*more coming soon*
Green Guitar Making: Building an Eco-Friendly Guitar
Title |
Description |
Source / Link(s) |
"Building a Sustainable Guitar" |
A six-part blog series by World Resources Institute that "examines how guitars can be built sustainably, looking at six of the most popular tonewoods, found across 34 countries: Sitka spruce, koa, bigleaf maple, rosewood, ebony and mahogany. Each installment focuses on a different species of tree used for a specific part of the guitar, each of which presents its own specific challenges and possibilities surrounding sustainable harvest. We show how guitar construction relates to the U.S. Lacey Act, which governs the taking of endangered flora and fauna, including trees. The series also looks at the future of tonewoods and on innovative ways to redefine how humans interact with forests." (source) |
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"Green guitars: A guide to eco-friendly axes" |
Article by Paul Ridden, published on News Atlas, 2009. This article explores the environmentally-friendly adaptations that luthiers and guitar manufacturers have made in reaction to the endangerment of many precious tonewoods and our forests, including guitars made of recycled yogurt pots, bamboo, and even hemp. |
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"Guitar Wood: A Guide to the Tonewoods Used in Guitar Building" |
Article by Scott Marquart, published April 14, 2015 on Stringjoy. Marquart discusses which types of woods are normally used in a guitar (and for which part of the guitar) and even touches on the subject of guitars made from non-traditional woods or non-wood materials. |
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"A Tonewood Primer: How to Pick the Right Materials for your Optimal Sound" |
Published in Acoustic Guitar Magazine, this article includes a 'glossary of terms', including fundamental vs. overtones, harmonic content, sustain, torrefaction, and velocity of sound, and considers a few varieties of tonewoods and their quality of sound and applications. For each tonewood discussed, examples of guitar models created out of that type of wood are given. Featured in this article is advice on selecting guitar tonewoods from both Taylor Guitars and Martin & Co. |
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"Tonewood Tutorial: Everything You Need to Know About Tonewoods" |
Article by Dave Hunter, updated April 15, 2019 and originally published October 20, 2016 on the Guitar Player website. This article features information about solidbody and semi-acoustic electric guitars and the types of tonewoods utilized to create different desired tonal qualities. |
Selecting Tonewoods for Guitar Making: Choosing tonewoods to build a guitar and considering sustainable options
Tonewoods |
Description |
Source / Link(s) |
"Different Types of Wood Timber: The A-Z of Good Wood" |
"Different Types of Wood Timber: The A-Z of Good Wood" by Friends of the Earth. "The Good Wood Guide was produced in 1997 in partnership with Fauna & Flora International through Fenside Waste Management Ltd and the Rufford Foundation." If it is not possible to use reclaimed woods, use this guide to select new timber. The guide includes tree species information and the relative endangerment status (and whether it is threatened with extinction) and the species' place of origin. |
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"Everything You Should Know About Sustainable Wood" |
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"How Sustainable Is Wood?" |
"How Sustainable Is Wood?" by John Buck describes the impact of global deforestation and our (human) history of utilizing wood as a resource. Buck asks us to take responsibility for our impact on the environment and to manage our forests properly to preserve our trees for future generations. |
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"The Importance of Sustainable Wood Supplies" |
"The Importance of Sustainable Wood Supplies" by Brett Butler, U.S. Forest Service, on the American Forest Foundation website describes the importance of using sustainably harvested wood from sustainably managed forests, and describes the threats to our wood supplies, including development, parcellation, insects, fires, etc. |
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"Recycled Tonewoods: Why luthiers are turning to alternatively sourced materials" |
"Recycled Tonewoods: Why luthiers are turning to alternatively sourced materials" by Rick Micheletti of Micheletti Guitars, article posted on Acoustic Guitar magazine's website and also appears in Acoustic Guitar Issue #194. Micheletti writes about "sinker" redwood logs, reclaimed woods used in guitar making (sunken river logs, driftwood, church pews), and notable conservationists and sustainable lutherie pioneers such as Brent Cole of Alaska Specialty Woods, Dave Maize of Earth-Friendly Woods, and Taylor Guitars' Liberty Tree project. |
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"Sustainable Tonewoods for Eco Friendly Guitars (& the Companies Who Make Them)" |
"Sustainable Tonewoods for Eco Friendly Guitars (& the Companies Who Make Them)" by Simon 'The Sound Junky' Lyon describes how to identify sustainable wood, alternative materials (composite, flaxwood, recyclables) and more sustainable tonewoods (basswood, korina, poplar), and identifies several companies who build instruments with sustainability in mind. |
