Official Luthiers Forum!

Ok so I live in New Brunsick, Canada and I am very new at guitar building. I do have access to a potable saw mill that my uncle owns and where I live there is all kinds of maple trees and all kinds of birch trees. There apparently is ash trees but I went for a little hike today and I can't seem to find any. So my question is, can you use birch at all for either necks or bodies of electric guitars. If I can't and if there is anyone else on the forum that lives in my neck of the woods is there any other trees that I could use for bodies around here?

P.S. could you use oak?

Thanks,

Dylan

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" Blues is a low down achin chill, if you ain't never had it, I hope you never will."

Robert Johnson

Hi Dylan

Technically, you can use anything. I think it's best to stick with medium-density woods like the typical alder, ash, mahogany, basswood, etc. bodies that you see on production instruments.

If my thinking is correct, birch and maple are very similar? If so, a birch body would be a bit heavy.

has Oak ever been used?

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" Blues is a low down achin chill, if you ain't never had it, I hope you never will."

Robert Johnson

You can use whatever you want. I've seen some oak guitars, both acoustic and electric. They looked nice to me. I'm currently building one (my first scratch build)from an old kitchen cutting board. My first several will be built from whatever I can find. I'm more interested in learning how to build right, with proper techniques, good, solid joints, making sure everything goes in the right spot so that the action, playability, intonation and tuning stability is there, and perfecting finishing techniques. After I've made quite a few and am satisfied I have that down, I'll get some nice wood and go to town on it!
That said, however, there are a few things I won't compromise on. Firstly, the wood I use has to be properly seasoned, so there are no surprises later on, and I won't stray too far from the standard tried and true neck materials, like maple, mahogany, walnut, etc. Again, well seasoned.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

ya necks are by far a problem because there are a lot of maple trees around here

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" Blues is a low down achin chill, if you ain't never had it, I hope you never will."

Robert Johnson

Maple is probably the most used neck material in electric guitars. But again, I'd caution to make certain any neck wood you use is very well seasoned, as the neck has to take the tension of the strings over the life of the instrument. You want it to be very stable. Neck wood is one place where I'll more often than not buy from places like LMII, StewMac, as well as some of our sponsors. I'll spend the money there to make certain I get the best chance of having well seasoned, stable neck wood to work with. That goes for the fretboard as well.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Yeah, pretty much like whatever everyone else said...

Build with whatever inspires you, but if it is not dry, sitting pretty at 5 - 10% moisture content, what happens next will not be very inspiring...

Stephen

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www.ziegenfussguitars.com

If you live in New Brunswick I'll bet theres some good old spruce lurkin. I think Norman guitars or some Norman guitars were built with birtch but I've always found it to be unpredictable

Where in New Brunswick? I'm from the Miramichi area, originally, but I've been in Halifax for nine years now. As others have said, it's extremely important that any wood you use is completely dry, seasoned, etc which means that you either need to saw it and wait a very long time for it to air dry (in the case of a neck) or send it to a kiln operator and pay to have it dried. There are some good wood dealers around, there's a guy in Moncton who's pretty good and has built some guitars. There are at least two good specialty hardwood dealers in Halifax, if you can make the trip, who have suitable wood in stock.

Maple is very commonly used in guitars, birch has been used successfully in acoustics (they made a bunch of Stellas out of birch in the 60s I believe), and ash also has a history in electric guitars. On an electric body, just about any piece of dry, seasoned wood will work. On the neck you need to be a bit more picky and, depending on the piece of wood, it can take a lot of technique to use it in a neck. I made an electric with an oak back and a bloodwood top; it's heavy as a rock (should have hollowed it!) but it's fine. Some great acoustics have been made with oak, and then not sold. Ever. Even at a discount.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

I live in Minto just a a half hour away from fredericton. It's a coal mining town if that helps in case any tress grow around that kind of environment

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" Blues is a low down achin chill, if you ain't never had it, I hope you never will."

Robert Johnson