I'm sure this question has been posted before, but I can't find anything with a quick search, so...
A neighbour has asked me about a friend of his, who is apparently an excellent guitarist. My neighbour does a lot of woodworky things (his garage is stuffed with all manner of expensive, and heavily used, kit), and he says he has a pal who has been given a slab of oak. His pal wants to make a guitar out of it. Apparently the particular slab of oak has come from a tree that the guitarist has sentimental attachments to, which is why he wants to do something with it that will be meaningful to him, such as making a guitar.
Because my neighbour knows bugger all about making guitars, he asked me for some advice. My advice is not to bother - oak, as far as I know, is far too dense and solid to make anything even halfway resonant, even more so than mahogany.
Am I correct in thinking this? If not, I've already pointed him in the direction of this forum and its multifarious banks of knowledge and advice.
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Perhaps take a thinner and nicely figured piece for a cap? Or just turn some control knobs.
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
Acoustic i know but ......
I saw a boutique build on Facebook a little while ago that had a figured oak top... can't remember what the back was. It looked extraordinary...
What's the grain like in the slab? Any interesting figure?
I have a vague memory that Gordon Smith did some guitars with oak tops/ caps.
a cap would be fine. a whole body will likely be heavy as said above.
There will be people out there who have built with it and claim its fine, some of them might actually be fine, but generally speaking its not the best choice for a solid body. You have to judge the wood you have available
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I don't know anything specific about the bit of wood in question, such as what it looks like (or even how big it is!) but i'll suggest a cap for something lighter. I also guess it depends on what he's wanting to do with it - strat or LP or prs style, or even something else.
Ohh I don't know... Ive made a couple of guitars from Oak... One glued neck, one was a neck through and ive done one guitar with a solid maple body and an oak neck.
Id say as long as you get the weight right by say making a smaller or thinner body guitar the weight is ok.. I wouldn't make a fat LP type guitar with it. Flat top slab guitar, yes.
I will also say that my only big issue with oak is it does eat your tools up...
But id say it can be done for sure. And for a neck, its a great material.. The maple /oak guitar I made with the oak neck hasn't moved a tiny bit since it was made.
Id post pictures but Imgur isn't working properly at the moment. One of the bodies was made with some spare kitchen top surface I found at my sisters house and I actually really liked how that came out
I do have a vid of the neckthrough I made (my second ever guitar) but you will have to put up with my crappy playing..
http://www.rabswoodguitars.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/RabsWoodGuitars/
My Youtube page
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Also theres one other thing about this.. It will depend on what sort of cut the oak is too and if its been dried properly.. All the wood I have used has been kiln dried.
Ohh and I got Imgur working again so if anyone is interested..Heres that guitar I made from an offcut of kitchen work top
https://i.imgur.com/DNHDGeG.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/DCypuce.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/P5Za2dp.jpg
http://www.rabswoodguitars.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/RabsWoodGuitars/
My Youtube page
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etnB1h8hFb8&feature=share
I came across this article on the red special restoration a while back and it's fascinating if you're a Queen fan like me.
https://fryerguitars.wordpress.com/red-special-restoration-1998/
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bits of it are oak( I can’t remember exactly which bits).. but it’s not really comparable to a solid or chambered oak guitar. There is a lot of non-standard stuff in that build
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the fossilisation pushes it towards the denser hardwoods
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https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/wood-density-d_40.html