Huon Pine

[Tod Gilding]

Hi All,
I have just been given a small piece of Huon Pine 690mm long x 110 mm x 30mm Thick. I'm after suggestions where I could best use this,a four piece top maybe, Any advice appreciated

[jeffhigh]

Huon pine is not generally considered to be the king of tonewoods
The properties that make it so good for other uses(such as high wax content) are not pluses for a guitar soundboard
As well as this, is the piece you have prefectly quartered and with no runout? unlikely
Then a 4 piece top...forget it.
Use it for something decorative IMHO

[woodrat]

I have to agree with Jeff, If you are going to invest the amount of time needed into an instrument like a guitar I wouldnt be considering a 4 piece Huon pine top just because you have a nice piece of Huon. The Huon will not deteriorate on the shelf until you find a more appropriate use for it. Tod, I think that even a low grade spruce top would be a much better bet for a first instrument. Spruce is what most guitars have as tops for a very good reason...it works well. Your enthusiasm is fantastic and asking here for advice is going to help you avoid some pitfalls that you would have made if you were trying to build in total isolation. Its hard starting out with your first guitar trying to get a handle on the myriad of choices that you have to make before you start and the ones that come along after you have. That is the great thing about this forum...we are all here to help each other. Keep asking questions...I am sure that the input that you receive here will make your guitar a success.

John

[Tod Gilding]

Thanks Jeff & John, How would it go as Binding or Bracing ?

BTW John I had a look at your website......Some nice work

[woodrat]

Hi Tod, Thanks for that. I would use it for binding but not bracing. I like very straight grain for binding so there is no runout through the face of the binding if at all possible. So if your piece is nice and straight then I see no reason not to use it for binding although you will find that 690 is probably a bit short for all but the smallest of guitars. I need about 800 for an OM guitar. So you may be snookered for length there.

John

[Bob Connor]

I don't know if I totally agree with the view that Huon Pine wouldn't be suitable for soundboards.

I've just completed a Weissenborn with a Huon Pine top and it sounds great.

It certainly encourages me enough to try it on a normal guitar so I wouldn't totally dismiss it as a top tonewood until you have at least built one instrument from it.

A friend of mine built a Huon Pine and Blackwood guitar back in the 80's. It sounded fine but was a little quiet but I think we were all overbuilding our instruments back in those days.

Regards

[joolstacho]

That'd make a beautiful neck Tod. Huon is so sweet to carve, -perfect for a sculpted headstock and heel.
My Huon solidbody neck (also Huon) has a carbon spar in place of trussrod and hasn't moved a thou in about 5 years.
And also, having passed a finger over Bob's Huon topped Weissenborn at Port Fairy, I can attest to a really nice tone.
-Julian

[J.F. Custom]

I may be wrong, but I think I recall Barry Kerr of Woodtone has made some guitars using it as soundboard material. Specifically, I'm sure I remember an archtop guitar he made using it. Don't know whether he thought the results were ok or not though.

Granted and I agree - it may not have the most desirable attributes as soundboard material, but it will make a different sound (much as mahogany does when used as soundboard material), and perhaps someone will love that tone over a more traditional spruce one? It's possible.

What about the potential to "boil" the oils/resins out of the timber prior to use? Any thoughts? Or possibly leaching/dissolving it out with thinners? In thin section material you wouldn't think that would be too difficult. Of course, it would require re-conditioning/seasoning before use. Not sure if this would affect the structure of the timber though - or necessarily be "worth" the effort given the more appealing alternatives readily available.

I mention this thought though as I have some figured blackwood ex tassie that came from the veneer factories. At those factories it was literally "boiled" in log form removing much of the sap/oil content etc and then kept wet throughout the veneer cutting procedure. The resulting timber after this process and a couple of years of seasoning however is extraordinarily resonant and stable. Beautiful material to use.

Comments?

Jeremy.

