Best wood to learn side bending?

[Diane Kauffmds]

The entire top is finished, inc under a floating bridge. Usually the only mark is a worn area where it sits. You have to loosen the strings slightly before moving it for intonation.

What I've done is position these bridges so that the intonation is correct and strings are straight on the neck, then use a light pencil mark to mark the position of the bridge. Putting locking tuners on guitars with trapeze end pieces and floating bridges helps a lot when changing the strings.

[carld05]

I've milled several sets of white oak lately from local wood. Built several guitars from it too.
Here's the back of a jumbo that was fumed with ammonia, great color.

fumed oak back.jpg

And with clear nitro.

fumed oak contrast.jpg

[carld05]

As to the question about bending. I've had no problem bending oak.

[Tomcat]

Thanks for the info, Diane. Have you done a floating bridge much?

Carl, both of those guitars look beautiful! Are they finished or still unfinished? I really like the look of the light back and sides - an interesting change to the usual dark ones, and the contrasting binding and back graft on the second one really pop!

I hadn't heard of fuming wood with ammonia to change the color. The red looks really different.

[carld05]

Mr. Cat, thanks for the complements. There is clear nitro lacquer finish on both guitars. The binding and neck laminates are Manzanita. The woods of the parlor guitar are all from my property.
Here's a pic of the Quilted redwood top on the Jumbo.

IMG_20230809_171317382_HDR.jpg

[Tomcat]

I've never even heard of quilted redwood. That's gorgeous!

The manzanita I was familiar with in my time in northern CA was shrubby, twisty. and twiggy, and would have had to have been pieced together to make even the binding on the other. Perhaps I never saw older larger growth. It's very cool that you have good wood to build with right on your own property.

[jread]

Very interesting, J! Thanks for catching up with my question. The top underneath the bridge is usually not finished where a regular bridge is glued - how about under this kind? Also, when you change strings, do you have a reliable mark to get it back in the right place, or do you have to change them one at a time so it stays put during the entire process?

And thanks to Vance for reawakening the thread. I've heard of oak back and sides, but don't know much about the tone you'd expect from it. Or whether it's easy or hard to work compared to more typical b&s woods. What's your experience of it?

You know me - a human question machine is this curious cat...

I don't know about other guitars with floating bridges, but my original bridge was on top of the paint, so I just did the same thing and did not strip under the bridge. It's not too hard to figure out where it should go. I am not a perfectionist or a good player, but I will adjust intonation if I am way out of tune when playing in the higher frets but sliding it back or forward slightly as needed.

Getting perfect intonation even on my new builds is something I'm not an expert at and just try not to hyper-focus on it. I don't mess with micro shaping my saddle or anything like that. I just measure my compensation, try for low action and move on.