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I'm looking for plain maple for an archtop guitar. Anyone know what species/supplier I should be looking at? Most tonewood suppliers sell only the figured stuff for obvious reasons, but I intend to do solid colors on these guitars and would hate to use the expensive stuff just to cover it all up with paint.

Thanks,

Ian

You might call Bruce at Orcas Island Tonewoods. He may have some unfigured Big Leaf maple billets for reasonable money.

They have a big shipment of hard and soft maple down at Woodcraft in Clearwater just came in. Usually Bigleaf soft maple is used for the archtops 'cuz it's easier to find figured pieces but hard maple is good as well. If you want plain jane maple that's a good bet. Weiss Hardwoods usuall has soft maple too but I don't know what thir stock is like lately, it stopped being good for instruments a few years ago and I stopped going. Might be worth a try.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Your best bet is to find suitable billets at a lumberyard. Unfigured maple of any species is not worth resawing for tonewood dealers. Eastern maple (hard or sugar maple) is much harder to carve than either big leaf or European, which is why it is rarely used for archtop plates, you're warned.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Funny I find hard maple just as easy to carve as the soft maples, but I keep my tools nice and sharp.
I've found some pieces of soft maple to be just as hard or herder than hard maple.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Another thought is to use poplar. It's MUCH easier to carve and MUCH cheaper and it will make an excellent instrument.

Poplar eh? That might be worth looking into. Perhaps birch as well? I was thinking soft maple too and was just looking for confirmation. This looks like it might be easy enough to do. Would grain orientation matter for an instrument like this?

You'll want quartersawn stock. This will be a carved instrument, yes?
Orcas Island and Old Standard Tonewoods both have poplar.

Really??? Maybe I should do the same!
Kind of an oxymoron, no? Curly sugar maple is a bear to carve, plain sugar maple will be easier, but still more difficult than big leaf. Maybe you're confused with another maple that grows all over the east coast, red maple, that is much softer.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

I have carved one back of curly sugar maple. I would need to be paid extra to do another.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.