Thread: Australian Woods?

Originally Posted by Orphan

I guess is there anything in Aus or an Aus variety of Mahogany, Ebony or Maple?

Theres a Queensland Maple, but it doesnt have a lot of character in the grain

Well just to expand a little any wood that is roughly as hard and strong as the above mentioned woods or even harder and or stronger is of interest to me. I'd like to try and use ozzie woods if i could.

Have a look at Maton's website, they talk about which local woods they use for which part of their guitars. Can't go wrong with their choices, they've been at it for decades.

lol I didn't evene realise maton were ozzie. I know very little bout acoutics, just have a art and lutherie spruce built one. Thanks a lot.

On another note does anyone know much about 'rotary tools' eg dremel. I'm looking to get one but I haven't been able to find a decent looking kit. Seen the single dremel tool and the dremel tool + like 5 attatchments and other brands such as some.. okisti... or something which looked pretty cheap but the cost was much much lower and it would probably get the job done. I was gonna get the Dremel... 440...x or something from america but realised the power difference would be to much of a bother to have to use a transformer etc. It was a boxed kit that had a plastic case 51 attatchments and the flexible extension thing that all fit nicely inside so no having everything lying around or in 4 different boxes.

Any info?

thx again.

EDIT: does anyone know of a wood similar to ebony that grows in australia? Or a different branch of ebony? And if anyone does build guitars is Ironbark suitable for a fretboard, i've heard its very hard.

Hey phil is that a 6 string bass as yer avatar? And did you make it?

If ANYONE knows of some unusual or just ozzie, straight grained hardwood please do tell.

Orphan , forget Ironbark .

Cooktown Ironwood has been used very successfully as fretboards also Red lancewood , go to the website www.banjoz.com and have a look at the Banjos made from Australian timbers.A Qmaple neck with a Cooktown Ironwood fretboard would look ok .

Despite what you may have heard , Q maple is used in a range of acoustic stringed instruments , including banjos and mandolins .If you are prepared to look around you will find Qmaple with some of the most fantastic figure you will ever see , it also steam bends well , works with hand tools well and is acoustically resonant ( you could spend a lifetime learning about the resonance of luthery timbers) . I have some quilted Qmaple and will post a pic of it asap .

regards
Veebull

Thanks a heap man. After hearing about QLD maple it was my more up there choice for the neck. Would love to see that pic man.

Is a good peice of qld maple very expensive?

Originally Posted by Orphan

If ANYONE knows of some unusual or just ozzie, straight grained hardwood please do tell.

You could give some red mahogany a bash. Very hard, very stable and straight-grained, nice colour, works and finishes well. Please note that I know less than nothing about suitable timbers for luthiery, but I do love my red mahogany .

Don't know much about guitar making but Maton use Qld Walnut for some of their guitar necks. I only know this coincidentally as I know the man who sells it to them.

John Elliott

Orphan , here is a pic of my Fullbore Rifle , which has been restocked with Q Maple .
I also have a pic of a scratch plate for a f5 mandolin , I am making but cannot locate it at the moment .I may have to take another pic .
Here is a pic of some more Qmaple , ready to make a backboard for an f5 mandolin

regards
Veebull

I'll have to check out that red mahogany... while I am learning towards that maple for the neck the guitar still needs wings (the 2 bits of the body that will glue onto the neck through of the guitar).

Know the guy that sells maton their walnut aye lol

OK correct me if im wrong:confused: but the grain goes this way right? I found it hard to tell but then noticed some little things and also remeber seeing a maple guitar neck that had similar patterns and thats the way it was used.

Attachment 18587

If it is this way nice... would look awesome. Can you get it with less little dots in it - a more clean just rippled look to it?

I've wanted to get my gun licence for ages but since I moved to canberra there really isn't anywhere to go for some gun time cept at the range... back on the coast knew a guy that had something like 400 acres and said could come over any time and hunt or just shoot. He has some boars on his land. The cost of the rifles also gets me a little, was around 3500 for the german rifle I was interested in and I just have so many other things that are higher up the ladder lol. And always probably will unless I get loaded with cash. Not to mention the other german rifle i liked was 12k :eek: and the ammo is something like 2-3 bucks a round...

anyways night, thanks for the info will be back around soon. Should i post in the tools forum... or whatever is for that kinda stuff about the dremel?

Now you are getting fussy Orphan , those ' dots ' are grain pores , sorry mate , all wood has them to some degree , like us humans with skin pores .

Veebull.

Here's a list of Oz timbers for stringed instruments that I found on the web somewhere, hope it helps.

Attachment 18639

Thanks a lot guys, that timbers.doc was good, has given me a good reference for the types of woods used thx man.

As for being fussy sure am. The handle you made there has very few pores. What can I say, if I can get it looking better then normal i'll go for it hehe. The grain is going the way of the red arrow in the piccy I put up right?

Well you's have been a big help. I'll be sure to post again if I get stuck and i'll put up a concept drawing of the guitar once i've finished... takes ages to get it perfect lol.

I'm gonna try and put together a little build log and info thing with lotsa pics when I actually build the guitar, some people I know would like to see it and a guitar forum i'm on. Will be sure to post it here 2 if people are interested though could be up to 2 months before I get it up.

From Agroforestry news #53 Dec 05

[quote)Casurina cristata (Belah or black oak) and closely related C pauper ..........very high density at about 1150kg/m3. They may make good musical instruments............[/quote]

There is a violin maker up Bright/Myrtelford way who uses Aussie wood.