Hi jbow, that sounds like a neat project... and the furniture seems like a great idea too.

That old growth Southern Pine is beautiful wood, I'm imagining that there are no visible knots and that the grain is straight and clean.

I'd think the guitar could be beautiful with a transparent finish of some sort.

A mahogany neck could be nice combo too.

I don't think you can go wrong with assembling a fresh guitar to have fun with.

What ever you choose will give you hours of enjoyment.

I'd enjoy seeing some photos of the furniture when you get it.

best regards,
mike

RobertB


While new pine is indeed soft and reactive, well aged pine is surprisingly stable. And it is damn hard.
I have burned the temper out of several drill bits drilling through old pine/fir.
I have run across a lot of old Yellow Pine here in Texas that fights taking a screw.
Pine can have a lovely, delicate grain to it, though. Especially heartwood.
Plan on burning up some tools. It could be a very worthwhile venture.

I agree... I have an old house built well over 100 years ago and the wood is pine, rough sawn and trying to drive a nail or a screw into it requires a pilot hole first. 


It's nothing like the pine you buy at Lowes and Home Depot these days. 

Guitarhacker

RobertB


While new pine is indeed soft and reactive, well aged pine is surprisingly stable. And it is damn hard.
I have burned the temper out of several drill bits drilling through old pine/fir.
I have run across a lot of old Yellow Pine here in Texas that fights taking a screw.
Pine can have a lovely, delicate grain to it, though. Especially heartwood.
Plan on burning up some tools. It could be a very worthwhile venture.

I agree... I have an old house built well over 100 years ago and the wood is pine, rough sawn and trying to drive a nail or a screw into it requires a pilot hole first. 


It's nothing like the pine you buy at Lowes and Home Depot these days. 

 Especially pine that has been drying in an old attic for 50 years...it gets so hard I doubt the termites could eat it. If I were seriously considering building a guitar out of it and had the time I would cut and sand the blank, then let it sit in hot attic for awhile. You can get kiln dried but I don't think its anywhere close to that. As the guitar ages I suppose you get a similar effect, maybe why they say that some guitars sound better with age.

yamaha uses that kinda old wood for their $500k grand pianos...

While new pine is indeed soft and reactive, well aged pine is surprisingly stable. And it is damn hard. I have burned the temper out of several drill bits drilling through old pine/fir. I have run across a lot of old Yellow Pine here in Texas that fights taking a screw. Pine can have a lovely, delicate grain to it, though. Especially heartwood. Plan on burning up some tools. It could be a very worthwhile venture.

 
Thanks... it is all heart wood. I guess if nothing else it will be an interestng project, and I really need one about now.
 
That pine archtop is lovely too!
 
J

An interesting side note. This is whose barn the wood came from: http://womenincongress.house.gov/member-profiles/profile.html?intID=74

J

J, what Benedetto proved is that he could be a great sounding guitar out of pine.

For the record-because so many always state "Leo built the Tele with pine"...He built
the Tele prototype with Pine which makes perfect sense.

There are no guarantees with anything about building a guitar. One makes their choices
for their project and hopefully have a great time with it.
So....have a great time!

Sort of on topic I guess, but...  If you're going to use active pickups like EMG's, how much does the material that the guitar is made out of really matter?

craigb


Sort of on topic I guess, but...  If you're going to use active pickups like EMG's, how much does the material that the guitar is made out of really matter?

I'll bite.
 
In tonal aspects....probably little if any.
Since that is not the only determining factor in determining material selection I still consider it
a very important matter.
 
 
 
 

Mainly what I'm saying is, pine is going to "move"-expand-contract-warp slightly more than other woods used for guitars. Even old-hardened barn wood that has been cured by methane fumes and extreme exposure is going to do weird things. In addition to that, when you start tooling it, it's going to react to the heat the cutting tools make via friction. It's going to be hard to tool, router bits, saw blades, chisels, sandpaper. Heat causes warping in woods. Trying to get a flat surface for glueing-bonding after tooling an extremely reactive peice of wood could get real messy. You could easily burn up a lot of expensive tool bits and saw blades. Finding the proper speed to use power tools without burning the wood could get real ugly. The pine guitar shown is beautiful, it even looks like pine. But how many Pine guitars have you seen out there? There must be a reason why they don't use Pine.