Use of Oak in instruments?

[Sam Schillace]

Apologies if this is discussed elsewhere - I searched the forum but couldn't find anything. I'm just a little curious why varieties of oak are never discussed for the hardwood part of instruments (back, neck and sides). I think it's reasonably dimensionally stable and there are some fairly tight grained species. Wrong density/strength ratio? Tradition? Every time I see a cut down oak tree I wonder about this.

[sliebers]

Can't speak about mandolins, but many great guitars have been built with white oak. Hans Brentrup made many beautiful Larson style guitars using it. Sounded fantastic.

[Dusepo]

Oak works great. It can be a bit heavy so best used in conjunction with other woods rather than on it's own, but as a tonewood it's great. It was used in a lot of guitars built in the early 20th century. I've used it on ouds too. Only thing wrong with it is being able to sell it - many customers don't want oak instruments.

[Russ Jordan]

Wayne Henderson and daughter Elizabeth Jane have both built guitars with oak back and sides. EJ was building one for Doc Watson but did not quite get it finished before he passed.

[Greg Mirken]

My old store had a couple of early 20th Century oak guitars. I remember one was a Harwood; pretty good sounding parlor size instrument. Oak just looks weird, though; you kind of expect it to have drawers. C.F. Martin made a variant of style 16 one year of ash. They sounded fine but looked like exquisitely made kitchen cabinets.

[Sam Schillace]

My old store had a couple of early 20th Century oak guitars. I remember one was a Harwood; pretty good sounding parlor size instrument. Oak just looks weird, though; you kind of expect it to have drawers. C.F. Martin made a variant of style 16 one year of ash. They sounded fine but looked like exquisitely made kitchen cabinets.

That’s hilarious.

Thanks for the insight. Maybe I’ll try to build something out of oak if I find a nice piece.

[Mandobart]

I played a mandola made by Craig Wilson (http://wilsonmandolins.com/about-wilson-mandolins/) at Wintergrass a year ago that had oak back and sides. It looked, sounded and played great.

[catmandu2]

Oak works great. It can be a bit heavy so best used in conjunction with other woods rather than on it's own, but as a tonewood it's great. It was used in a lot of guitars built in the early 20th century. I've used it on ouds too. Only thing wrong with it is being able to sell it - many customers don't want oak instruments.

Also oak is used in harp building - particularly wire harp.

[rcc56]

The Larson brothers made at least a few oak guitars. Lowe Vintage in North Carolina has one, and I have heard of a few others.

[John Kelly]

I built one guitar on request for someone who travelled a lot to the USA from Scotland to play in Blues festivals. I was a bit wary and told him I had not used it before and was worried about the density of the wood, but we went ahead with it for back and sides with a spruce soundboard. It was a smaller-bodied guitar with full-sized neck as he wanted one he could carry in the cabin on his flights across the Atlantic. It turned out fine and he was very pleased with the sound.
I have since used oak to make one or two necks for mandolin. I acquired sections of a very old (100+ years) church pew (Austrian Oak) when a local church was putting in a social/coffee area in one of the aisles and was selling off the pews. I got sections of the ledges where folk put their bibles - the pews themselves were too big and I have no equipment for handling larger pieces of timber.

[Jill McAuley]

There was a lovely guitar made with white oak back and sides posted over on the Acoustic Guitar Forum recently, an Ark New Era Euphonon, it stood out to me because you don't read about guitars with oak back and sides that much. Similarly in the drum world, you don't get a lot of oak being used - Yamaha would come to mind only for me with their oak kits.

[Akradecki]

I realize this thread is a couple of years old, but if anyone is paying attention, I'm having a 10-string OM built with red oak sides and back and magnolia for the top.

[CES]

I’d love to see pics when it’s done (and a sound clip if you’re so inclined). I love the look of oak, but since it’s primarily been associated with budget instruments in the US, there does seem to be a bit of a bias against it…

And, I get the drawers and cabinets reference, lol…

[Eric Oliver]

You can see some fine oak guitars at www.brentrup.com.

[Bob Buckingham]

Lariveé has made Silver Oak guitars that sounded very good.

[geechee]

I also believe Lynn Dudenbostel is a fan of White Oak and has built several guitars using it.

[pops1]

You can see some fine oak guitars at www.brentrup.com.

I have played some of those when I was visiting Hans. Wish I would have had the cash to take one home.

[George Roberts]

Years and years ago I had an Edwin Cubley (of banjo fame) parlor guitar that had oak sides and back. The body was very well done, but the neck had a terrible bow, and it wasn't playable.

[John Arnold]

White oak is not as dense as most rosewoods. That perception of oak as overly heavy comes from furniture. It is only marginally denser than sugar maple (47 versus 44 pounds per cubic foot). When I hand a 12 fret dreadnought I made in 1994 to someone, the normal reaction is surprise at the low weight. That is primarily because I reinforced the neck with wood instead of metal.
IMHO, this comparison to furniture woods fails to realize that both rosewood and mahogany were known for fine furniture before they became popular for instruments.

[j. condino]

I've played John's white oak dreadnought; it kicks @$$.

That has very little to do with oak as a material and everything to do with John's skill as an excellent builder.