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"Sustainable Woods: Which Woods Are Most Sustainable?" |
"Sustainable Woods: Which Woods Are Most Sustainable?", an article on EnviroCitizen, describes the environmental detriment of clear-cutting forests and offers a list of which endangered woods to avoid purchasing, suggesting that one should instead look for the FSC-certified logo and/or purchase "re-claimed" or "re-discovered" woods instead. |
Alternatives to Traditional Wood: Recyclable materials and non-woods used in guitar making
Material |
Description |
Source / Link(s) |
Arium |
A material developed by a team of Dutch scientists in collaboration with Technical University Delft for the guitar makers of Aristides Instruments (source). The team's mission was to "develop a material with perfect acoustic properties. The primary emphasis being on resonance and sustain." |
Aristides Instruments https://aristidesinstruments.com/ https://aristidesinstruments.com/story/history |
Bamboo |
Bamboo is fast-growing plant that requires no irrigation, rarely needs replanting, can be harvested in 3-5 years (much more quickly than trees), sequesters carbon dioxide, and produces more oxygen than an equivalent stand of trees (source). Bamboo has countless uses for housing and building material, roads and bridges, medicine, clothing, food, fuel, furniture, and musical instruments. Some guitar manufacturers (including Alquier Guitars, Yamaha, and First Act) have developed bamboo guitars as a sustainable alternative to traditionally used tonewoods, which are often endangered species of trees. |
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Carbon fiber and graphite |
Many guitar manufacturers have turned to carbon fiber as an eco-friendly alternative to wood. Carbon fiber is resistant to changes in temperature, humidity, and moisture. Some guitar makers building with carbon fiber are RainSong guitars, Peavey, McPherson Guitars, and KLOS Guitars. |
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Cigar boxes |
Red Dog Guitars constructs their guitars out of vintage cigar boxes with 3 or 4 strings. |
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Ekoa® and carbon fiber composites |
Blackbird Guitars builds their "wood-free" El Captain guitars and Clara ukuleles from a material called Ekoa® and carbon fiber composites. Ekoa® is a "Natural flax linen fiber pre-impregnated (prepreg) with post-industry, plant-based resin" (source). Ekoa® is considered an "eco-friendly" alternative to the (typically exotic) tonewoods traditionally used in guitar making. |
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Flaxwood |
Flaxwood Guitars builds their guitars out of flaxwood, an environmentally sustainable material and alternative to traditional tonewoods that have become endangered and are going extinct. "Flaxwood is an innovative new tone material that is created by breaking the grain structure of natural wood and injection-molding it into shape together iwth an acoustically sensitive binding agent." (source) |
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Hemp-cellulose |
MADA Guitars (Mada Guitarrenbau Meisterbetrieb) builds acoustic guitars with hemp-cellulose bodies. |
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Lyrachord (patented) |
Ovation Guitars builds instruments out of Lyrachord -- interwoven layers of glass filament and bonding resin. Charles Kaman, founder of Ovation Instruments, decided to put a team together to invent a new guitar in 1964, choosing aerospace engineers and technicians. One of their innovations was creating a synthetic back and a “parabolic” (round-back) shape. The first Ovation guitar debuted in November 1966, with a patented Lyrachord body. |
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Skateboards |
Prisma Guitars are made from the wood of broken, recycled skateboards (layers of pressed hard rock maple wood). |
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Tin and aluminum cookie containers |
Plank Guitars creates unique guitars and instruments out of found objects, like cookie tins and vintage cigar boxes, and uses only salvaged local woods for the other portions of the guitar. All of the electricity used to run the workshop is generated by solar and wind power. |
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Yogurt pots, CDs, plastic water bottles |
Simon Lee Guitars, Cyclotron Guitar Series, is a series of electric guitars made out of recycled materials such as food industry containers, yogurt pots, CDs, vending machine cups, industrial pipes, and plastic water bottles. |
Alternative Tonewoods: Alternatives to the (exotic) woods traditionally used in guitar making
* resources in this category coming soon*
Environmentally Friendly Finishes: Alternative finishes for guitars, including water-based products
Name / Brand |
Description |
Source / Link(s) |
Aquinity® Waterborne Acrylic is an industrial wood coating that can be used to finish guitars. Other applications include wood surfaces, kitchen cabinets, furniture, and fine architectural woodwork. |