[charangohabsburg]

I don't know Huon Pine, and I am not an experienced instrument builder either (I occasionally do instrument repairs since 10 years or so, woodworking since more than 30 years, and I just recently started with "real" instrument building). But I cant't get rid of the impression that:

• traditional tonewoods, in many cases (not all) simply are the easiest to work with (for sawing, planing, carving, bending, gluing, etc.)
• when using traditional tonewoods it will be easiest to achieve a tone that is close to what we are familiar with when thinking of a certain instrument shape and/or construction concept. When using a different wood one has to adapt the construction concept (other thicknesses, bracing, etc.) to achieve a similar tone to the familiar one. Using just another type of wood, maintaining the rest of the building concept "the same" will most likely result in a different tone, and you may like it or not.
  
  I see it just a little bit like wine: for example, Cabernet Sauvignion, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Malbec is the assemblage of the famous Saint Emilion Bordeaux. Somewhere in northern Italy (and I imagine in other places too) a vinary produces a wine with exactly the same assemblage and, who guessed... it's tasting somewhat similar as a Saint Emilion. Not the same, but similar, it reminds on a Saint Emilion. Now, the Cabernet Franc has a very strong, characteristic flavour. In some places in northern Italy the Cabernet Franc is a traditional grape, and there is wine made just from this one. Most people not from there wouldn't like it, but still will be reminded a bit on Saint Emilion. On the other hand, it is very difficult to produce a wind reminding on Saint Emilion without the Cabernet Franc. They tried it, but its much harder to get there.
  
  I am not really fanatic about those copies (talking of wine) although I think they are nice experiments with sometimes really good or even great results. But normally Id rather try to appreciate the new taste, without comparing it to something well known, and I am trying to stay open minded. I think It's too easy to say the wood is the culprit when a build would not turn out well. It's more probable that it's not our taste, or that the builder did not respond to the very properties of the new wood.
  
  I'm sorry about the lengthy explanations, and for not having been able to draw a similar analogy talking about beer.

What about the potential to "boil" the oils/resins out of the timber prior to use? Any thoughts? Or possibly leaching/dissolving it out with thinners?

John Gilbert used to do that with Brazilian rosewood. He not only wiped all his joints with acetone before gluing them but suspended his Brazilian rosewood in a drum of methanol for several weeks (!) having a 10% - 15% lighter rosewood when done and dried. He tells that the methanol got really dirty and had distilled it from time to time, obtaining again clear methanol and a residue dark like coal he then used to use for staining his french polish - never using it up, btw. (That's what he told in an interview published in American Lutherie AL#100, 2009).

On some other places on Internet there has been quite a bit of controversy whether or not it would be useful or even be bad to wipe a joint with acetone. But it seems that Gilbert's guitars held together pretty well - at least I haven't heard the contrary....

I would give it a try with the Houn Pine. If it will fall apart you can glue it together again, If it sounds bad it's probably not the wood's fault, and in any case, after that one you will build the next.

[jeffhigh]

Whilst it is true that a skilled and experienced builder can and will move his design in different directions to accommodate the piece of wood he is using, one of the other skills of that builder should be materials selection.
There will be some species or examples of a species that will be rejected because it's properties do not match up to the requirements for the instrument.

For example, I have some King Billy pine tops which test out at less than half the stiffness of engleman spruce and not any lighter. I am inclined to leave it in store rather than use it thicker, heavier and less responsive than a spruce top.

Tell an Aircraft engineer to build an airplane skinned with cast iron rather than aluminium and see what response you get.

Here we have a sawn huon plank not selected or cut for luthiery, the chances of it being quartersawn or runout free are next to nil, even if the properties of huon were desirable, which is a matter of opinion.

[needsmorecowbel]

I bought some huon pine a while ago and also had no idea what to do with it but decided to just make a solid body bass out of it (to minimise wastage). The main problem that i have with it is that it dings so easily and sanding out those .5 mm dings are a pain. However the main design problem is that the wood is just so light so once the machine heads and neck are in place it will no doubt be neck heavy unless i have weights inside the guitar cavities.

Stu