

[QUOTE=Alan Carruth]
One suggestion for a name was 'Norwegian Rosewood': it's blond, like the people....
[/QUOTE]

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

[QUOTE=CarltonM] [QUOTE=Alan Carruth] I'd also be wary of making a neck too thin from front to back. It makes it harder to fret, believe it or not: you don't get the right leverage with the thumb.[/QUOTE]
Thanks, Alan--finally someone who agrees with me! I hate those shallow, so-called "fast" necks. They hurt my hands.

As for oak necks...Oak really likes to chip and rip, so carving (and drilling) might be problematical. [/QUOTE]

Can't argue with that    Long skinny fingers need wider necks and short fat fingers use thin necks just fine. Personally, I like warm blackberry pie under my vanilla bean ice cream nuked for 20 seconds...some don't

Ive long stood by there's no bad wood just bad tools and bad techniques. 27 billion pieces of carved oak furniture can't all be wrong

[QUOTE=Larry Davis] 27 billion pieces of carved oak furniture can't all be wrong [/QUOTE]
Hmmm...well, true enough!

I live in an area with alot of Oak varieties, White, Red, Pin, Blackjack, etc. etc. many of which I don't know the name. We use all these varieties in crib and barn building as well as flooring trailers and many other uses. It is really dense, and we generally use it "wet cut" in most species because once this stuff cures you literally cannot drive a nail through it.

I agree with the guys on necks, likes to split and twist sometimes and is really heavy.

FYI

I am picking up some Black Walnut for Serge over at one of the hardwood mills this week and will look around at the oak. If I find anything nice I will photo and all you guys especially the sponsors who might want any if it has merit or you guys that re-saw, I will check the pricing and send you guys some info. Or I can send it to someone who can re-saw and we can do a OLF Auction to raise some funds. Either way, I will keep you all posted and provide some pics.

Mike
White Oak, Texas

Note the name of the town, lots of that around!