Red oak

C

Caden_Vekk

Joined
Feb 28, 2007
Messages
184
not really about knives but is red oak a good tone wood? Would it need to be stabalized if i make a guitar body with it?
 
I have heard of some people making guitars out of oak but it is not commen. Do not stabalize it if you are going to make a guitar out of it. That would make the wood to dense. Some commen woods for guitars are maple, mahogany, swamp ash, alder, koa, walnut, poplar, and some exotics on high end electrics. If you are planning on making an electric guitar that will be used to play rock or metal than go for it the wood does not efffect the tone as much as the pickups or amp. Wood for knives is often stabalized to stop warping and make it water resistant in ways that a guitar does not need to be. It does however need to be very dry.
Good luck Will Crump
If you decide to go on with the project let me know how it goes.
 
Oak isn't a tonewood. It doesn't resonate well. Hold a board or block in your hand and tap it. Tonewoods vibrate in your hand, they "ring". Oak won't do that near as much.
 
I was just asking because i'm building a guitar for a senior project at school that pretty much dictates if i graduate or not and i dont have the money to buy tonewoods. I was looking at mahogany but my uncle has a red oak door that i could get free.
 
In 1995, Bob Taylor (Taylor Guitars) built the now infamous "Pallet Guitar" out of wood from a pallet he grabbed in the shipping department just to prove that it was as much the skill of the luthier as the wood that made a good guitar. Taylor guitars is not actually marketing a production version of the pallet guitar made with oak pallet wood sides and back and soundboard made from a 2x4 (spruce, pine, or fir, they won't say...)

Hey, if it's good enough for a well known luthier, it's good enough for you!

Is this an art project or woodworking project? If it's a luthier class project, I'm surprised you haven't heard of this guitar!!!

http://www.taylorguitars.com/guitars/archive/older/archive/pallet.html


J-
 
It's actually this random project my administrators at school decided every senior has to do. If we fail the project we fail the year. no matter the grades in any other class. I chose my project as making a guitar, you can choose just about anything it just has to be something you've never done before and all this carp
 
Caden_Vekk said:
...you can choose just about anything it just has to be something you've never done before and all this carp
Click to expand...

The old, "expand yourself by looking deep into your inexperience" project. I hated crap like that in school!!!

If you haven't seen it yet, find a copy of "Guitarmaking, Tradition and Technology" by Cumpiano and Natelson. It's about as close as you'll get to a one-stop-shop on how to build a classical or steel-string guitar.

Good luck!

J-
 
Not to mention we're doing this in English Literature (not British Literature, there's a difference apparently) and my Lit teacher is crazy. We're reading Beowulf (pronounced bay-oh-wolf, though she can't say it correctly so she says bee-eh-woof). She's talking about an apostrophe, not the punctuation mark. From her deffinition its when someone is talking to something that is not really there.... well the example she gave was after Beowulf died some guy said something to the effect of "Earth, take back these jewels so that no man can have them". Ok first off, if the Earth is not really there, where the hell is this taking place? just crap like that, oh and Caedmon (one of the people to write poetry in Old English) he's not a writer...he's a poet. Crap like that, this year'll be interesting. She's like a mix between and old time southern baptist preacher and forrest gump when she talks. ugh.
 
http://www.mimf.com/cgi-bin/WebX?14@236.lxNha7qbxHg.0@/

Go to this guitar building forum for some proper info. Building an acoustic guitar isn't a light project to take on as there's as many jigs and forms to build as the instrument itself. Think creative and look at other instruments like a dulcimer or electric guitar. PUPs and other hardware cost a good penny for quality goods. I primarily custom cut instrument woods for a living and most important is knowing how to choose proper grain oriented woods for a specific use. Good luck and think it thru. Do your homework, gain some self-help knowledge before asking all the basic questions on a guitar forum and it'll be appreciated. The MIMF has a library of archived info and a FAQ thread to read.
 
Red oak is great firewood. I have never saw a guitar with it. I started playing guitar when I was 6 years old. And that was a long time ago. But maybe some one has. Have a great knife day. :)
 
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