Advice using Teak

[EricDownunder]

A little advise please, a good friend of mine recently asked me to build him a guitar similar to Nick"s 356 using teak for the back and neck and maple cap, he has the teak around 100 years old plus he says, I am concerned the waxy nature of teak bonding pieces together could give me problems also sound quality, I have no problem making electrics I am currently teaching my son-in-law how to do his builds. Any advise on this I would greatly appreciate.
Nick suggested I use apoxy glue, and a woodworking friend suggested I clean the surface with acetone and apply hyde glue within 10 seconds of it drying.
As he wants a bolt on neck the only glueing would be the cap and headstock and possibly the back would need to be joined, at this stage I have no idea of what size his teak is!
I normally wouldn't do this but he is a good friend still plays gigs every week playing his 50-60's rock and roll and his audience love him, but Louie is not well, he can hardly walk but still gets on stage to do his stuff therefore I would like to do this build but If you guys think teak is not on then I might build with something else. maybe there's something in tomorrow's sale but that wouldn't give him what he wants

[charangohabsburg]

Hi Eric, I have worked very little with teak, and this was many years ago - and not on a musical instrument. But I think I would remember if it had felt oily when working with it. I still have the item, and just remembering, without making a direct side by side comparison it still does not feel oily at all compared to about every single piece of Indian Rosewood in my stash. Of course, teak is not simply teak, I am pretty sure that there are different kinds of teak. If I were you I would go for it using Epoxy, not with the acetone-any-kind-of-glue approach. Glue up a small test sample, then take a final decision.

[P Bill]

I have used an AV Syntec glue on Crows Ash, a very waxy timber. I can't bring their page up but I was there 3mos ago.

If it's 100 yr old, it's probably fair dinkum Burmese Teak, brown , even colour. Unlike the stuff we get today, pale and stripey.