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Timbers are chosen for their visual beauty and acoustic properties. We use mostly Australian timbers for the back and sides such as Tasmanian Blackwood, Tasmanian Myrtle,Tiger Myrtle. QLD Walnut, QLD Maple etc, for the neck we use QLD walnut or Brazilizn Mahogany, and the tops are usually one of the spruce's, Euro, Engleman, Sitka etc. For brace material we may use spruce, bolsa wood, King William Pine and sometimes with carbon fibre reinforcement. With double tops we use a nomax core. Fingerboards can be Ebony, Indian Rosewood, Amazon Rosewood, or Santos Rosewood. For the kurfing I use Tasmanian leatherwood.

All these timbers have differant properties that makes them suitable for a particular requirment on the instrument.

For example Tasmanian Leatherwood is a dense timber that has good bending properties and doesn't break easy when making the fine cuts into it for bending. Its density allows the energy from the strings to be reflected back away from the edge of the guitar.

Good guitars are made with subtle refinements. A gain in one part of the instrument is often at the cost of another.

Making a musical instrument is a bit like playing one. After a while you develop a feel for the materials and the tools.

Hand tools become your friends. Like playing guitar using them can become addictive.