kerfed lining material?

[JurgenV]

I´m sure this question is somewhere in he forum but I can´t find it
I´m thinking of making my own kerfed lining with a bandsaw, so far so good. Only question is which wood makes the most sense.
Usually you can buy mahogany and cedar kerfed linings but are there any good alternatives which are easily accessable?
What about spruce (if it´s not good enough to use for bracing) for example?

[kiwigeo]

Basswood and mahogany seem to be most commonly used for commercially made kerfed lining. Ive used poplar..because I had a source of fairly cheap lengths of the stuff.

I'm sure there's a wide variety of woods you could use. Ideally it should be flat sawn to make bending easier without splitting. I'd be looking for woods with a relatively high density to help create an acoustic impedance between top/back and sides.

[TallDad71]

I’ve taken to making my own kerf using 4-5 laminated strips glued into a jig the shape of the guitar. It’s a lot more faff, it’s much more fiddly to keep it compressed in the jig and it needs to be more than 17mm tall as it doesn’t go around the dish curvature of the rim very well so it requires trimming afterwards.

It is however very stiff when glued in place and I think it makes for a great rigid frame for the soundboard to vibrate off.

It also means I can use whatever wood I like. Currently using western red cedar.

[Dave M]

For the reasons Martin gives I use European Beech. It's fairly cheap and it is easy to find nice straight lengths without knots. It also bends well.

Cheers Dave

[Taffy Evans]

Hi, I'm not sure of the acoustical properties of Merbu, but that is what I am using, I am just trying it out on my latest build. I'm also using a modified kerfing as seen in the photos. I was using reversed kerfing but with the timber I was using every so often showed the saw cuts through the kerfing.

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Taff.