by Lukas Milani
The choice of woods used in lutherie is nowadays an established practice. Recently, however, due to the indiscriminate cutting of trees, some woods became scarce forcing luthiers to find alternative woods that could compensate that shortage, without altering the acoustic qualities of musical instruments. The adirondack fir is a famous example; it’s a tree that grows in the Adirondack Mountains, east of New York; its wood has exceptional acoustic qualities and it’s been used for the construction of Martin guitars‘ soundboards for many years. In the late ’40s, when this kind of tree became hard to find, it had to be replaced with the Sitka spruce, that had a softer and less resonant wood. The result was that Martin guitars lost their original expressive quality, and lost much of their appeal on the market.
The timber usually used for the construction of acoustic and classical guitars‘ soundboards are spruce and red cedar.
The spruce (of the Picea genus) can be found from Scandinavia to the Balkans. It grows in mountain areas from 200 to 1000 meters high above sea level. Its trunk can grow up to 50 meters tall and reach a diameter of up to 80 cm. It has a light color and has great tonal quality.
The red cedar has a reddish-brown wood, it’s harmonically less rich than the spruce, but it’s quite resistant to deformation, that can occur due to string tension.
The use of Sitka wood, a pinkish-white wood from North America, for acoustic guitars gives -compared to spruce- a brighter sound, albeit slightly less expressive.
The necks of plucked instruments are often made of mahogany, a reddish wood with a rather homogenous grain, quite common in Africa, in the far east and in America. Its strength and weight vary from species to species, but its lightness, combined with a certain resistance to tension and compression makes it the ideal choice for many manufacturers. For the electric guitars is generally used maple; it’s a white and non-porous wood from Europe, rather hard and heavy, but with a long tradition in the making of stringed instruments.
For the construction of the fretboard, ebony it’s normally used. A non-porous dark -almost black- wood coming from Africa, southeastern Asia or central America. Its tight texture is easily polished, making it an ideal candidate for many instruments. It has a rather high specific weight. An alternative to ebony is indian rosewood, a porous and light wood, usually employed for the construction of acoustic and electric guitars. It has a smooth sound, quite rich in the low-mid frequency range, which makes it the ideal candidate for the construction of the sides and back of stringed musical instruments. It also has a great sound projection.
Cypress is a wood used for the sides and back of flamenco guitar and it’s characterized by its bright sound, light weight and intense and pleasant scent. It has a light yellow color.
In the construction of back and sides, mahogany, maple and walnut wood are also used. Along these traditional woods, some alternative ones have recently been used in lutherie, such as bubinga, ziricote, koa, cocobolo, sapele, ovangkol, jacaranda, zebrano, padouk and many other tropical woods. They all have beautiful and figured grain, good tonal quality and high resistance to deformation.
The woods generally used in the construction of electric guitars‘ bodies, are alder -a rather strong and clear wood- and ash, that has a more pronounced grain than alder, but has excellent acoustic qualities.
Happy lutherie to everyone, and see you next time!
