Using ebony for steel?

[Uwe Haegg]

Has anybody ever tried using ebony as building material for a steel?
Anybody know anything about the "tonal" qualities of ebony?

[Martin Weenick]

Dont believe that would work well at all. Too heavy, too expensive, too hard to work with, wont float, not considered a "tone wood". Great for inlays and fretboards because of the great wear factor. Martin.

[Tamara James]

I have a fretboard with an ebony overlay, but it's not a guitar. It's a mountain dulcimer..The one on the right on my avatar. It does play very smooth. Drys out fast. I have to keep it conditioned. If that helps at all.

[Mike Perlowin]

Besides, who would ever want a black steel guitar. I mean really........

[b0b]

My Williams is maple finished with an ebony stain. It combines the beauty of fine wood grain with the superior tone of black.

[Alan Brookes]

It would make for a very expensive instrument. Ebony is unpleasant to work with. I use it for fingerboards and when you saw it you get an awful black powder given off which is much finer than regular sawdust. The powder floats around in the air and gets into your lungs. Never saw, file or sand ebony without wearing a face-mask.

It's not the toughest material to work with. Maple takes a lot of physical effort if you're using hand tools.

I don't know how it would affect the tone of the instrument. If you want rigidity it would be better to use one of those plastics they use in the aerospace industry which are toucher than steel.

Ovation use helicopter plastic for their bowls and a carbon fibre for some of their necks. I've often thought of converting an Ovation into a resonator guitar.

[Uwe Haegg]

How much more expensive would an ebony guitar be if somebody were to take up the challenge and build one?
I am aware that the wood is very hard to form and it chips easily.
Maybe we now are back to the discussion about the body material of a steel guitar influencing the sound of a steel guitar.
I like the sound of an MSA Millennium composite carbon very much. In my opinion it cuts through the mix and is up there with the very best of them - Emmons "no matter what type" and others.
You are, of course, free to have your opinion.
Would an all metal body of a steel have a different sound?
Any thoughts?

[Matthew Prouty]

I have worked extensively with ebony making wood wind instruments and it is almost like working with plastic. Its to say the least a strange wood. What the others said about it is all true and I want to add that ebony is very difficult to find in large pieces. Most cuts suit violin fret boards (or what ever they are called) and wood wind sections. So you would probably have a real hard time finding a big piece. Its about as heavy as lead too.

I use to buy a wood called blond ebony, which was really beautiful that came in planks. It was black ebony streaked with blond strips and was tonally superior to black ebony but had the markings so it was cheaper.

As far as price goes you can count on ebony being at a minimum 10 times more expensive than common wood and extremely heavier. Its very very difficult to work by hand, however it turns very nicely in an industrial lathe.

[Tommy Cass]

Here's a picture of my first Sho-Bud. It had an Ebony front, maple body, and Ebony necks. Had a great tone. Sho-Bud used a lot of exotic woods in the early years.

[Alan Brookes]

What Matthew said is exactly right. If you walk round a wood merchant's that supplies woods specifically for luthiers, such as Luthiers' Mercantile, you won't find large pieces of ebony. I've picked up offcuts fairly cheaply at times which have been cut and planed for fingerboards. The imperfect ones are sold off cheaply, and I use them for lap steel fingerboards since little imperfections have no effect on a fingerboard that's not going to be fingered. I guess you could laminate several pieces together, but you would have quite a job making the joints invisible as everything shows up on jett black.

[Bobbe Seymour]

I also own a Sho-Bud permenant with Ebony necks and front. Hal Rugg also had one in 1962 the same configuration. Like Tommy Cass said, Sho-Bud used a lot of exotic woods in the first 5 years of production.
Guess Tommy and I are old, but we still have our memories of these fine old guitars.

Bobbe

[Alan Brookes]

How did it sound compared to similar instruments in the more-usual woods ?

[Per Berner]

Macassar Ebony is regarded as a very nice tone wood, and it's very beautiful (check it out at lmii.com); stripey in the more expensive grades. But why not just buy a set of acoustic sides from LMI and glue them on top of a slightly thinner maple body, as a thick veneer?

[Bobbe Seymour]

I personally feel that it's maple or nothing, this wood seems to make the greatest sounding steel guitars. I have heard thousands of steels over the years and done a lot of expermenting, maple always seems to win in steel guitar construction, this was Shot Jackson and his son's opions also, hence, when other woods were used for beauty and to contrast the maple, the "other" woods were just used in places that didn't affect the tone (hardly), like in the necks and fronts. Notice that you almost never see a good sounding steel guitar with any "other kind of wood" top boards?

Look around today, which guitars have the greatest reputation for having great tone and which ones don't. What are the good sounding ones made of? At least the sounding board (top piece) should be the organic material,"maple". You don't see many good sounding violins made from anything else either.

Just an observation.

Maple is king of tone it seems, but there are still some folks that think plywood sounds good! Ha! Ha! (ie. tone is subjective, all in the hands,in the amp only, in the ears of the beholder and only in black guitars, etc.)

Bobbe

[Bobbe Seymour]

One more thing, Ebony has to be the heaviest wood I ever saw used in a steel guitar, a very heavy wood.

[Alan Brookes]

I agree with Per. If you just want the ebony for its appearance apply a thin ebony vaneer.

[Donny Hinson]

Has anybody ever tried using ebony as building material for a steel?
Anybody know anything about the "tonal" qualities of ebony?

Of course, ebony's been tried (along with about 200 other different woods and materials). Nix - it's heavy, hard to work with, and rather expensive. It has almost nothing a steeler would want.

We already know what woods work well, and what woods don't.

Stop trying to re-invent the wheel.

Almost anything you can think of (even concrete or solid aluminum), has already been tried.

[Mike Perlowin]

Just out of curiosity, what about mahogany and rosewood?

[Bobbe Seymour]

How about Tupperware, or possibly Rubbermaid?


Bobbe

[Clyde Mattocks]

Enter my order for one of those concrete steels.
Deliver to site. (sit down gig, of course)

[Mike Perlowin]

How about Tupperware, or possibly Rubbermaid? Bobbe

I have one of those Tupperware guitars.

[John Billings]

I knew I'd read this somewhere!
"During this early period, wood for the guitars was ordered from the Craftsman Wood Company in Chicago, IL. Their catalog had a variety of fine woods to choose from. Ebony, which is a very beautiful hard wood was also available but was extremely expensive and very hard to work with. For those reasons, they decided not to use it. Buddy Emmons later recalled that Shot didn't even want people to know that ebony was available."
http://www.planet.eon.net/~gsimmons/sho ... inish.html

[Roger Shackelton]

Has anyone tried Lignum Vitae?

[Rocky Hill]

Has anyone tried Lignum Vitae?

Ironwood?


Rocky

[Matthew Prouty]

How about making a steel guitar out of STEEL!!!

If its not heavy enough you can use some lead pedals!

M.