Alternative" woods for pedal steel guitars..

Bob Carlucci · From: Candor, New York, USA

I wonder why all wood body pedal steel guitars over the years have been made of maple.. yeah a few plywood clunkers here and there, but mostly rock maple.. Why no Mahogany,Ash,Alder,Basswood etc..Or cominations of woods like guitars often have.. I doubt its because of cabinet drop..

I would think a good modern hi tech frame such as is found on ANY of todays steel guitars would take care of this inherent problem... anyway, what do you guys think?? I bet a mahogany steel with a maple neck would sound great.... bob

[This message was edited by Bob Carlucci on 08 March 2005 at 04:36 AM.]

Matt Elsen · From: Deer Harbor, Orcas Island, WA

Intersting thought, Bob. Someone was just showing me a beautiful wooden box they had just brought back from Hawaii the other day - I believe it was Koa wood. It had the most beautiful swirl effect - almost 3D like in its intensity..... The first thought that jumped in my mind was - wow, how cool would that look on a steel guitar?
Anyone have any experience with Koa? I'd sure give it a try based on looks alone.
Matt

Bill Myers · From: Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, USA

Wouldn't alot of the woods that have traditionally been guitar woods work. Things like mahogany or ebony. Koa is very popular for acoustic guitars. I thought I read something that Shot Jackson had originally offered ebony for Sho Buds. Wouldn't that have been something? An ebony Sho Bud?

Dan Tyack · From: Olympia, WA USA

I owned an Emmons which was built for Bobbe Seymore which was made out of mahogany with a natural maple top. An amazing guitar, I wish I had it today. I traded it to Cal Sharp for a 60s black formica Emmons because it had 'that sound'. Little did I know that that guitar had exactly the sound I love today. I wish I still had it.

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www.tyack.com

Per Berner · From: Skovde, Sweden

I'm pretty sure maple has been the natural choice for strength reasons. Also, it is easy on the tools and is non-porous, takes stain well and needs no filler before finishing.

A solid koa body would be VERY expensive, and very beautiful. But why not try some fancy veneers on something as cheap and readily available as alder? Its (lack of) figuring is about as boring as watching paint dry, but its sonic qualities are top-notch. I've built 5 solid body electrics from alder so far, and they all have a well-rounded, resonant tone. Alder is also very nice to work with.

Personally, I'd also like to see woods like striped macassar ebony, ziricote, black acacia, madagascar rosewood or palo escrito on a steel. Photo samples can be seen at http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/Secondproducthead.asp?CategoryName=+Backs+and+Sides

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

The Warmoth website has some information about woods, and if you Google for "tone woods" you'll find a lot of other opinions too.
What Warmoth says about hard rock maple: "The tone is very bright with long sustain and a lot of bite." - that seems to describe the kind of tone steel players are usually looking for. http://www.warmoth.com/guitar/options/options_bodywoods.cfm
It seems to me that since pedal steel guitars are glued together from several pieces of wood, they're going to end up stiffer and brighter-sounding than would be expected from the characteristics of any given wood alone, but it's an interesting idea. An all-mahogany steel with a bright pickup? A cast bell-brass steel guitar? The ebony steel sounds like a monster - does one actually exist anywhere?

Jussi Huhtakangas · From: Helsinki, Finland

I have an early 60's Sho Bud permanent with an ebony front apron and natural birdseye top w/ black lacquer necks. The kind of black & blonde effect is very eye pleasing. From what I read, Shot didn't really want people to know that ebony was available since it was so expensive and hard to work on.

Rick Aiello · From: Berryville, VA USA

Rick Collins · From: Claremont , CA USA

Zebrawood and tigerwood (no, not the golfer) are very beautiful.

Ray Minich · From: Bradford, Pa. Frozen Tundra

Oh, alternative woods, when I first read the post without my glasses on I thought it asked "alternative words", of which I'm sure there's been a few

Jackie Anderson · From: Scarborough, ME

Beauty is nice, strength is a prerequisite, but to begin with you need to use a material with a high modulus of elasticity. That's a slightly misleading term, meaning something more like "resistance to bending," but not just stiffness:" it refers as well to the tendency of a material to return to where it was bent from, which in a stringed instrument translates into returning energy to the strings, i.e. sustain. Maple, ash, koa, some mahoganies and just about anything known as a "tone wood" score well in this regard. However, not all of them sound good, since different materials (in various combinations, dimensions, etc.) will return energy better at some frequencies and absorb it more at others, and thus "color" the sound.

A high ratio of modulus of elasticity to mass is even better for musical purposes, viz. some spruces, cedars etc. used in acoustic instruments, but they may not have the brute strength required for building a PSG of acceptable diminensions. On the other hand, you have carbon fiber in a resin matrix, which has all of the desirable physical (albeit not, to everyone, cosmetic) properties and, at least when combined with the right other materials (including a secret core material), does a great job in the way it colors, or perhaps does not color, musical sounds.

