Tonewoods and sustainability

[AlexR]

Re: Tonewoods and sustainability

The good thing about wood is that 'tonewood' can be practically any wood you like. I mean the idea that the companies in the 50's somehow chose local cheap options (for the most part) to use on the first electrics and they somehow turned out to be the only woods that would work for guitar is silly.

We now are in the situation where need is making us consider options that we wouldn't have looked at otherwise - and finding gems.

 

[MrTondo]

Re: Tonewoods and sustainability

For electrics I don't see why alternative woods would not be useful.

However for sustain in a guitar (acoustic sustain that is), the wood is crucially important together with strings, bridge, nut , tuners, joints etc. But important none the less. The way wood can hold vibration is really dependent on the wood itself... It needs to have a high Q-factor (that is the physical constant causing how well a piece of wood resonates when it is brought into vibration). When it has a very low Q it will not hold the vibration well and will not sustain much.

That is the tricky part of finding alternative woods. Especially for acoustics where sustain is the name of the game. It is not for no reason that Brazilian Rosewood was/is so popular, it usually has quite high Q-factor. That is why many luthiers tend to tap on wood to see how it resonates.

When you find wood that resonates a lot and is easy to grow, you have found yourself the goldmine of alternative tonewood . You really hit the jackpot when it also shows some figuring.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Tonewoods and sustainability

^ There are a lot of great woods that tap like Braz.....Ziricote for example. But tap is not the be-all and end all as not only does the wood have to play in with every other bit that is on the guitar, but tap-tone is based on the shape and size of the cut which you tap as much as density. As soon as you shape say a fretboard, its tap-tone will have altered due to its mass changing.

 

[HiFiRebel]

Re: Tonewoods and sustainability

Ovation makes acoustic guitars that are half plastic. Exceptions to every rule I guess.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Tonewoods and sustainability

There are several woods that are difficult to work with because they splinter easily when dry enough to cut, or gum up tools if you don't dry them to that point.

As for having enough used guitars to go around, I'm sure there are, but the problem with that is no one is willing to pay a fair price for them right now, but they'll be raped when that becomes their only option.

What I see as wasteful is using mahogany, maple, rosewood, and ebony for furniture.

As for guitar makers in the 50s deciding that whatever junk they could score cheap being forever crowned tonewood, that's inaccurate. Gibson was already making acoustics, so they had some idea of what woods were better for tone than others. As well, neither Gibson nor Fender simply decided for everyone that certain woods were viable tonewoods and all others were crap. They had to test as much wood as they could find, and I'm sure they looked at pine.

I don't see how pine is economical for guitars. At most I'd say the cost to source it is balanced by the extra time to dry it and prep it for use in guitars, and the cost of tool replacement and repair when the sap gums it up, not to mention the inconsistency of it. At least they could probably sell their scrap pieces as pallet wood.

 

[kramersteen]

Re: Tonewoods and sustainability

You gum up tools.

Not all pine is equal just so you know. We have some great species with the name pine attached to it. Bunya and hoop are both great timbers and come from huge long growth trees.

 

[kramersteen]

Re: Tonewoods and sustainability

The best sustainable timber is paulownia. It's tone is nice enough but the wood is extremely light and soft.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Tonewoods and sustainability

I had a Jackson bass that was all Australian Lacewood. Beautiful figuring in that.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Tonewoods and sustainability

Godin uses cherry on some archtops. I am all for breaking away from tradition here- a well designed electric could easily be made out of carbon fiber (like The Blade) or any of the 10s of thousands of species of woods the industry ignores.

 

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

Re: Tonewoods and sustainability

While I do not mind new thinking and such, I have never tried a guitar that was made from composite, plastics, carbon, laminated wood(Martin necks) that I liked in any way.

