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If this is a silly question, feel free to delete.

A local shop has some really nicely figured maple billets, sized for electric guitar tops (9"x21"x1.5"). They're priced pretty darn well. If I was interested in making an LP style electric they'd be perfect.

But I'm looking to make an acoustic guitar. Sadly they don't have any long lengths of this really nicely figured maple. The problem solver in me wondered if I could use one of these billets to make three piece guitar sides, instead of the normal two piece. Other than having two "end blocks" about a third of the way around the guitar, i couldn't think of a reason why not.

What sayeth the group? worth a shot or waste of time?

Maple is just not that expensive but if you want to do it, why not?

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The end block does double duty as a side joiner, and as a support for the end pin. Since your side joining spots don't need the extra strength, you can do like this:

I made a guitar once with a one piece side

Anything is possible. Violins are built that way.

Sounds like this is your first guitar....

Why not start off with the deck stacked in your favor with wood that's easy to bend and in "conventional" guitar size pieces?

The sides provide the beam strength to the guitar's structure to keep it from folding up. A joint somewhere "in the middle" between the head and tail blocks is inviting major catastrophic failure..... A joint failure where conventional sides are joined to the head and tail block causes a problem - but it doesn't cause the guitar to fold up....

While beautiful - Curly maple can be cranky to bend. It wants to facet at the curls..... Then - hand planing it to thickness can be a challenge because it wants to tear out at the curls. It's much easier to thickness sand with a power drum thickness sander...

If you really want maple - how about straight grained spalted maple instead?

There are many beautiful woods (and also plenty of drab, boring ones) that bend and work without issue..... Most straight grained North American hardwoods bend without too much trouble. Walnut, cherry, maple, ash, oak, beech, poplar, birch, apple, pear, hickory, sweet gum, locust, Osage orange , and several others are all good for this duty.... Indian rosewood is also a really good choice -as it's beautiful, generally bends easily, and is now priced nearly the same as Honduras mahogany.

Thanks

The short answer is yes, it's OK to do that, here's a picture of a four piece back in Cocobolo I did about 10 years ago.

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Holy cow Lance that back is beautiful!!!!

But to be clear the OP said sides

oops my brain processed that as a back.

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

I was thinking of doing a two piece side, so two full length strips joined together to get the width. Seen some antique instruments with it done and a center strip between the two. Mind you, I have made a few guitars, and mucked up some sides before shame about that cocobolo, part of the side faceted.

I have done it several times - i used polyurethane glue and kept the sides around 1.5mm, bent with a heat blanket. I had a purfling lay up of 3 pieces between the side pieces ( honduran RW and bocote). No problems and i lined the sides with yellow cedar to get some strength back. (i tried to post a pic but need to reduce the size..)

Here's the pic

Here's the finished product: (apologies for challenges with this resizing thing..)

Sorry - this one was Honduran RW and wenge, the previous was bocote and cocobolo....

I made a set of 2 piece sides from reclaimed white oak . I used titebond 3 sanded it to .075 an added a .22 piece of walnut veneer using the same titiebond 3 , bent very easily

Thanks everyone, I really appreciate all the different ideas and perspectives.

Wow that's really cool Evans!

I'm confused as to what the OP wants but anyway... anything can be done

I think the OP wants to take three short sides joined end to end to wrap around the body of the guitar, rather than a typical treble and bass sides. Sort of the opposite of how some people take one long side and bend it to form an entire ukulele.

I can't imagine how you would join and bend three butt joined pieces to make a whole rim. The bending, I think, would be the main issue.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think I remember this wood...?

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Ed

That is cool!!

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Well, i completely misread the OP! But my excuse is that I was sitting at the hotel bar when replying....so I plead diminished capacity!

Nope - everybody else did .

He said he wants to start with electric drop top billets 9"x21" to make into acoustic guitar sides.... Which are usually 4"-5" wide x 29"-36" long.

3 slices at 21" long nominally = 2 slices at 31.5" long..... So theoretically there's enough wood.... Except.... It puts the joints in weird places. Like maybe halfway between the waist and the widest point in the lower bout..

Maybe it's OK for a long time - but the thing will fold up if one of the joints comes loose... Does that happen much? No... But we don't really have much data because we just don't agenerally put joints there either.

Thanks

I say this every so often: the most expensive thing I put into my guitars is not the wood; it is my time. If you try to do something that makes a job far harder than it needs to be, only to take advantage of inexpensive wood, I think that is a false economy. Building sides out of multiple end butted pieces would be hard, and side wood is cheap. I would just buy good wood in the first place.

Dennis K showed how sides can be joined. IMHO, the reinforcement does not need to be more than 1" wide for full strength. I would orient the grain in the reinforcement parallel with the sides, or at a very slight angle.This joint should be as strong or stronger than two-piece sides. With proper gluing technique and parallel grain, there is very little reason for this joint to ever fail (barring overheating of the guitar), so there should be no concern about the guitar folding up.
Since these joints will be in the lower bout with a bit more curvature, you may have a little trouble bending the very end....particularly if you hand bend them on a hot pipe. But using a backer block will allow bending within a fraction of an inch of the ends, and the sides can then be trimmed a small amount after the bend is complete.

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John

my friend and luthier Greg Furlan made a guitar entirely with wood from Lee Valley - they don't sell anything any longer than 24", ... 6 or 8 piece top and back, and 3 piece sides .. he just made the guitar with two 'end blocks', placed partway towards the typical end block position on the lower bouts .. worked fine .. there is no reason that blocks in this position would let go anymore than a std end block would .. just do it. He then prettied it all up with two end grafts at those locations.

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Tony Karol
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