By the way, you have heard plenty of PSGs made with ash: all of the Fender PSGs except the 210, as far as I know.

Ricky Davis · From: Bertram, Texas USA

Yes I think it is a matter of price and workability. I have a steel pictured below; made out of Koa and Ohia and it kicks serious butt....but it's very expensive to find and cut; and you know steel players> as soon as something cost so much; they immediatly don't care about sound...they just run the other way...
We demand CHEAP and lightweight stuff; so that's what you get.
But I demand a great sound and I don't care what it cost or how much it weighs; and that's why and what you see below, belongs to me.

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Ricky Davis

Rebel™ and Ricky's Audio Clips
www.mightyfinemusic.com
Email Ricky: sshawaiian@austin.rr.com

[This message was edited by Ricky Davis on 08 March 2005 at 02:27 PM.]

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

Mahogany (real mahogany, that is) is rather expensive. Alder and ash are cheap and strong enough, but have rather plain grains. Basswood? Too light and soft, and no grain to speak of. Maple's plentiful, and not too expensive. Other woods have been tried for non pedal steels, but the pedal steel puts more strain on the cabinet, and not all PSG cabinets have a full metal frame for added strength and stability. Weight is also a concern, since all the metal in a psg adds weight, too. So...where does that leave us?

Maple works great, is plenty strong, sounds good, has nice grain, and is still easy to procure. Most steel companies aren't likely to change materials when what they're already using works just fine.

Ricky Davis · From: Bertram, Texas USA

Donny speaks the truth of course.
Ricky

Rick Schmidt · From: Prescott AZ, USA

Hope I'm not going off topic here, but I played one of these the other day and was amazed!
http://www.taylorguitars.com/guitars/models/pallet.html

A great sounding guitar made out of pallet wood...nail holes and everything.

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

Hmmm..."pallet-grade" oak? Well, oak was being used by a few makers of cheap guitars many years ago, most notably Stella. Most of the old blues guitarists of the '20s and '30s played a Stella guitar because it was so cheap, and they have a very unique sound which can't be duplicated with more traditional woods.

Mark Ardito · From: Chicago, IL, USA

I am a weekend wood worker and have recently discovered a imported wood called "Ipe". (pronounced e-pay). This stuff is DENSE and HEAVY and resists water like you wouldn't believe.

I would be VERY interested in a guitar body made from Ipe. The lumber mill in Chicago I go to stocks Ipe and it is around the same cost as all the other imported exotic hardwoods. I know that the weight and density of the wood is what makes the guitar sustain so I would assume a body of Ipe would sustain for days! Any builders out there ever use this stuff?

Oh yeah...Ipe is VERY hard on tools. You can not put a screw into the wood without pre-drilling it. You will snap every screw you try and put into it if you don't. Also, Ipe will dull all of your blades while working with it. I use lots of hand tools and I am constantly sharpening my planes and chisels when working with Ipe.

Cheers!
Mark Ardito

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Sho~Bud Pro I, Fender D-8 (C6&E13) http://www.darkmagneto.com
http://www.arditotech.com

[This message was edited by Mark Ardito on 09 March 2005 at 02:04 PM.]

David Doggett · Posted 9 Mar 2005 2:05 pm

The best woods for acoustic instruments and solid body electrics are completely different. Thin pieces of spruce and cedar are light, pliable and also stiff. They make good tops for acoustic guitars, and are used as the soundboards in pianos. But they are softwoods that would absorb too much vibrational energy in a solid-body electric. Mahogany and rosewood I think are mainly used for their looks. Ebony is very hard, but really expensive, and reportedly hard to work with (don't know why). Ash is really hard, and is used for baseball bats, so is probably pretty springy. Some solid-body electrics are made of ash and it might make a good steel guitar. As Donny says, maple is plentiful, reasonably priced, looks good and gets the job done. Sweet gum and maple are related - anyone ever hear of a sweet gum guitar? Oaks are of different hardnesses. Live oak is reputed to be the hardest. Wooden boat builders love it, and it bounced cannon balls off of Old Ironsides. But it is scarce. After a Gulf Coast hurricane is about the only time it becomes available. I have had work benches made of oak (don't know what kind) that were so hard you couldn't drive a nail into them. But for some reason oak has a bad reputation as a tone wood. What about iron wood? Supposedly Ulysses had a legendary bow made of that. It was so strong only he could string it.

Winnie Winston · From: Tawa, Wellington, NZ * R.I.P.

