I am beginning plans to build a lap steel – which is a solid body guitar-like instrument. Many solid body guitars are made of mahogany bodies with applied maple tops. My questions are:
– what do I have to take into consideration regarding grain and wood movement when gluing a maple top to a mahogany body?
– what type of glue is best suited for this task?
Replies
Are you looking to build one where the overall body is relatively narrow, or one that's shaped more like a conventional guitar? The reason I ask is that any problems with wood movement are going to be much less of a problem with the narrower body.
Quartersawn hard maple is a good match to quartersawn mahogany as far as response to humidity changes is concerned, so you can glue them together without worry. If the top is figured, it's more likely to be soft maple, which isn't quite as good a match. But as long a the top is thin (less than about 3/32" = 2 mm), you should still be fine.
Flatsawn lumber is a little worse still, and you might be asking for trouble with that.
Pretty much any glue would work. If it were me, I'd use Titebond III, but that's mostly because it's what I use for just about anything made of wood.
-Steve
FWIW, most luthiers swear by good ol' fashioned hide glue. If you wanna go with Titebond, stick with the original rather than II or III, since it resists creep better than the others.
See: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Glues,_adhesives/Wood_glue.html
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
I would say do a search on 'Guitar makers' or such... and ask THEM! A very different world from furnitue making.. We both have different ideas and needs!
I suggest that you contact the Guild of American Luthiers. Last year I need to make two lutes in short period of time and they were a great help.
http://www.luth.org/
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