The Oak Question...

Pete Howlett

Pete Howlett

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There have been a number of questions regarding building in oak. I've just completed a tenor in quarter-sawn English oak with alder neck and Mgurure fingerboard and bridge. I'll post some images and a video here next week to inspire all you who have questions regarding this timber. My observations regarding English oak - I cannot speak for American white or red:

1: It works very nice and is easy to hand bend, holding its shape well
2: Our standard thickness regimens work with this material so no special requirements needed
3: Oak is very stable so ideal for use as a tone wood
4: On our prototype sustain phenomenal, tone more spruce-front-like, comparable with our boutique master grade wood instruments

All of this contradicts the advice my tutor gave me at college when he proclaimed, "You cannot make a good instrument out of a ring porous wood like oak." If only he was alive today for me to show him how wrong he was...

So my advice - get down to your local store - for British readers, I bought this oak in B&Q, the equivalent of Home Depot in the US and it was perfectly dry and seasoned, ready for immediate use - and buy some oak and experiment. I also think that given the situation arising with exotic and traditional instrument making woods the time has come for us to seriously look at the specie alternatives to these traditional materials. I believe you can make most woods work for you...
 
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Great Pete, really looking forward to seeing and hearing it!
 
I have a few sets of this acquired from a retired guitar luthier.
He used to love using it.
Will look forward to seeing your results Pete. At some point I am going to making something with mine.
 
I've stashed away this beautiful piece of figured white oak in the hope that someday someone will want an oak ukulele. In the guitar world, there's plenty of favorable information about oak for back and sides, as long as it doesn't look like the wood used in grandma's bookcase.


32684745602_671c133d4a_b.jpg



32684744582_7273f629df_b.jpg
 
I suspect that no one would be disappointed by the structural and tonal qualities.

Here's the question: would you buy one?
 
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Yes, that is the question isn't it? Folks buy those carbon fibre ukes and Magic Flukes are going against the grain. Why not oak? I suspect it's all question of marketing.
 
saltytri said:
I suspect that no one would be disappointed by the structural and tonal qualities.

Here's the question: would you buy one?
Click to expand...
I would build one. And yes, if I werent building, I'd consider it - especially with pretty wood like yours. Think of that wood with a nice spruce top and some nice bindings. I think an abalone rosette/inlay would match it very nicely as well...!
 
I suspect it's all question of marketing
Click to expand...
Correct. Market perception favours the likes of mahogany and koa because they are well promoted. However, if a Jake S or a James Hill started to rave about the superior qualities of their latest oak instrument, you wouldn't be able to build them fast enough.
Miguel
 
Ko'olau build mostly spruce top tenors, have been doing for years so I am not sure the market is as conservative as we think it might be...
 
I don't think anybody would dispute that oak can't make a fine musical instrument or that it doesn't work and bend just fine. It is a fine wood for lutherie. The problem, to me at least, is that oak looks ugly. It looks coarse to my eye. It looks like IKEA furniture. The grain lines are generally wide and unpleasing to the eye. The color tends towards a sickly pale yellow. That being said we have to realize that "oak" is a broad category of trees and there are many species of wood in the Quercus. sp. family. The picture posted above on this thread is the rare exception to the rule. It actually looks interesting. To compare Koa to Oak is no comparison. One is a wood that can be breath taking in its flame and figure looking almost three dimensional. Oak never looks three dimensional. It just looks like... oak. Whether this will catch on as a look to the general ukulele buying world in my mind is doubtful. But maybe the sad thing is that these oak instruments can sound great, even magnificent, but nobody wants to buy them. Kinda sad. This is art and music we are talking about. Not the same as selling tractors. No matter how good they are they have to look pretty.
 
I think you need an interesting piece of oak to begin with.

Finishing is tricky though. I don't know how to pore fill for a high gloss finish without looking like furniture.

This one worked for my taste:

15214548422_37792787c3.jpg


Pore filled with mid brown shellac, working it well into the pores, then more shellac on top. The pores are maybe 2/3 full, so it's not a flat gloss, but I like the texture and the grain looks natural.
 
Who are these 'nobodies' who don't want to buy them? Broad statements like this are unhelpful; they almost prove the point that more people need to get with the plan - koa and mahogany are fast becoming recognisable finite resources, one day, soon to become 'rare' as instrument woods. And just as plain koa and mahogany can look very boring and furniture like so oak, with spectacular figure can look very attractive. Figured wood is what we are about - I am not suggesting by any stretch that we should substitute one for the other... on the contrary, my choice was driven because of the colour and figure in the board of oak I bought.
 
So, how was it to work? Here in California, I've worked with both red and white oak, and I find it splintery and difficult. I can see it being a good wood for back and sides, and I am interested in using local non-endangered woods, but oak hadn't been on my list.
 
Pete Howlett said:
Broad statements like this are unhelpful; they almost prove the point that more people need to get with the plan - koa and mahogany are fast becoming recognisable finite resources.
Click to expand...

I don't disagree that koa and "mahogany" are finite and diminishing resources and that alternate woods need to be substituted. We have known that for years. (As an aside I will say that I think that there is plenty of these woods out there but that it is being hoarded and held back until maximum profits can be made by selling it at the right time, at the maximum price, but his is beside the point), the point that I was making is that oak is basically an ugly, unattractive wood that is not going to catch on with the ukulele buying public.... Oh and as the poster pointed out earlier in this thread is that oak can splinter unpleasantly and does dull tools unmercifully. Nobody is gonna argue with that.
 
Well, the statements are still broad and sweeping - 'some' oak is ugly to you and 'splinters easily' for others. My experience working wood over the past 40 years has led me to conclude that every stick you touch is going to behave characteristically different from the last. However, careful selection tends to eliminate surprises :)

It is a fact that mahogany is being annihilated and koa is no longer plentiful as it is cynical to assume that somehow we are being denied the best by a conspiracy of hoarders... talk to anyone on the Islands of Hawaii - the 'good stuff' is all but gone with even the well-established manufacturers of koa ukulele scrambling for instrument wood! And there is that bald patch in the center of South America that 40 years ago was green...

We all have our opinions and I am tired of spitting matches. My experience making ukulele for nearly 22 years now leaves me optimistic for the industry IF it is prepared to embrace change - the buying public is not going to stop if they are offered what we and the availability of materials dictate to it. We and the larger manufacturers have to embrace change, not rage or react to it. There needs to be an evolved consciousness in the ukulele community that recognizes change is a good thing and that we shouldn't take the earth's limited resources for granted.
 
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