Wood choices and considerations

[Crawforde]

I’d like to try some Tamarind if I could find a piece.
austalian pine/ she oak is a crazy invasive down here and a piece of that might work. Brazilian pepper wood seems hard as well.
the only problem is I might have to cut and split it myself and then wait a few years for it to stabilize.
My Underhill upright will have a white oak fingerboard. I have enough of that left to use if needed while something cooler finishes drying. The white oak darkened up nicely with ammonia vapor.

 

[Beej]

@Crawforde I've done a Tamarind top/back guitar a few years ago. I got it from these guys who happen to have almost the same thing for sale right now (for more than double what I paid!). It was done by request, but personally I didn't find it too thrilling.
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[mrperkolator]

I’d like to try some Tamarind if I could find a piece.
austalian pine/ she oak is a crazy invasive down here and a piece of that might work. Brazilian pepper wood seems hard as well.
the only problem is I might have to cut and split it myself and then wait a few years for it to stabilize.
My Underhill upright will have a white oak fingerboard. I have enough of that left to use if needed while something cooler finishes drying. The white oak darkened up nicely with ammonia vapor.

Might be worth trying. If it's invasive the supply will be high people may even pay you to get rid of it.

For those more in the southwest, these two have caught my interest as possible fretboard material to be used on a future (theoretical at this point) bass:

Texas Ebony
Desert Ironwood

not really particularly close to me though, so supply would be very rough. Turns out I can get plenty of pecan and mesquite in sizes plenty big, which is surprising for mesquite. But they are in sizes big enough to make several, not just 1. And expensive.

 

[Jeff Siddall]

If you're down in FL, is there any cool local hardwood? give it an extra FL flair.

I thought everything was hot in Florida

Also, you missed your opportunity for a dad joke:

"give it an extra FLair"

What about red palm? I think that grows in Florida. I found some black palm (native to Asia) at my local hardwood store up here once, and was tempted to do a fretboard out of it. It was very interesting looking stuff, but didn't really have a need at the time.

I’d like to try some Tamarind if I could find a piece.

I bought a slab of tamarind, and it is pretty cool (ha!) wood, though I haven't actually made anything with it yet. Spalting and crazy contrast between the heartwood and sapwood are things that I find hard to resist:

Here is a bit of it with some naptha spashed on to reveal the color better:

 

[boxerrider]

The problem with Texas ebony is it seldom grows large enough to get guitar-size boards.

 

[pepj]

Ive had Ash, Alder, Wenge, Bubinga and I far prefer the time honoured combo of Alder for the body.
I go maple neck and either Rosewood or Maple board.

You can alter things like facings or tops but you never really know how they will really sound together until you play them in earnest.

I go active but I really like the bass to be more than usuable in passive. I find myself using passive more and more

 

[mrperkolator]

Ive had Ash, Alder, Wenge, Bubinga and I far prefer the time honoured combo of Alder for the body.
I go maple neck and either Rosewood or Maple board.

You can alter things like facings or tops but you never really know how they will really sound together until you play them in earnest.

I go active but I really like the bass to be more than usuable in passive. I find myself using passive more and more

When discussing woods... it's important to note that the reason Rosewood was traditionally used by acoustic guitar makers before electric guitars was simply it was cheap and available compared to what they were imitating -- ebony on orchestral instruments. The now iconic woods used in electric guitars were first used -- you guessed it -- simply because they were cheap and available. Marketing of "tonewoods" came later. Note I'm not arguing for or against that argument. Just pointing out the original reason for wood selection was a business decision and not a musical one.

I'm not knocking your preference. But in the name of wood availability to my kids and grandkids for instruments, we need conversations like the one here to try new things. The wider the selection of woods that are acceptable, the lower the pressure on any one species of tree. Lower pressure on tree species allows for them to regrow and stabilize. The Aussies have been on this a while, and they use all sorts of "tonewoods" that are not available easily outside of Australia. Some of these trees were planted by luthiers 50 years or so ago because they couldn't easily get the woods we use, and they wanted their grandchildren to have wood availability -- even if it was "different."

Plus, nothing says "I'm from (insert place here)." like a guitar/bass made from (insert local wood/state tree here).

 

[ctmullins]

That’s one reason that I, as an American, love using maple, walnut, and cherry.

The other reasons are that they machine well and look great!

 

[mrperkolator]

That’s one reason that I, as an American, love using maple, walnut, and cherry.

The other reasons are that they machine well and look great!

given the woods available.... Walnut is my favorite body wood when I play with warmoth's customization tool. Walnut is just such a beautiful wood.

