Beautiful maple

[cathouse willy]

A nicely figured set of maple sides and back for a ukulele.

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[goodbasil]

Lookin good

[David G]

Gorgeous stuff!

[Gary Davis]

What size ukulele are you building this time? Nice maple. What will you use for the soundboard?

[cathouse willy]

What size ukulele are you building this time? Nice maple. What will you use for the soundboard?

That's a picture from the woodtoworks site meant to tantalize anyone thinking about building an instrument. I have materials for a baritone ukulele and an accoustic guitar waiting for me to get busy.

[amish rob]

Yes, please!

[Bruce Brown]

As Andy Rooney once said about modern art: "I've got pieces of wood that would look better on the wall than that stuff."

[Gary Davis]

A baritone I made for my granddaughter. I'll be going back to "flat" instruments after my experience carving the plates for an F5 mandolin.
[IMG]Untitled by Gary Davis, on Flickr[/IMG]

[amish rob]

A baritone I made for my granddaughter. I'll be going back to "flat" instruments after my experience carving the plates for an F5 mandolin.
[IMG]Untitled by Gary Davis, on Flickr[/IMG]

What a beautiful little instrument! What a lucky girl!

I can’t play baritone, because I get confused enough switching from guitar to uke (a d is a g?), and a guitar/uke matrix makes me freeze! Haha.

One day, when all the kids are fed and gone, I’d like to spring for a nice tenor. Everyone says to build, but I’d like a nice one.

[cathouse willy]

Another beautiful instrument set. I love to window shop on an instrument building supply website, they often have some real beauties. This one is Padauk

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[Gary Davis]

The back on the ukulele above is padauk. Sides are East Indian rosewood. The back and sides WERE supposed to be Oregon myrtle but I screwed up the back and had to punt. Relegated to use what I had in my shop. My wife's uncle was a wood collector and I was able to get a fair share of his stash when he passed. I've not finished with the mandolin cause the figured cherry sides keep cracking so I'm starting on a classical guitar. Neck, back and sides will be Cuban mahogany also sourced from her uncle. Glued up a 5-piece neck blank yesterday.

[cathouse willy]

The hardwood site calls it silky oak


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[skuthorp]

The hardwood site calls it silky oak


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Grevillia Robusta silky oak?
https://www.wood-database.com/southern-silky-oak/#pics

[Todd Bradshaw]

I had a Takamine twelve for a while that had the back and sides made from silky oak. Neat stuff.

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There is no way I'd try to build an acoustic, but solid body electrics are pretty easy to make. For this guitar's rebuild I found a nice piece of maple on eBay that was wide enough to get the whole top out of one piece.

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[cathouse willy]

I've been window shopping again. The site calls it torrified maple. I call it drop dead gorgeous.

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The sides look like a tough bend but they're lovely also

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[WX]

I've been window shopping again. The site calls it torrified maple. I call it drop dead gorgeous.

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The sides look like a tough bend but they're lovely also

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I do love fiddleback grain, it has a beautiful 3D depth to it.

[cathouse willy]

More marvelous maple

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[cathouse willy]

Madrone

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[Todd Bradshaw]

I've always loved the backs of my German-made Hofners. It's kind of like every bass has its own totally individual fingerprint.

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[cathouse willy]

Eucalyptus

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[Todd Bradshaw]

One of my former twelve-strings had a cedar top and silky oak back and sides. Pretty wood!

Tak-Oak.jpg

[cathouse willy]

Some walnut to get lost in.


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[cathouse willy]

Window shopping again

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[Gary Davis]

What sites are you perusing?

[cathouse willy]

What sites are you perusing?

My favorite

https://www.woodtoworks.com/

[cathouse willy]

Indian rosewood




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[hawkeye54]

Beautiful grain there, Willy

[Todd Bradshaw]

I had a solid rosewood Harrison Telecaster for a while. It was pretty heavy, but had some of the nicest woodwork that I've ever seen come out of Fender.

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[amish rob]

I had a solid rosewood Harrison Telecaster for a while. It was pretty heavy, but had some of the nicest woodwork that I've ever seen come out of Fender.

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Ooooh! That’s one guitar I’d like to own, so I avoid to prevent purchase. I sure don’t need one.

Something about the way a nice Tele sounds, though. And I have this Fender amp it would sound nice through.

Ah, well. I suppose I can settle for this trashy Les Paul...

[Sandlapper]

No doubt there is some beautiful wood here. For me, I like the figure to be a good match for the project. A guitar back of book matched wood should be right for the size of the instrument or project. A mandolin and a dreadnought need figure of a different scale to look best. A small project like a hand mirror needs a figure that is complete in a small space and a broach needs an even smaller figure. A larger project like a cabinet panel likes a large figure that is complete in a large space but would not even be visible in a small project. Bookmatch can either be great or an affront to the eye if the joint lacks continuity or stands out too much.

[Todd Bradshaw]

Neck-through construction for basses and electric guitars presents a different scenario. With one piece of wood running all the way from the top of the headstock down to the end of the body and under the bridge you can have all the flame you want - just not in the middle of the body.

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I'm not always a huge fan of quilted maple, but this Jonathan Mann mandolin with the "underwater" paint job really got my attention.

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[Sandlapper]

Todd, I marvel at the wood patterns as well as the craftsmanship in some of the instruments you show. I'm not familiar with silky oak and wonder if it is similar to leopardwood like some I have used in knife scales.

[Todd Bradshaw]

The literature from Takamine (the guitar's manufacturer) either called it Silky Oak or in some places "Lacewood" for the back and sides with a cedar top.

[Todd Bradshaw]

Another nice hunk of maple. This 1992 Rickenbacker twelve-string is their plain Jane, unbound model which I bought from a dealer in Miami as a spare. Why I thought at the time that I should have a spare one is hard to say, but this one does have unusually nice wood, especially for that model. It came with black hardware and pick guards, which I wasn't fond of, so I replaced it all with chrome and I made new white plexi guards. Then I added the middle pickup, changed the nut spacing and stereo wired it. Taking a router to the top of a perfectly good and rather pricey guitar is an interesting experience.

These bodies are cut from a big thick block of maple. They router out all the cavities from the back side, making it semi-hollow bodied, and then add a back panel to it, so the top and sides are all one piece of wood.

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[David G]

Lots of beautiful examples here. I agree with Sandlapper about keeping the scale of the grain patterns in mind in order to achieve the effect you want.

The 'Silky Oak' or Lacewood is an Australian rain-forest tree quarter-sawn for the most chatoyance.

The only set that went 'thud' for me was the Madrone example. Madrone grows around here, and I've seen lots prettier slices of it. Doesn't get very large in diameter, so it's tough to get any decent veneer out of it. Lumber is even more limited. But it can be pretty.