project / wood type question

fourmations

hi all

i am making a travel guitar
I just want a really quiet thing that I can
diddle about on, practice scales on the beach, etc

so........

I am using an electric guitar bolt on neck
and literally attaching a plank with a bridge to it

I was wondering what wood i could use for this plank
bearing in mind I want to keep it light for travel,
whats a good light wood that will take the tension
I will string it with electric 10-46

i have access to decent tools here in work
and will route a neck pocket in the "body"
and put it together at my destination

afterthought... could i use aluminium?
light, rigid, mmm...

any advice welcome

rgds

4

Eoin Madsen

A piece of swamp ash would probably do the trick. But bear in mind that you don't want the weight of the neck to be too much more than the body, or the balance of the guitar will feel off. You'll end up supporting the neck with your hand, which will just mess up your playing.

I'd say an aluminium body would sound a bit... well, metallic. Aluminium would probably be a little too hard - a lot of accentuation of high mids and highs, giving a thinner sounding end result I would guess. But it might not affect the feel of playing unplugged so I suppose it wouldn't matter then. I'm positive it's been done, so if you go googling you might find some actual stories. Routing the neck socket would be a bitch I'd imagine.

Killaqueen!!!

Basically, what he said. Ash is very easy to manipulate so if you are carving/routing anything then this shouldn't be too difficult with ash. It's also light so would suit a travel guitar.

The neck would have to be pretty light though to balance it out.

(Trust me this is what I was going to say beforehand, I'm not just copying yer man above me!)

leninbenjamin

hmmm... stab in the dark here as i'm not well versed on this, but how about something with a headless neck to centre weight a bit more. i know it would complicate bridge installation, but a quick google turned up some resources on it. dont know what costs would be like for one of these things, i just remember a guitar teacher of mine had one of these guitars that was perfect for his needs, which are exactly the same as yours by the sounds of it.

fourmations

hi all


i decide to use cherrywood as there is some in work

Dean have made a few cherry guitars and martin
are making acoustics with it now
so we'll see what happens (its not done yet)

will let y'll know the outcome

rgds

4

The Boarder Man

Aluminium has been done, see here and here for a nice example. Kramer offer aluminium neck guitars and you can also get fully aluminium guitars. However all these examples are electric so I don't know how well it would work acoustically.
Why don't you try it and let us know how it works out.