I don have any quartersawn spruce for bracing my acoustic guitar soundboard, but I have plenty of other scrap wood on hand. Can I use it as soundboard bracing?
A. The consensus of our most experienced builders is no, you really can’t. Spruce has the best strength-to-weight ratio of the lutherie woods, and they feel that any other soundboard bracing wood has a detrimental effect on the sound of a flat-top acoustic guitar. Q. I’m getting ready to build my first instrument, and I have access to pine/poplar/red oak/whatever locally. I don’t want to ruin an expensive piece of wood on my first instrument. Can I use [fill in name of cheap wood here]? A. We repeat: the cost of wood will be the least you’ll spend. It’s the time it takes to build that will be your biggest investment. Imagine how you’ll feel after putting all that time into an instrument when you used cheap wood and it came out looking great. You don’t want to kick yourself and say, “If only I’d used decent wood!” No need to break the bank, most dealers to instrument makers offer good woods in a range of prices. This is a lot more important for acoustic instruments than for solidbody in
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