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Double Bass Alternative Tonewood

#25
quartered (only) sycamore good..has a history with instruments. heavy, resist splitting.. has interlocked grain..if green not the most friendly to dry,holds water..polishes and finishes fine..makes for a long day if worked with handtools..should be inexpen$ive. favorable for your purpose..
 
#28
not so unusual in the olden days, but a bit neglected today is Willow. I haven't even been able to find air dried willow in bass size, in spite of it's outstanding sonic qualities.

I have played quite a few old willow basses. Most of them had pretty thick graduations. They had an amazing organ-like low end, lots of air.
 
#31
uprightben said:
Does anyone have any experience with sycamore? My luthier seems to think it would work very well, but he has yet to put his money where his mouth is.
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I owned a DeLeone fully restored and regraduated by Arnold Schnitzer. It was made of sycamore, with a pine top. Excellent. I bought it from a bassist with the Metropolitan Opera Orch.
I've seen other DeLeone basses that were sycamore.
 
#32
Illbay said:
Just FYI, Buginga and Cocobolo, as well as Padauk and Koa, are frequently used for TOPS in high-end acoustic guitars. I'm not sure why they wouldn't work for DB tops as well (though I cannot obviously vouch for their "carvability.")
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I have never heard of any of those being used for tops. Backs and sides, certainly. But not tops, surely?
 
#33
No, not guitar tops, except for Koa on some few models.

And the trees are much too small to have anything to offer in DB sizes.

Not to mention that these are the selfsame disappearing tonewoods that are being replaced in guitar building.

I don't think the 'Alternative Tonewoods' topic needs to be raised regarding DB building.

Maple for back & ribs? Plentiful in appropriate sizes, figured and not from New & Old World sources.

Spruce for tops? Still plentiful in Sitka & Engelmann and also available in European Spruces.

Ebony for fingerboards is the one relevant species that is showing signs of harvest pressures, but the market is fairly stable as of yet. We'll know when its getting scarce by the spike in the price.
 
#35
Jake deVilliers said:
Maple for back & ribs? Plentiful in appropriate sizes, figured and not from New & Old World sources.

Spruce for tops? Still plentiful in Sitka & Engelmann and also available in European Spruces.

Ebony for fingerboards is the one relevant species that is showing signs of harvest pressures, but the market is fairly stable as of yet. We'll know when its getting scarce by the spike in the price.
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Jake, point well taken, to a point. :hmm:

One of the reasons I'm really interested in this thread is to find out what non-trad species builders are using besides the 'big three'. Where I live there are a lot of local sawyers who are pulling a lot of types of trees out of their bush lots. Some are very interesting to look at and use in cabinet making, so I was wondering if some of these were practical for use in double bass making. I'm keeping my eyes peeled to get inspired and perhaps dry and season some wood for future projects. As it is now, I've got some lovely maple an poplar ready to go (both locally cut) as well as a big beautiful wedge of WR cedar I got from Peter Chandler for a top.

Cheers, Kev
 
#38
ctregan said:
Curious, Hemlock for a bass top?
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Well, from http://www.woodbin.com/ref/wood/strength_table.htm I pulled the following stats:

Species: Average Specific Gravity/ Static Bending/ Max Shear Strength (PSI)

E.Spruce: 0.35 / 1.30 / 1,200
WR Cedar: 0.32 / 1.11 / 990
Western Hemlock: 0.45 / 1.63 / 1,290

Which, to me, means pretty much nothing. ;)

Actually, does it mean that Hemlock is heavier, stiffer and slightly stronger along the grain than the other two? So, if the wood is workable (unknown), one might be inclined to use thinner graduations. Or so I guess...
 
#40
In construction, hemlock is used frequently, but it is notorious for some extreme warping. I suppose it would eventually stabilize, but I remember going to a local lumber yard, to get a 2 x 8 treated hemlock plank. I wanted a 14' plank, and they only had one left-- the middle was on the ground, and both ends were nearly waist-high in the air. Other builders have told me of hemlock studs twisting so aggressively inside a wall that they eventually broke themselves in two, fighting against the restraining wall fasteners.

(It also rots easily, but you aren't going to expose your bass to the weather, I expect...)
 

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