 

[pepj]

Trying new things is fine but you can drop 3k on a custom build without a badge/label so you need to know it has a very good chance of working.

And that 3k is needed to source decent versions of traditonal wood choices which will be, or should be, from sustainable and ethical sources.

All my recents builds have made a huge point that they used proper sustainable wood sources...and charged accordingly.

Alder by happy accident is fine with me

 

[mrperkolator]

Trying new things is fine but you can drop 3k on a custom build without a badge/label so you need to know it has a very good chance of working.

And that 3k is needed to source decent versions of traditonal wood choices which will be, or should be, from sustainable and ethical sources.

All my recents builds have made a huge point that they used proper sustainable wood sources...and charged accordingly.

Alder by happy accident is fine with me

I absolutely agree given the context of buying a bass from others. If I was not doing it myself or had limited knowledge, then absolutely I'd probably pick from known combinations. Especially at 3k.

As this is posted in Luthier's Corner, the context here is more about what luthiers are using or trying. Several of us are amateur (at best!) luthiers and enjoy discussing woods and techniques with others far more skilled. If you read from page 1 on this thread, you'll see some cool stuff. darkening with ammonia, etc.

Also on the first post...

Tone is a consideration, but hopefully discussed only as one factor of a larger equation. I don't think TB needs another tone debate....

I agree with you about alder. If I get around to building it will probably be used as a core wood with different top and back. But if we get stuck on "tonewood" stuff then content like the darkening with ammonia may not come up. Somewhere a person came up with the idea of torrification or roasting wood to stabilize it. Not on this thread, but that sort of ingenuity is what I was hoping to create when I started this thread. New ideas. New woods. Makes for a great read about wood, if that interests you. By all means give observations on basses and experiences with various woods that you've owned.

 

[pepj]

Bubinga. For facing and neck stringers. The neck was 7 piece, neck through with an ebony board.
Body was flame maple, which was only really visible from the sides as had the Bubinga facings front and back.
Overall the sound was modern and a bit dark.
Powerful Shack pre with Barts could liven that up...a trick many many builders employ as a safety net for the sound, but I felt this didn't whole package didn't speak 'naturally'.

Alder man body painted, with flame maple neck and rosewood board.
Pretty spanky and my go to for years but I'm past soaps and JE pre amps now.

Both basses exceptional quality builds, imv.

Fender Custom, Alder, qtr sawn maple with Ferro body. Nothing much Custom about it until I swapped out all the hardware with better parts and elecs.
Kept the Custom pickups nice.
Does a nice Jazz but not quite what I was hearing.

Ash body with flame maple facing. Bird's-eye neck and board. Very pretty and very lively.
Too new to chop about but doesn't get out as much as it should. Graphite nut might be the first thing I'd change...maybe.

Alder body and paint, maple neck, birdseye board.
Nicest natural sound

I'm basically running passive with the pre switched in to slightly colour so not wild shaping.

Next up will start as Alder body, solid paint with maple neck with black blocks and binding.
But who knows...if and when I find i, I'll buy because it fits most of what I now want.

 

[mrperkolator]

by the way...... Yerby Guitars is pretty cool for those of us who love the wood look. I can find him on reverb, but he may have a FB too... I dont have FB so I'm not sure. No affiliation. I do like his use of wood for fret markers.

Here's past work on a bass..

edit: I have no clue if he's on TB...

 

[mrperkolator]

tangentially related TB thread because of Yerby's cool and unusual inlays on the fretboard....

Inlay designs

 

[mrperkolator]

Has anyone tried using wood for frets? Had an odd idea to use ebony frets today. Probably silly but fun to consider

 

[Jeff Siddall]

Well, for the first day they might work OK!

Even a relatively hard wood, like ebony, is about 1/10th the hardness of nickle silver, and nickle silver frets wear out relatively quickly.

 

[Crawforde]

I’ve heard of stepped fretboards. Like a fretless, but steps carved in to act like frets.
Many older instruments had tied on gut frets that could be replaced when worn if you are looking for a softer fret material.

 

[Max Bogosity]

I bet they would work fine with the strings that Kala uses on their U-Basses.

 

[mrperkolator]

To be honest, it was me distracting myself from other stuff. It was a nice mental exercise to hypothesize about potential tone etc. I am aware it would wear out early.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

I’ve heard of stepped fretboards. Like a fretless, but steps carved in to act like frets.
Many older instruments had tied on gut frets that could be replaced when worn if you are looking for a softer fret material.

Something along the lines of the Bond Electraglide?