brainstorming the best aging uke.

petah

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Well, I really want a custom made and I have been saving for a while. I need some opinions on my wood choices.

-Lignum Vitae fret board. ( rock hard. )
-Yellow Cedar sound board ( mellow and very very stable )
-rock maple neck ( Smooth as butter )
-rosewood back and sides ( offsets the mellow cedar )


What I'm trying to accomplish is:
something that doesn't clash ( like wearing blue and black yuk! )
something that is very mellow
something completely for the player to enjoy, not for his audience.
and something that has great stability and will age very well.
 
Well, I really want a custom made and I have been saving for a while. I need some opinions on my wood choices.

-Lignum Vitae fret board. ( rock hard. )
-Yellow Cedar sound board ( mellow and very very stable )
-rock maple neck ( Smooth as butter )
-rosewood back and sides ( offsets the mellow cedar )


What I'm trying to accomplish is:
something that doesn't clash ( like wearing blue and black yuk! )
something that is very mellow
something completely for the player to enjoy, not for his audience.
and something that has great stability and will age very well.

All good suggestions, I heard this combination in guitars and they sound and age very nice.

If you want something for just the player to enjoy then I would suggest a side sound port.
 
I'd be very cautious about using Lignum Vitae in an instrument build. It's somewhat unstable, prone to cracking, difficult to work and glue. That's probably why I've never seen it used on custom builds, and I own a few and have seen hundreds.

The rosewood and cedar sounds great. I do own one of those, as well as a redwood topped guitar, and they are sweet.
 
:) I think I will be getting a custom boat paddle made with these woods.
 
I know that Lignum Vitae is very oily. But unstable? I thought it wasn't used due to it's hardness.
 
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Lignum Vitae is very stable, heck this stuff was used for huge bearings.

Personally I think you would be better off to use ebony or some other dark wood. Because of the high oil content, Lignum Vitae has problems being glued
 
heres what i found about lignum vitae

[original quote]id be curious to see lignum vitae as a fretboard on any guitar example. in my experience it will simply peel off. even if you dewax and epoxy the board, the wood will "bleed" out more wax and delaminate the glue.[/]

[response]
i took a board as as a test, glued it to some mahogany and let it dry. seemed fine, and i figured people were just doing it wrong. a few weeks later after seeing someone who made a plane sole from it talk about gluing issues, i went back to my test, grabbed a free end of the wood and tugged. peeled right off, leaving the glue behind on the mahogany. i didnt have to pull hard at all. maybe 30-40 lbs of force on 10-15 square inches of glued area.

as for warping and stability, you are probably correct based on the boards that i had to pick from at the store. out of about 30, i picked the only 4 that were not badly warped with end splits.

i also gave up on sawing and sanding it early on. i just put it on my CNC mill, and it literally cuts like it was aluminium. dulls end mills faster than aluminium though. finishing it is interesting, because you can stop at 320 grit, and "wait". over the course of a week new wax will bleed out into the sanding scratches and it will become satiny smooth. kinda crazy. ive not tried buffing it yet though, supposedly it can buff to a mirror gloss with a bit of heat.[/]
 
Even if you could overcome the oily wood problem, I would think it would be difficult to seat fret wires. You need some end grain "bite" enough for the fret tang to dig into.

I'd stick with either a rosewood fretboard (nice match to the back) maybe with some tasteful inlays or a good ebony (doesn't have to be all black. You can find some with some nice cream colored streaking that could give it an interesting look)
 
If you really want to innovate, then have the luthier peg the lignum vitae to the neck instead of gluing it.
 
side note:

I use lignum vitae as guide blocks on my bandsaw. Works better than anything on the market.
 
I need some opinions on my wood choices.

You're starting in the wrong place. Instead of starting with asking opinions about wood selection from people who have no idea how your instrument is going to be built, start with your builder, and see what he/she recommends.

Then, trust your builder.

-Aaron
 
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Sooo. . .

What are you ordering, and when are you getting it?

You should know this place by now - "pics, or it never happened" is a phrase I've seen before.
 
I have no idea... I was thinking boat paddle...
 
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