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Building my first guitar soon. I just made some money from a banjo repair so I'm looking for mahogany for the neck, one piece and top and brace wood.

I don't know if I should buy into the torrefied spruce that's been hyped. What do you guys think.

For the neck I guess Honduras mahogany is pretty scarce so what should I use in its place. Sapele?

I'll use the suppliers on this site to help the forum as I'll be using the forum for all my questions. This is a fantastic group of luthiers.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

My humble thoughts:

I have used Honduran mahogany for almost all of my necks and will continue to do so. There are other acceptable woods - Spanish cedar, Port Orford cedar, Sapele - I have no experience with them. The going price for a 3x3 piece of H. mahogany seems to be a bit under $150 and will give you two necks. However if you buy a 3 x 7/8 piece you can do a very nice scarf joined head and stacked heel neck for somewhere between $25 and 50. I personally think the built up necks are superior in every way and far less wasteful of wood. Here are the pieces sitting on a set of plans (the little block under the nut area is a dart shaped volute, optional)



I haven't bound into torrefied anything yet. I continue to use nice spruce and cedar and other woods - I'll saving the oven for pies.

All of the suppliers on this forum are highly recommended - you might pay a little more but you'll never be disappointed.

Shout out if you need help, we've all been there

For a first guitar, I would avoid extra expensive woods, such as torrified, master grade, etc.

Torrefied spruce is definitely a cool thing that gives a particular type of sound. But, like any wood choice, it should be chosen specifically to give that sound. For your first guitar I'd suggest regular Sitka...

Hibbon Hardwood and West Penn has some SA Mahogany 3x4 neck blanks for under $100 and you get two necks and a lot of block material out of it.

RC Tonewoods (site sponsor) carries Honduran mahogany neck blanks as regular items, so that's not too hard to come by. I've used that as well as African mahogany (Khaya), Peruvian walnut, and big leaf maple for necks all of which worked great. Khaya is a good, less expensive substitute for Honduran mahogany, IMO. Neck blanks for built-up necks are less expensive and easier to find than blanks for one-piece necks. Even so, I'm in the one-piece neck camp. Go with whichever suits you for your first guitar.

Personally, I would not go with a torrified top for my first guitar. I would want to get a good handle on how standard, untreated spruce behaves in my hands and how the guitars built with it sound before trying that. There have been reports here and elsewhere of torrefied spruce being more brittle and some have reported difficulties gluing it (gluing was no problem for others though).

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

For a first guitar, skip the Honduras and use Sapele or other African like Khaya or other. Walnut is good too. I've made plenty of them with Khaya like Freeman shows and they are on some really expensive guitars. Use HHG to hide the joints and dye the neck.
Skip the torrified junk for the top and just get a A grade red spruce or such. Stick to a cheap back and sides like maple, birch, cherry, Khaya or walnut...white oak if you can stand filling it twice and dying it. Leave the fancy junk till after you have made all the mistakes.

Haans said everything I was going to say. For a first guitar people won't be looking at the wood , they will be looking at the execution.

I prefer Honduras.
It carves and sands easily. I would reccomended it for a first neck build.
Khaya is a good choice too.
The Sapele I have bought has been hard and heavy and not much fun to carve.
Ofcourse, every plank is different.
I’ve used flat-sawn Honduras with good results and have also ripped it and glued several strips into a quarter-sawn style.
I must be lucky, my local Woodcraft sells rough lumber for $5 a board ft.

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

I’d throw sapelle in for a back and sides. Pretty cheap, but makes a nice sounding guitar


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Walnut bends very easily. Walnut back and sides and neck, A grade red spruce top, Indian rosewood fingerboard, Grover sta-tites. We all have our preferences as to what would make a good first guitar. Which is not to say that that is what we used for our first guitar. And I think we also assume the first guitar is not going to be the "Last"guitar.

