New series: Timber Talk

We all love to talk about our guitars. And one of the favourite talking points is "what's it made of?" We attribute near-magical properties to those slabs of old rosewood that make up the body of an old Martin, or the chunk of mahogany underpinning the tone of a golden era Gibson, but what of that is real and what is hype? I can't really answer that, but I can show you a little about what my own guitars are made of (hype is entirely up to you).

This will be the first entry in a series about the woods I use. I'll be showcasing the trees that grow around here and provide the local, sustainable timber that I prefer to use whenever possible. Some will be obscure, gems growing in plain sight; others, familiar standbyes used successfully by generations of luthiers. Our first is definitely an old favourite: the Maples.

This is a magnificent old Sugar Maple (Acer Saccharum) growing near my house. It is one of the more common trees of eastern and central Ontario. It's famously the source of maple syrup and brilliant red fall foliage, and its timber (also sometimes called rock maple) is favoured for everything from fine furniture to bowling alley floors. It is smooth, creamy white, lustrous, stable and strong (click here for the USDA data sheet on the mechanical properties of maples).

There are a few other species of maple that grow locally and can be used for guitars. Red Maple (Acer Rubrum) is similar to sugar maple, but generally a little lighter, weaker, and often more tan in colour. Little-known fact: many classic Gibsons, including the legendary original Les Paul model, were made of it, though it was referred to as "michigan maple". The Silver Maple (Acer Saccharinium) grows quickly to enourmous sizes, but it is lighter and weaker still. One famous Canadian guitar company has successfully used it for thousands of guitar necks though. Last and least is the little Manitoba Maple (also called Boxelder, Acer Negundo), which would be of little use except that it often harbours a mold that has the habit of creating attractive bright pink stripes throughout the wood. A photo, clockwise from top, of figured sugar maple, boxelder, and spalted red maple:

This illustrates one of the most prized attributes of maple: the variety of appearances it can take. Our local maples are occasionally discovered with striped fiddleback (also called "flamed") figure. Sugar Maple is sometimes found with birdseye figure instead. These are caused by the cells in the living tree growing in an undulating pattern. When sawn, the light reflects and refracts differently from the cells depending on their orientation, creating that incredible 3D effect called "chatoyance". Spalting, on the other hand, is a natural process that can occur after the maple has been felled. If it is left and allowed to rot just slightly, molds will invade and create striking ink-black lines (or pink in the case of Boxelder) throughout the wood. Sawing and quickly drying at just the right point arrests the rot before the strength and integrity of the wood is affected too badly.

So with what magical properties does this fine wood imbue a guitar? It's hard to say. In the world of electric guitars, it is the most ubiquitous neck wood, the benchmark any others would be measured against, and so in that respect is neutral. In the realm of acoustic guitars, it's a middleweight: lighter than the rosewoods, denser than mahoganies (but not much stiffer) and with a higher damping factor than either, it is said to encourage a brighter, cutting tone. This of course would be measurable if all things were equal. In lutherie, they never are; so let's just appreciate it for it's abudance and beauty:

Sankey guitars made using Maple:

Honeydrop, Caramellow, Mapledip, The Fish, Stumpy, Spaltecaster, Sweet Dreams, Rippling Brook, Argus, Lap Steel #1

Resurrection

Woodworkers and musicians have a couple of common fetishes: stuff that's old, and stuff that's cheap. Luthiers of course get a double dose of that impulse. So imagine my joy when I was given this five dollar garage-sale special:

This is not just some rusty old handplane; according to Patrick Leach's "Stanley Blood and Gore" (the best reference for old Stanley/Bailey bench planes) this is an authentic Bailey #4½ made between 1902 and 1920.

Despite its age, there is only superficial rust, and amazingly all the parts are there. After disassembly, the first thing to do was to clean off all the dirt and rust. Here I'm scouring off the sole using an extra-fine brass wire wheel in the drill press:

Works like a charm! The castings are all very precisely-made and fine-grained, and the lever cap is even nickel-plated. Even the black paint is still glossy under the dust. The original blade, however, is rather thin steel, and it had enough rust pitting that I decided to replace it with an A2 blade from Lee Valley. The original tote was broken pretty badly, and obviously glued back together misaligned, before subsequently being broken again. I decided to replace both the tote and knob.

Notice that I made my own knob much taller than the original. The short knob is a design flaw with these old planes that makes them uncomfortable to use. It was corrected around 1920- that's how I know mine is older than that. I made the new ones of Jatoba, which is not quite so beautiful or pleasant to touch as the original rosewood but quite a bit cheaper and tougher. This is after all going to be a working tool, not a showhorse.

There were a couple of details that needed attending to in order for the plane to work to its ultimate potential. The mouth needed a very slight widening to accomodate the thicker modern blade. Some judicious filing ensured that the frog seated perfectly in the body. Most importantly, to work properly, it needs a flat sole. This plane had obviously been used a fair bit, but had never had the sole lapped. After assembling to put the correct tension on the casting, I stuck some PSA-backed sandpaper to a flat granite slab, and rubbed in a figure-8 pattern until it was done.

All done, and much better than new! Considering the time it took to resurrect this old workhorse, I probably could have just gone and got myself a new Veritas bevel-up smoother that would work at least as well. But what would be the fun in that?

Progress Report

Sometimes I just want to share what I've been up to. Here's a look at the seven-string headless guitar you first saw here.

Those huge hollow chambers will not only lighten the guitar up a lot, they'll provide plenty of area for the top plate to vibrate. The front of this guitar is made out of lovely red (also known as adirondack) spruce from Quebec, often considered to be the absolute best soundoard material around. I anticipate some warm, complex and rich tone from this one...

The neck is also departure from the ordinary. Take a look:

That's Rick Toone's patented Trapezoid Neck Profile™ (TNP™) (US pat. D630,676), implemented at the request of the customer. It looks awkward, what with those corners, but I can tell just from holding it that it really is a very comfortable neck profile; and more importantly it promotes healthy hand position habits. I can't wait to see how it turns out with strings on.

Argus

Presenting my latest electric guitar: Argus Panoptes

This is a straightforward streetfighter of a guitar- light and handy, with plenty of grunt and grit from a short scale and vintage-style P-90 pickups. You might recognize this one from my earlier post New Tricks, where I showed how I laminates the body layers together. Check it out!

Designs

I've just got a really interesting new commission to build another ultramodern headless seven-string guitar. Lots of fun, but it's always challenging to come up with yet another original design. If you've ever wondered where it starts, here you go.

After discussing with the client what their needs and desires are, I lay out the essentials. These are the parts that have clealy defined parameters- mostly this means the fretboard width and length, the bridge position, and the edges that are needed to hold the guitar comfortably, like this:

I find it much the best to draw full size. Once the basics are in place, the creative part begins. Drawing with soft pencil and eraser, I home in on a shape that might work:

More erasing, more refinement. This particular guitar will be semi-hollow, too. I imagine the way it will look with a contrasting top layer, and sketch in where the wood will be carved away for comfort, exposing the boy wood underneath. Here's what I came up with:

You can see the two layers, as well as the area in the upper left of the body where the hollow in the body is exposed, creating a soundhole. I thought that was pretty clever.

By this point I've got a pretty good 3D rendering of the instrument in my own head. To help the client visualize though, I do a few drawings of some of the details:

Turns out that four years of Fine Arts in University weren't a complete wast of time, though to be fair to myself they didn't teach this kind of stuff. Next step, converting these flat drawings into a real guitar! Stay tuned...