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May 25th, 2006 admin Leave a comment Go to comments

Guitar Made
Home-made acoustic guitar help, what kinds of wood? How do I curve the sides?

I am going to attempt to make an acoustic guitar for my music appreciation class project. However I’m not sure what woods would be best. I’m not looking for fancy hard to get woods that are expensive but woods that look and sound beautiful. The tricky part is the curving of the sides. How do I do this? What wood type is best?

The type of wood I would recommend is mahogany for the neck back and sides. It is good looking, affordable and available. And unlike other woods you might choose such as rosewood, maple, or other extremely hard woods, mahogany is still soft and flexible enough to be used for the top as well. The only other woods traditionally used for guitar tops are sitka spruce (most common) or occasionally you may see cedar tops on classical guitars. The wood used for the fretboard and to make the bridge is usually either rosewood or ebony with ebony being my favored choice. These parts must be made from very hard wood as the fretboard has to resist years of wear and the bridge is under constant stress from string tension.
One way to bend the sides is by soaking the halves one at a time in a long metal trough filled with hot water. After soaking in the hot water they become pliable enough to not crack when bent. The sides are then clamped between two halves of a mold in the shape of a guitar side. When cooled and dried, the side retains the shape of the form. You can buy Mahogany sides pre bent from a company called Stewart McDonald if you want to save the bother. In fact you can get matching side and back sets, and tops all milled to the correct thickness for you. You can get all of the other needed parts and materials from them as well such as bridges, necks, fret boards, bracing stock, all in either raw blank stock or as finished machined guitar parts. They even sell complete kits including plans and DVD instructions. Grizzly Industrial is another great source for guitar building kits, woods and supplies as is Luthier’s Mercantile. Good luck with your project.

How its made – Godin Acoustic Guitar