A question on the wood of guitars

[ko_sct]

I know this subforum is more directed at visual arts but I didint know where to ask my question and this is the only forum that I frequent lurk regulary.

Background (unimportant) story
I took a class in lutherie and I started working on a guitar 4 hour per week during school sessions. When I designed the rosette I wanted, my teacher told me it would take me a few more years to finish it if i only worked on it during school so it was decided I would make my rosette during the summer

The question:
After changing my mind a few time i finally chose exactly what I wanted and I'm ready to start. The problem is that for what I want I need to use the two same woods I used on the guitar. Simple ? Probably... if I hadn't forgot what was the name of one. I'm also unable to contact my teacher to simply ask.

And so, I ask the playground, can anyone guess which kind of wood is the lighter plank made of ?

Screen streching incoming !
http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/7702/cell018.jpg

I also kind of remember that it was quite common, so simply naming kinds of wood would probably help.

...

Bonus points if you can give me the name in french

[Occasional Sage]

Which "lighter plank" do you mean? If you mean the one that looks destined to be the body, I'd guess maple just based on color. The neck I'd guess to be cherry, or a rather intensely-colored red oak... maaaaybe alder, but that's a longer shot from the picture.

Can you tell me how dense and hard the wood is? That's a quick way to ballpark it on the Janka scale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janka_hardness_test) (note that the list of woods that you asked for is in that article). How open the grain is helps a lot too. "Common" though changes with locale; there are commonality differences in the USA from West to East coasts and even North/South on each, much less changing countries.

So, where did you take a lutherie class? That sounds great!

EDIT: Google tells me that maple = d'érable, cherry = cerisier, oak = chêne, and alder = aulne.

REDIT: looking at this on a different monitor, cherry is MUCH more likely.

[leakingpen]

looks like maple or spruce to me.

[ko_sct]

Thank you for you replies, I was talking about the plank that is quite probably made of maple.

Yes the darker one is made cherry and the neck is made of... I don't remember but the name was more complicated but it doesn't really mater.

The lutherie class is given at my cegep, it's really not expensive since my student association pay for pretty much everything. In all, it cost about twice the price of the material for students, so yeah, its awesome.

[Occasional Sage]

Thank you for you replies, I was talking about the plank that is quite probably made of maple.

Yes the darker one is made cherry and the neck is made of... I don't remember but the name was more complicated but it doesn't really mater.

The lutherie class is given at my cegep, it's really not expensive since my student association pay for pretty much everything. In all, it cost about twice the price of the material for students, so yeah, its awesome.

You've got that backwards: the neck is cherry, the darker one is the more complicated name. I'd guess wenge (WEN-gay) or perhaps one of the several species marketed as some variety of walnut (maybe "brazilian walnut", which is really... ipe (E-pay), if I recall correctly).

[ko_sct]

True I was confused the darker part isnt cherry, its rosewood, of that I'm pretty sure.

For the neck, it may be cherry if you say so. I dont really know, I'm no expert. (I think that maybe, my teacher said palissandre, which is pretty much the same as rosewood according to wikipedia.)

Edit: Cherrywood is meriser in french... hum... maybe that's what it is

Edit2: I probably confused cherrywood and rosewood because cherry are pink and rose is pink in french... not that it's important :smallsmile:

Edit3: Also, thanks again for helping me identifie the maple, it was the most important right now

[leakingpen]

ko, I do a lot of SCA- medieval reenactment woodworking. Try identifying woods when they are listed in a different language in a 300 year old book from identifying features! No worries, language mixups get the best of us.

[Occasional Sage]

K, rosewood makes sense. The dark panel in the lower right could be from a couple different rosewoods; I'd guess Indian rather than Brazilian, Honduran, or Nicarauguan (also called cocobolo) just from the dark color, but all of the dalbergia family are supposed to have great tonal qualities.

Sorry, shoulda suggested that. I was thrown by "common" and thinking in terms of what that means to me, even though I commented on that being wrong.