Spruce, pine, and the like are too soft to get good sustain. Joe Kline built a pine guitar once (the one Bobby Cladwell sawed in half at Scotty's) and the tone was thin with no sustain.
Zane built a few BMIs with Oak and Ash-- both sounded good.
The Anapeg is made from native Autralian timber which is VERY dense-- and they have amazing sustain.
I'd love to see one made from Zebrawood or another dense African or South American wood.

JW

jim flynn · From: Salado,Texas

I have made Pedal Steels out of various woods over the years, in my opinion here's what I have found.
Maples & Oak, best finish, hardest, best all around sound,
Walnut, warmer tone, harder to finish, Mahogany, warmer tone , less sustain, harder to secure screws to wood, tend to pull out.
Poplar, hard to finish, softer, not best choice for pedal guitar, O.K for lap steel.
With the coming of great pick-ups, and amps for steel, as well as devices such as the Peavy ProFex, one may be able to get a good sound from virtualy any good grade of wood, but overall I still feel maple is best, especialy the figured pieces for best looks and finish.Alas even these woods have gotten on the pricy side. P.S. the carbon bodied MSA
and their phenolic resin lap steel sound pretty darn good too!
Jim Flynn, Lone Star Steel Guitar
Salado, Texas

Jackie Anderson · From: Scarborough, ME

That ipe is really something. It's a species of walnut, if I am not mistaken. I built a small deck with it last year, on a hard pine frame, and that thing practically rings when you walk on it! I have a couple of balks of it seasoning for future instrument building.

Okay, I will give up using the phrase "modulus of elasticity," because I'm starting to feel like it's a waste of breath, but it's pretty obvious that "density" and "hardness" are just not what good "tone woods" have in common. It's the ability/tendency to spring back when deflected, which makes for a good transmitter (and/or reflector) of energy. That's why ash works well in Teles and Stringmasters and 400/800/1000/2000 PSGs -- and also in oars.

Of course, there is still a lot of subtlety in how any kind of wood (from a particular part of a particular tree, cut in a particular way to particular dimensions) will actually sound in a particular instrument in combination with all of the other particular parts, even before someone gets their "hands" on it....

But it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that "spring."

Now, hickory is another wood with so much "spring" that you wouldn't want a hammer handle or axe handle made of anything else, except maybe ash. It makes the best skis, or ski cores, because it's so springy. I haven't heard of its use in making musical instruments, though. Maybe it just doesn't sound good, notwithstanding that it "looks" good in theory. I intend to test that one of these days.

Even if a kind of wood sounds good, it's still certainly important that it take finishes, glue and fastenings well, and that it have enough strength in appropriate dimensions for the stress loads within the instrument. Good looks are certainly nice, too, but that's the last thing I would consider in selecting wood for a PSG. And if it's going to be used in steady commercial production, it has to be readily available and reasonably priced. While there will always be interest in one-offs built with more exotic and beautiful-looking woods, it seems likely that maple is going to stay at the top of the commercial PSG heap for a while since it scores so well in all respects (including "springiness").

That is, as long as we are talking about wood. If there were really a big market for steels, it's hard to believe that more would not be made with molded composites. Once the cost of the molding machinery is amortized, they should be way cheaper -- and most importantly, the ones we know of sound great. Go MSA! Oops -- thread drift.

[This message was edited by Jack Anderson on 11 March 2005 at 09:38 AM.]

Farris Currie · From: Ona, Florida, USA, R.I.P.

OK,we have several woods i haven't seen mentioned yet,cyprus,great for fencing,and very lasting,pecan wood is very beautyful,fir is strong,myrtle wood nice.i have some old barn wood which i think would make a very nice steel. cedar and red wood is soft, what if the woods were left thick.even orange wood,mabe i be crazy huh.then we have bay wood,heart of pine,called lightard,hard as a rock.
many more kinds of wood farris

Al Marcus · From: Cedar Springs,MI USA (deceased)

Jim Flynn says, and rightly so.

"With the coming of great pick-ups, and amps for steel, as well as devices such as the Peavy ProFex, one may be able to get a good sound from virtualy any good grade of wood, "

A lot of sustain can be produced with just working the volume pedal too, we do that all the time......al

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My Website..... www.cmedic.net/~almarcus/

Curtis Scarrow · From: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

I've been building some out of quarter sewn swawp ash. Having owned a few 50s fender strats made out of that were special guitars I thought it would be good choice for a balance between hardness,tone, and strength.
I'm really happy with the ones I've done in ash...I'm pretty sure I read ash was used for some k&f and smallers ones but what woods were used on stringmasters?

Danny James · From: Summerfield Florida USA

Just out of curiosity I haven't seen any comments about wild cherry. I have some of it that was in a barn loft for 40 yrs. and is rough sawn and in various thicknesses and widths (no nails). I am thinking strongly of trying it for a lap steel. Have any of you tried wild cherry yet?

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