Selecting Guitar Wood Based on Material Properties, Part One

by Trevor Gore

Originally published in American Lutherie #118, 2014

see also,
Selecting Guitar Wood Based on Material Properties, Part Two by Trevor Gore



In 1993, Bob Benedetto built an archtop guitar from construction-grade knotty pine with a back of weather-checked maple. In 1995, Bob Taylor used top wood cut from a 2×4 (“pine, fir, or hemlock”) and back wood from an oak pallet salvaged from a dumpster to build a guitar. Roger Bucknall (Fylde Guitars) routinely uses top wood of Oregon pine from distillery washback vessels and back and side wood salvaged from oak whisky casks for his “single malt” guitars. C.F. Martin & Company builds guitars with backs and sides made from high-pressure laminates with composite fretboards, materials of a type more commonly found surfacing kitchen workbenches. On its website, Martin claims that its wood-topped HPL guitars have the “sound of a highly collectible Martin,” presumably invoking comparisons to red spruce/rosewood instruments. The claims made by these makers for the sound of such instruments make the point that building a good guitar depends more on the skill of the luthier than on the quality of the materials that are used.

In 1862, the great Antonio de Torres proved his point by building a guitar with papier-mâché back and sides so, as one legend goes, to demonstrate the primacy of the soundboard in guitar construction. I, too, have built a guitar using reclaimed wood from a building renovation. It had a five-piece radiata pine top and meranti back and sides. It sounds better than the majority of guitars that you can buy in a main-street store.