Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Brett Morgan on August 26, 2010 at 7:46am

I would think everytime your neck gets a reasonably hard knock it's gonna get dings all over it I would think, why do you want to use pine?

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Permalink Reply by Skeesix on August 26, 2010 at 8:14am

I've used pine before. It seems to be a bit unstable but gives a nice warm growly tone. I would make it pretty chunky, and the hardwood strip, etc. is probably a good idea too.

I think it would be similar to using cedar for necks like they do on classical guitars.

The idea of dings doesn't bother me - they just add character.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Tinker on August 26, 2010 at 10:13am

If Pine is the only piece you've got then you could do what I did. Cut the plank down the middle, reverse the grain and laminate them together, that way the grain 'fights' itself and it stays straight. Hardwoods better though!

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/photo/pine-neck?context=user

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Permalink Reply by Micah Haley on August 26, 2010 at 11:57am

I've become quite frustrated with pine, effectively wrecking two necks before they got even close to being fitted to a box.

The material is very soft, leading to many dings and dents simply from moving it around the shop. I mean, a piece of crud on the table would leave a dent in it. Not cool when trying to make a nice smooth fretboard.

The wood had a tendency to splinter and lose pieces when being worked. It was very easy to over work it and make mistakes.

If I couldn't even get a plank to stay in decent shape long enough to build the guitar, how would it stay nice when the axe was completed?

Basically, I've personally given up on pine insofar as critical, stress baring components are concerned.

But that's just my experience...

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Permalink Reply by Salty Sea Empire on August 26, 2010 at 12:40pm

my main concern wasn't working or dings( which don't bother me either skeesix) i was just curious to wether or not it would work? and i'm curious what it will sound like

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Permalink Reply by Scott L on August 26, 2010 at 1:43pm

Pine will dampen the tone because of the softness but if you are not planning on fingering the frets and only sliding them it won't be as much of an issue. I would avoid it personally for the reasons people listed in this thread. For a dollar or two more you can get a piece of maple, poplar or oak that would be much better suited to a guitar.

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Permalink Reply by Roger Martin on August 26, 2010 at 3:14pm

I agree with the others, I've tried pine and I found it just too soft to handle the load.For almost 2 years now I've used poplar for both Banjo necks and CBG necks and found it works fine .It's not expensive ,its easy to get and it looks good when done.

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Permalink Reply by Josh Gayou (SmokehouseGuitars) on August 26, 2010 at 6:22pm

Some woods just don't measure up, bro. Stay away from pine. It's nature's own vibration absorber.

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on August 26, 2010 at 6:51pm

I've made quite few necks with hemlock, simply because that's all I had to hand at the time. It was good tight grained stuff, nothing like the typical quick-grown soft pine. I put on a substantial oak fretboard, left plenty of 'meat' in the neck and on the 4 strings put in a trussrod. The hemlock is quite like Spanish Cedar in the tightness of its grain and overall strength, so using softwood as a neck isn't a total no-no, but ordinary pine isn't a timber I'd use. If you were to laminate it with a hardwood centre stripe it would doubtless work, depending on what sort of tension (ie how many strings) you are putting on the neck, but it's an awful lot of work to compensate for the inherent weakness of the material.

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Permalink Reply by Skeesix on August 27, 2010 at 1:10pm

I forgot to mention, I used a white pine furring strip I had laying around. I also put a fingerboard on it, which no doubt helped with stability, and would be easier than a center lamination.

I like the idea of splitting it in half (or using two boards glue together) so it's laminated along it's length.

I wouldn't use yellow pine - I've tried that before and it's hard to work with - very soft wood combined with stripes of very very hard wood (harder than maple).

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Permalink Reply by Salty Sea Empire on August 27, 2010 at 3:16pm

thanks man... that is what i was thinking (laminating with a strip of hardwood) cause i've done that with poplar and a strip of red oak and was thinking that i could do that with pine but several folks are saying that it will absorb vibrations and dampen sound....i think i'm gonna give it a try anyway.

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Permalink Reply by W.M. Peterson on September 5, 2010 at 11:36pm

I'v used pine for my last build, 6-string with toothpicks as fretwire, stays very well in tune, sounds great and the action is very good. It's already my favourite CBG. CHRZ. Werner.

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