# Birch as a tone wood



## KapnKrunch




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## Lincoln

I've got a sh1t-load of birch rough cut 1 x12's x 10ft from a job that went bad. I'd love to use it up as tone wood. It's fairly hard, reminds me of maple. Make a good neck I think. Little too heavy for a solid body electric though.

I've got an old Harmony arch top acoustic that supposed to be all birch.


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## cboutilier

Lincoln said:


> I've got a sh1t-load of birch rough cut 1 x12's x 10ft from a job that went bad. I'd love to use it up as tone wood. It's fairly hard, reminds me of maple. Make a good neck I think. Little too heavy for a solid body electric though.
> 
> I've got an old Harmony arch top acoustic that supposed to be all birch.


I would suspect you could get away with using birch in any place you would typically use maple.


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## KapnKrunch

*Tonewood *

Baltic birch is among the most sought-after wood in the manufacture of speaker cabinets. Birch has a natural resonance that peaks in the high and low frequencies, which are also the hardest for speakers to reproduce.[_citation needed_] This resonance compensates for the roll-off of low and high frequencies in the speakers, and evens the tone. Birch is known for having "natural EQ".

Drums are often made from birch. Prior to the 1970s, it was one of the most popular drum woods. Because of the need for greater volume and midrange clarity, drums were made almost entirely from maple until recently,[_clarification needed_] when advances in live sound reinforcement and drum microphones have allowed the use of birch in high-volume situations. Birch drums have a natural boost in the high and low frequencies, which allows the drums to sound fuller.

Birch wood is sometimes used as a tonewood for semiacoustic and acoustic guitar bodies, and occasionally for solid-body guitar bodies. It is also a common material used in mallets for keyboard percussion.

_From_ _Wikipedia_


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## KapnKrunch

cboutilier said:


> I would suspect you could get away with using birch in any place you would typically use maple.


I have heard this, but can't seem to find the info again tonight...


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## Lincoln

cboutilier said:


> I would suspect you could get away with using birch in any place you would typically use maple.


In other types of woodworking, I find birch is very similar to both maple & cherry in harness, workability, and grain patterns. Almost interchangeable. 
On solid body guitars, maybe a neck-thru with some nice light wings on it would work nicely. Worth a try.


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## Lincoln

KapnKrunch said:


> *Tonewood *
> 
> Baltic birch is among the most sought-after wood in the manufacture of speaker cabinets. Birch has a natural resonance that peaks in the high and low frequencies, which are also the hardest for speakers to reproduce.[_citation needed_] This resonance compensates for the roll-off of low and high frequencies in the speakers, and evens the tone. Birch is known for having "natural EQ".
> 
> Drums are often made from birch. Prior to the 1970s, it was one of the most popular drum woods. Because of the need for greater volume and midrange clarity, drums were made almost entirely from maple until recently,[_clarification needed_] when advances in live sound reinforcement and drum microphones have allowed the use of birch in high-volume situations. Birch drums have a natural boost in the high and low frequencies, which allows the drums to sound fuller.
> 
> Birch wood is sometimes used as a tonewood for semiacoustic and acoustic guitar bodies, and occasionally for solid-body guitar bodies. It is also a common material used in mallets for keyboard percussion.
> 
> _From_ _Wikipedia_


Interesting. Baltic birch is very high quality birch plywood, comes in 5ft x 5ft sheets. Always stays & nice and straight/flat. I like it a lot/used it a lot for building kitchen type cabinets. Never used it for a speaker cabinet though. But that could change real quick.


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## KapnKrunch

Lincoln said:


> On solid body guitars, maybe a neck-thru with some nice light wings on it would work nicely. Worth a try.


Lately I have been thinking neck-thru with hollow wings.


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## Guest

Lincoln said:


> Never used it for a speaker cabinet though.


My weight relieved custom made by Jimmy D sounds fabulous.


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## Milkman

If we’re to believe some folks, you could use pretty much any wood on an electric guitar. In fact there are some who would likely say you could put a good pickup on pretty much anything and come up with a descent guitar (provided of course you put it through an amp with vacuum tubes).

On an acoustic guitar? I guess that’s where wood matters.


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## Silvertone

Check out Jeffrey Yong Guitars. He has used non-traditional woods for acoustic guitars for years and has won blind sound tests with the best sounding guitars in the world. IMO for electric guitars you could probably use almost anything for the wood. Obviously you want to be aware of the weight. There are lots of builders using maple for solid body guitars as well as chambered. Rickenbacker comes to mind, I'm sure there are loads of others. If I am building a custom guitar the price difference between the most inexpensive and the more expensive traditional tone woods isn't that much. It may triple in price for the rough cut wood but in the overall price of the guitar it's a drop in the bucket. Having said that I use a lot of walnut, and even white ash because it is local and reclaimed. I recommend this to anyone on their first couple of builds. I hate seeing people buy honduran mahogany and brazillian rosewood and messing up this endangered wood just because of inexperience.

I built my first guitar from white ash that my father had laying around his property.

Regards Peter.


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## knight_yyz

If they can make a guitar out of cardboard and resin I'm sure birch will do nicely. If it's a bit too heavy do a small chamber or weight relief. Anyone seen this contraption yet? Body blank was 100 year old teak. Only half the wood of a normal guitar, still sounds good . Actually, IIRC the bridge is bolted to the guitar, not screwed, as wood slats did not line up with the mounting holes. Crimson Guitars BOB 1 for those who are interested


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## knight_yyz

*Birch * Betula sp.
Long ago, makers used a lot of birch, especially in smaller instruments such as fiddles and mandolins. It was the cheapest hardwood available at the local lumber yard. It works, acts, and looks much like maple, though curly birch normally has a much larger curl than curly maple. Tear-out may be a problem. Not so popular any more. I would think yellow birch would be the best.
COLOR: In yellow birch (B. alleghaniensis), sapwood is creamy yellow or pale white; heartwood is light red- dish brown tinged with red. In sweet birch (B. lenta), sapwood is light colored and heartwood is dark brown tinged with red.
GRAIN: Medium figuring, straight, closed grain, even texture. Occasional curly grain or wavy figure in some boards.
VARIATIONS WITHIN SPECIES AND GRADES: Yellow birch, sweet birch, paper birch. Paper birch (B. papyrifera) is softer and lower in weight and strength than yellow or sweet birch. However, yellow birch is most commonly used for flooring. Boards can vary greatly in grain and color.
SIDE HARDNESS/JANKA: 1260 (yellow)
DIMENSIONAL STABILITY: Average (change coefficient .00338).
DURABILITY: Hard and stiff; very strong, with excellent shock resistance.
SAWING/MACHINING: Difficult to work with hand tools, but good machining qualities.
SANDING: Sands satisfactorily.
FINISHING: No known problems.


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## Granny Gremlin

Birch is the second most common wood used for drums after Maple and just ahead of 'mahogany' (real back in the day and with some modern high end; mostly limba etc on everything else)

The resonance thing in the wiki quoted by Kapn above is true but mainly in demand for speaker building because birch is the only species they make voidless plywood in (see also 'marine grade' - that's got nothing to do with resonances) that is easy to find and readily available in quantity and not overly expensive.


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