I use only Sapelle for necks and love it. Haven’t used Mahogany in years, just got too expensive and the quality went down. I remember when Mahogany was dark brown/red and dense. Maybe it’s still out there but I haven’t gotten any like that in a very long time.

I already have 2 sets of rosewood back and sides so I'm just looking for neck and top ideas. I think I'll just stick with sitka for the top.
I can't decide on the neck . It might be interesting to try my hand at a scarf joint and just buy 7/8 mahogany. RC tonewoods claim to have genuine mahogany. I wonder what that is and having built a couple of mahogany non guitar necks, I may just try some sapele for my first guitar and save some dough for other things.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Black walnut is my favorite neck wood for steel strings. Hibdon has a sale going on 1x3"+heel blanks https://www.hibdonhardwood.com/collections/walnut-neck-blanks/products/walnut-1-x-3-x-24-neck-special

I don't know how I feel about Sapele necks. I've got two blanks leftover from resawing backs and sides, and it's heavy with weird interlocking grain...

I guess my humble suggestions for a first guitar (or second or third...) is to pick an established design that YOU happen to want and stick with it. Build out of quality traditional materials - rosewood or mahogany b&s, spruce top, mahogany neck, ebony or rosewood f/b and bridge. Follow the design carefully, concentrate on good joinery and careful construction. Think each step of the project thru, consult people who have been there when you have questions.

You'll have lots of time to experiment with different materials and your own ideas about how to build a better guitar with numbers four or five. You might even be right.

My first guitar was a kit (there were some operations that scared me or I didn't have the tools for or both), it was built out of quality materials, it is 12 years old now and is still one of my go to guitars. It looks good, plays well, sounds better than many, and I'll frankly admit that some of my later instruments are not as good. When I made it I had no idea I would ever make another, so why compromise. (I have, it is addictive, but I still don't compromise)

I agree that just about any quartersawn b/s wood will work just fine, especially for skill-building projects. And I haven't seen mention of it yet on this thread, but a whole pile of cash can stay in his bank account if a person used lesser graded top woods. Grading is cosmetic, not acoustic. I bought a box of tops from a dealer in Alaska, came out to ten bucks a top, shipping included. Some bracing in the box, too. The wood is beautifully quartered, rings like a bell, and the first guitar I made using it sounds like the angels singing. And its striping and shading works very nicely with my purpleheart binding.

I visited a luthier recently and he showed me one of his 'keeper' projects that had a Douglas fir top. Sounded wonderful. But to use lumberyard wood takes a whole lot of shopping and sorting, and the ability to resaw and thickness sand the wood, tools to do that won't likely be found in a beginning builder's shop.

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Peter Havriluk

https://www.hibdonhardwood.com/collections/luthiersspecial

Go down to the 2nd grade mahogany neck blanks. Two 24" blanks will easily make a neck for $8. I bought a bunch and they are all nice and quartered. Might be the last time you see Honduran mahogany for necks this cheap ever. It is easy to spend $50-75 per guitar for Honduran if 1st grade. The 2nd grade will have color issues or the random bug hole you can work around.

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John Lewis
Wannabe builder owned by 2 crazy dachshunds

John, I followed your link but couldn't find seconds or grades of any kind.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

FWIW , before you shell out $$$ for a nice neck stock .you might consider making a model neck from spruce or pine 2 by 4

I've made 5 necks for various instruments so I'm pretty confident of the outcome of the neck. Getting the body together will be interesting for me. I'm not going to use radius dishes and prefer to use hand planes for everything except the final sanding.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Sorry, I assumed you had never carved a neck.
My Mahogany reccomendation was based on ease of carvng and shapng.
Dan

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

No problem Dan

I ordered my top and bracewood, enough for 2 guitars to spread out the shipping costs. I'm going to get the neck and possibly the fretboard wood locally.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Yup!!

It’s all I have ever used. I’m only in around 35 instruments mind...

I recently tried cherry and black walnut for necks and liked them both...

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com