Well, Issue No. 2 on the horizon, and little notes with SW1 postmarks are arriving, hinting about copy dates. So before I get the sack I guess I'd better brush off the sawdust, sharpen the typewriter, and get down to some serious rambling. And as I seem to have spent an alarming percentage of the past month poking about in timber merchants' drying sheds, I thought I might attempt to offer a few pearls on the role of wood in guitar making.

Wood is, of course, not the only staple of the luthier's craft, but it's by far the most common, and probably the only material worth serious consideration by the novice. If you do have an uncontrollable urge to work in plastic or aluminium, may I suggest a trip to the library for a book on Origami - it'll help put these particular pages to excellent use!

By the very diversity of its nature, the use of timber is an enormous enough subject in itself. Wood, in all probability, has the longest lineage as a creative material employed by Man. Its extremes vary from Balsa (which can grow to a height of sixty feet or more in just five or six years, and the timber of which is almost as light and soft as polystyrene foam) to Lignum Vitae, which can take centuries to mature and is so hard and dense that it will sink in water. The uses to which wood can be put are equally diverse, from constructing clock mechanisms to building cathedrals.

But I digress. As with most aspects of guitar making, there are no set rules governing the varieties of timber that can be incorporated. Much is a matter of taste and individual requirements, not to mention availability. There are, however, three criteria that ought to be borne in mind when selecting wood to build an electric guitar - strength, stability, and resonance. Information on the first two can usually be gleaned from books or timber merchants' catalogues, or simply by asking an experienced wood worker. The third criterion, though, is somewhat more difficult to define, and - while advice can be given - selecting particular boards, even within acceptedly suitable varieties, is very much a matter of experience and intuition, related to the tone the maker wishes the instrument to reproduce (as well as strength and stability). The resonance of the wood will be reflected in the tone, and this is as true of solid electric guitars as it is of acoustic and semi-acoustic instruments. I've seen a Spanish guitar maker grading spruce guitar tops by holding them between the thumb and forefinger of one hand, tapping them sharply with the fingers of the other, and simply listening to the 'ring'.

It's not only the resonance of the wood that will produce an instrument's tone, of course; It's also affected by the method of construction, and the two interact. This inter-relationship can be quite subtle, and for the maker, is often a matter of trial and error (usually quite a bit of error!). Important at this stage is some understanding of how the natural acoustic tone of an instrument occurs. The Holy Grail for guitar makers is often sustain, but - although a reasonable length of note sustain is undoubtedly desirable attribute - it must be remembered that to construct an instrument solely with the aim of achieving maximum sustain will be to sacrifice some tonal quality and evenness of response.

Consider thus: if a guitar string were to be stretched over a length of steel, when plucked the resultant note would be clear and long-lasting but it would also have a tendency to sound harsh and brittle. If, however, the same string were to be secured to a piece of stiff rubber, the plucked note would be short and dull reason is obvious – the note that's heard when the string is plucked is caused by a vibration being transmitted back and forth along the string and resonating in the air. If the vibration isn't transmitted away from the string, the sustain and the sound will be undistorted. If, however, the percentage of the vibration is absorbed by the material which the string is secured to, each time the vibration travels its length (and accepting that the higher, more audible frequencies are usually the first to be lost) the note will be softer, and short-lived.

This brings me back to our choice of wood, as the warmth and clarity of a stringed instrument is largely dependent on which frequencies the wood absorbs and transmits most readily, and at what rate it absorbs them.

Well, that's enough of that - I never was much good at physics, anyway! I think at this point I should mention something about drying, sawing and storing of timber. For the purposes of guitar making, wood should have been dried to a maximum moisture content of around 10 per cent. And although for the best results (and to avoid wastage due to warping and splitting) this should be done as slowly as possible, for most of us this means kiln-dried timber. The novice would be best served purchasing wood from a reputable dealer in hardwoods, who is willing to guarantee the moisture content, or from a specialist luthiers' supplier. Even so, if you can borrow a moisture meter it is worth checking if you're not sure of your source. Under dried timber can result in the wood moving at a later date, and ruining your finished instrument. Ideally, if any quantity of timber is to be stored, it should be kept in a dry, airy situation, with 'sticks' between the boards. But it should not be stacked unevenly with heavy boards on top of light ones and too little support, as this could cause the straight timber to permanently distort.

Obtaining properly sawn timber for guitar making can be a problem if you're not using a specialist source. Most timber these days is slab sawn, which means that the tree trunk, or 'butt' is sawn through and through along its length, with no regard for the pattern of the grain within individual boards (fig. 1).

For maximum strength and stability timber is best 'quarter sawn', which means along the plank, a section of the annual rings being vertical in the width of the board (fig. 2). In my opinion, quarter-sawn section is a must for neck construction, to minimise the risk of the neck twisting or bowing under tension (fig. 3). It's often necessary to buy a piece of timber much larger than the volume needed in order to cut a neck blank with the right grain structure.

For the body section of the guitar the way in which the grain runs is, in my opinion, far less important as long as it is reasonably straight - although I'm sure there will be those who disagree.

Fingerboard blanks should always be quarter-sawn, although they very often are not! And the straighter the grain, the easier the blanks are to work and the better the stability and the finished appearance. Fingerboard material, too, has an effect on the instrument's sound quality, and generally a dense, hard timber will improve the tone and redue wear.

Of all the timbers available, only a handful are regularly used in solid guitar construction. Of these, the two most common are maple and South American mahogany, with ash running a close third (ash is not used for necks, only body sections). The main reason for this is that, of all the suitable varieties, these woods are fairly readily available in large section and quantity, and are reasonably priced. And the first-time maker can rely on the fact that they are well tried and tested. Fingerboard material is, almost universally, either rosewood or ebony, and most of the numerous types are suitable for the purpose.

I must be running out of my allotted space by now, but don't worry if a lot of this sounds like gobbledegook - I'll go into more detailed, task-related use of timber at a later date. So have fun - and mind the splinters!

Reputable luthiers' suppliers include:

Touchstone Tonewoods, 27 Lesbourne Rd., Reigate, Surrey RH2 7JS
David Dyke, The Hall, Hore Beach Lane, Horam, E. Sussex.
Creative Planning, The School House, Leek Wootton, Warwick CV35 7QY