Have tried lots of alternative wood guitars though...that on the other hands was a load of good times....
Carbon rods in necks I do like though

But yeah there is probally something out there that can do the trick in some way!?!
I like new paths of thinking, but I also like stupid simple

 

[backporchpicker]

Re: Tonewoods and sustainability

how about tone metals?
http://www.electricalguitarcompany.com/models/
Then we could talk for years about what alloy sound best:
The temper designation follows the cast or wrought designation number with a dash, a letter, and potentially a one to three digit number, e.g. 6061-T6. The definitions for the tempers are:[5][6]

-F
As fabricated
-H
Strain hardened (cold worked) with or without thermal treatment
-H1
Strain hardened without thermal treatment
-H2
Strain hardened and partially annealed
-H3
Strain hardened and stabilized by low temperature heating
Second digit
A second digit denotes the degree of hardness
-HX2 = 1/4 hard
-HX4 = 1/2 hard
-HX6 = 3/4 hard
-HX8 = full hard
-HX9 = extra hard
-O
Full soft (annealed)
-T
Heat treated to produce stable tempers
-T1
Cooled from hot working and naturally aged (at room temperature)
-T2
Cooled from hot working, cold-worked, and naturally aged
-T3
Solution heat treated and cold worked
-T4
Solution heat treated and naturally aged
-T5
Cooled from hot working and artificially aged (at elevated temperature)
-T51
Stress relieved by stretching
-T510
No further straightening after stretching
-T511
Minor straightening after stretching
-T52
Stress relieved by thermal treatment
-T6
Solution heat treated and artificially aged
-T7
Solution heat treated and stabilized
-T8
Solution heat treated, cold worked, and artificially aged
-T9
Solution heat treated, artificially aged, and cold worked
-T10
Cooled from hot working, cold-worked, and artificially aged
-W
Solution heat treated only

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: Tonewoods and sustainability

I like how Bob Taylor has been involved in sustaining tonewoods. I don't see the need to stop producing guitars–just responsible tree farms/nurseries.

I like companies such as Ovation and Breedlove that think outside the box by using non-traditional materials/tonewoods. But the best acoustic I've ever heard was a late 1800's Martin with traditional tonewoods.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Tonewoods and sustainability

I think acoustic guitars have been successful in introducing new wood species. Electric guitarists (can you belive it) seem to be the more conservative ones here. The Gibson Smartwoods didn't sell well (although the design was flawed- it only used a top that was a different wood), and so far alternative species have not taken off in any real way. At some point, there won't much old-growth wood out there, so we will be forced into choice, then.

 

[jtougas]

Re: Tonewoods and sustainability

Poplar is underused/underappreciated, in my opinion.

 

[baritone]

Re: Tonewoods and sustainability

how about tone metals?
http://www.electricalguitarcompany.com/models/

Those look awesome!

 

[SlyFoxx]

Re: Tonewoods and sustainability

I'm all for responsible use of natural resources. But the big three for electric guitars...mahogany, ebony and rosewood. ...I just have to wonder what else gets made from those woods. I mean how much mahogany goes into a new mansion or some grand hotel ballroom?

 

[Darg1911]

Re: Tonewoods and sustainability

Seagull takes pride in using woods like cherry, spruce, maple , and cedar because they are sustainable iirc.

I love my Cedar topped seagull, the Cherry sides actually are pretty and seem to do well.

Godin is doing it in some of the electrics as well. Cherry, maple, cedar, poplar. Richlite for fingerboards on some models.

 

[Sirion]

Re: Tonewoods and sustainability

How does Richlite sound anyway? I remember it being widely panned when Gibson tried to go that route, but I wouldn't be surprised if few of the people complaining had actually tried one; it seemed to come mostly from conservatism.

It is an interestin prospect in any case, as wood for necks (and fretboards in particular) will probably be the ones most greatly limited the most quickly.

 

[DrNewcenstein]

Re: Tonewoods and sustainability

Gibson and Fender guys will always complain if they don't stick to mahogany, maple, rosewood, swamp ash, and ebony. They want things made the way they've been made since the 1950s simply because they were not there to enjoy the originals, or they were there and they think progress is Satanic in a bad way.
Puritans, in other words. I actually saw one of them go into a rage when they removed the covers from their brand new pickups and found gray bobbins instead of black or crème. The guy was talking about lawsuits!

Composite materials don't sound familiar, hence, no one wants them for traditional shapes like LPs and Strats. It's always funny when I see people are so demanding of tonewoods and then have it fitted with high-output EMGs through a wall of total saturation and say they're getting a more pure tone :lol:

 

[Mincer]

Re: Tonewoods and sustainability

Poplar is underused/underappreciated, in my opinion.

I have a poplar Music Man, but it is heavy (1.5x as heavy as an alder bodied one), and it is about the middy-est sound I have ever heard in a guitar. I use scoopy pickups (Jazz, C5) which tames it, mostly. Also, poplar is a really ugly, grey/green wood. It could only really have opaque finishes.