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I've always loved oak and have built many items with it over the years. I am curious who has built or played an oak guitar and can tell me about tonal qualities, or lack thereof. I'm thinking about building one. Any advice? Is it like walnut or???

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

If i recall the name well, Jason Simpson built with oak and he sure was happy with the sound and looks, he has a website that i lost trace of.

There was a thread on domestic tonewoods a while back, oak is mentionned
a few times. search for "local tonewood" in the forum archive.laurent38773.4226041667

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

I have a bunch of old parlor guitars, and I have at least three that are made of really nice quatersawn oak back and sides. These guitars are not playable right now, I haven't touched them since I got them! But I would bet that they will sound good, and I wouldn't be afraid of using this stuff. It looks great!
I remember Al Carruth saying that he built a nice one with it, but no one wanted to buy it!

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Mark Swanson
Swanson Guitars
http://www.MarkSwansonMusic.com

I had the opportunity to play Al's oak guitar...it was very nice. It's just not what people expect to see when they look at a guitar. It was beautiful though. It would make for a great Arts & Crafts themed guitar.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

I have played a few imports that I thought sounded very good. Martin built a few years ago. I have one body together waiting for a neck. I think it was Al that said oak made a good sounding guitar. It's a perception thing with potential buyers because oak is such a common wood and that's a shame. If your building for yourself I would go for it. Here's a picture of some QS Curly White Oak I'll be cutting today.
Bobc38773.438900463

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

That's beautiful, Bob. I might buy a set of that and try one myself. PM me with a price for the pick of the litter.

Ron

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

Will do Old Man

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

I have in my possession a little white oak parlor with a lovely quartersawn / heavy flaked pattern. It is the guitar that my grandfather used to court my grandmother. Successfully. I feel a certain debt of gratitude to that guitar.... I've said before that if oak can accomplish that, what more do you want or need in a tonewood?

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

I would personnaly use oak as a tonewood, it also looks very nice. If oak ply sounded good on my first build, it sure can be fine with the real stuff!

I recently bought some english brown oak (actually white oak, but a
fungus attacks it and turns it a brown color. Really beautiful wood, but a
little too soft for what I want..I'll turn it into furniture. I have been picking
up some quartersawn White oak here and there as I think Oak is a really
great tonewood. It's just seen as cheap as it is abundant, but make no
mistake it sounds exceptional.

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

I have played a guitar with red oak back and sides and it had great sound, loud and bright. Oak is very porous so It will probably be a bit more difficult to finish.

A way to avoid the bright-white look of oak without fuming with ammonia, or waiting 50 years: garnet shellac (or a water-based stain of similar color). It really brings out the best in oak's figure, and gives it a warm, appealing look!

Can anyone speak about tone in comparison to other common woods?

If I understand everyone here, you all are saying it is a fine wood for guitar in terms of tone, but not so good for selling (profit).

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

This might take a while...

I'd thought of oak as a guitar wood for some time, but what really got me going was one of those old Sears parlor jobs that I saw at a local store. It was not in bad shape, and was quite playable: considering it was built more like a low-end modern plywood box it sounded OK.

I've built a bunch of guitars out of quartered oak. One was made as half of a 'matched pair' of classicals: the other had BRW back and sides. I wrote that experiment up for the Catgut Society, and the article was in the May '98 Journal. The oak back was quite curly, and that made it both denser and less stiff than the rosewood. Oak also has higher damping than rosewood. The result was that the extra weight of the oak back cost a little volume, and the higher damping took some of the 'ping' out of the trebles. It was still a nice guitar, though.

I talked with Chris Martin once about oak; he didn't like it. They tried it out, and the players weren't impressed. He showed me a picture of a Dread in flat cut oak, and I understood immediately. For that guitar that wood would 'way too floppy in the cross grain direction, and the damping would be too high.

First rule, then: use quartered oak. Aside from the really neat figure, it's got much more cross grain stiffness, and it's worlds more stable, too. Nothing bends easier than quartered oak.

IMO (I guess it's not really a 'rule'), oak is probably better suited for small bodied steel strings than anything else. You lose enough 'ping' on a classical that the savings in cost over, say, IRW, are not worth it. Besides, those guys are _so_ traditional.... ;) I did build one 17" Jumbo 12-string from oak, and it's a locomotive: don't stand too close in front when it's rolling.

Filling is a chore; no getting around it. Padauk is worse, and some BRW is no picnic either. They can't all be morado...

I wish I could figure out why it's so hard to sell oak guitars. Some poeple just can't stand the ray fleck, so that doesn't help, but the folks who like it tend to love it. But even they won't usually buy the guitars. Somebody suggested calling it 'Norwegian Rosewood'...

I'm not a big believer in the notion that back and side wood choice will make or break the guitar. It has an effect: I 'proved' that with rhe oak/Brazilin pair, but it's just not huge. So I can't tell you with any exactness what oak 'sounds like', except that it's not like a soft, light wood, like Honduras mahogany, and it's not like a hard, low-damping wood like rosewood. Bubinga, maybe? Or Beech?

One thing to watch for: if they get the kiln too hot the stuff honeycomb checks like mad along those big ray flecks. It's a drag to cut into the plank and find those voids, and it can be hard to tell from the outside, too. I'm hoping to filch a little air-dried stock from my sisters, if they can spare it from building their house. I helped the carpenter resaw a 27" diameter log three years ago, and I hope it's not all going to get made into flooring. Despite the difficulty, I'd like to try selling another oak 12-fret 000. They're nice to have around.

I bought some quartered oak recently. I think it really is unique and it appears that there is now some acceptance of alternative woods. Have a look.



I can't wait to give it a try and see how it sounds. That will probably be the only way I'll get to hear an oak guitar.

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

Thank you all for your replies, especially Alan for that long post. That took a lot of time to write and has a lot of detailed information that I was looking for. Thank you, I really appreciate it.

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

Go for it Steve!

As the saying goes, there's lots of acceptance of alternative woods--on
somebody else's guitar.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.