Thread: spruce, rosewood, mahogany - surely there are more: what & why?

There are a lot of Aussie alternatives for woods for backs, sides and necks of acoustic guitars but Aussie tonewoods suitable for tops are more limited in number. The main reason is our climate which isnt ideal for slow growing species such as spruces which produce light and stiff tone wood with a high number of growth rings per inch.

I have a list of aussie timbers that can be used for instrument making
My .pdf file making program is on the blink so as soon as I can convert it Ill let you know
dayvo

Originally Posted by dayvo

I have a list of aussie timbers that can be used for instrument making
My .pdf file making program is on the blink so as soon as I can convert it Ill let you know
dayvo

Cheers Dayvo.
What was that principle about the tonal wood - light, slow growing woods are generally better?
And what are the characteristics of rosewood that make it so desirable for accoustic guitar sides?

Originally Posted by toddles

Cheers Dayvo.
What was that principle about the tonal wood - light, slow growing woods are generally better?
And what are the characteristics of rosewood that make it so desirable for accoustic guitar sides?

Rosewood bends well. Top woods should generally be light AND stiff...not light and floppy. One of the basic rules I build to is "light and stiff", this applies to the top and also bracing underneath same.

Originally Posted by kiwigeo

Rosewood bends well. Top woods should generally be light AND stiff...not light and floppy. One of the basic rules I build to is "light and stiff", this applies to the top and also bracing underneath same.

Cheers KG

Is there an tonal advantage to using rosewood over other easily bendable woods or laminated construction?

Why is light and stiff important?

Do I sound like a three year old "why? why? why? why?"?

Body and side woods do IMO contribute to the tonal character of the instrument but not as much as the top. Laminates can be used for body and sides..even some of the old Spanish classical builders actually experimented with laminates on the bodies of their instruments. Laminate for a top.....generally not a good idea. Very strong but the stuff will never vibrate as freely as spruce or other standard tonewoods.

Why light and stiff? You can have the long winded answer involving lots of maths or the short answer.....because it just gives the best sound. For the long winded explanation see Franz Jahnel's "Manual of Guitar Technology". he discusses things like Young's Modulus of Elasticity...a measure of how elastic a wood is..ie its tendancy to bounce back to original shape when deformed.

Cheers Martin

I've heard that Bunya pine (Aurakaria Bidwilli) is being used succesfully for luthiery, although exactly for what components I don't know.

Mick

Heres that list of aussie timbers in the attatchment
You'll need the adobe acrobat reader to view it
dayvo

Originally Posted by journeyman Mick

I've heard that Bunya pine (Aurakaria Bidwilli) is being used succesfully for luthiery, although exactly for what components I don't know.

Mick

I have a Maton with a Bunya top .It has its own tone,little bit like spruce.I love it.The spruce probably looks "clearer" .

Maton have /had a good decription of their tonewoods on there site.

I know that most of you are interstate and probably have your own suppliers of quality timber.

Just wanted to let you know that Thomas Lloyd Guitars (Chris Wynne) sells acoustic and classical full rough sawn timber packs ready to go, all timber included redy to make a guitar.

Aussie timbers are $450 and and European $520.

For your info. 03 9431 2490

Enjoy

Originally Posted by dayvo

Heres that list of aussie timbers in the attachment
You'll need the adobe acrobat reader to view it
dayvo

Huon pine not on the list....Makes beautiful looking and nice smelling soundboards but like alot of Aussie top woods the jury is still out on log term sound qualities.

I see Honduran Mahogany and Brazilian Rosewood on the list. H Mahogany is now CITES listed so may be hard to come by here in Australia in years to come, especially back and side sets. Most US suppliers wont export the stuff outside US. Brazillian Rosewood...forget it unless youre a millionaire or have connections with an illegal logger in Brazil. I managed to get my hands on a classical back side set recently but it cost me big time. The set wont be used until I get alot more experience...destroying a BRW set would be grounds for ending my life!

Indian Rosewood is still in good supply at reasonable cost but wont be for ever. Allied Luthiery often have opportunity grade IRW available at a good price....ideal for first builds and practising on. Im currently using an opp grade IRW back set for french polishing practise. Guitar Number 2, a classical has back and sides made from same wood and although a bit on the light side it looks ok.

Hello There! i'm new here and i saw this interesting thread.

Well, first of all, I started to look for alternative tonewood because where I live (México) the classic tonewoods are really expensive.

So I build (after a lot of research) a list of "prospects" that seem to be interesting. All of them are natives from México (& Centroamérica) and specially from the Penìnsula de Yucatán, a southestern region.

*Tzalam (Lysiloma bahamensis)
Hardness: 1400 Janka
Density: 31 pcf

Sometimes called "Mayan or Aztec Walnut", I think this could be an asskicking replacement for mahogany (or even maple), since Martin (yes, C. F. Martin & Co) DID produced a set of 30 dreadnoughts in 1999 that were made from this wood. its diplays a reddish colour that sometimes has a purple feel.

*Katalox (Swartzia cubensis)
Hardness: 3690 Janka
Density: 73 pcf

As you can see, this one is hard and heavy as a rock. Martin (yes, again) suposely uses it for fretboards in replacement of rosewood BUT apparently they start testing it for sides and backs, following a desing by Sting (come sort of eco-friendly guitar).

*Siricote (Cordia dodecandra)
Hardness: 2200 Janka
Density: 56 pcf

Suppsely this wood gives exactly THE SAME tone and feel of the finest rosewoods. I cant tell if that it's true but it's a strong and heavy wood with an AMAZING looking (btw, I certainly dislike, but its look is juts shocking).

*Chenchen (Metopium browne)
Hardness: 2200 Janka
Density: 69 pcf

Sometimes called "caribbean rosewood" because of the color and grain. I read that it has exceptionally good tone qualities, but that's it, I'm not sure exactly what qualities.

*Granadillo (Platymiscium yucatanum)

Specific Gravity: 0.79
Hardness: 2450 Janka
This one is a tonewood in all right. It's used for building the Marimba (a wooden xilophone). Sometimes it`s called "La madera que canta" (The wood that sings) because it's tone properties.

*Palo morado (Peltogyne mexicana)
Hardness 1800 Janka
A beautifull purple wood (this thing just kick the #### outta my brain!!!). I'm not sure what kind of tone would deliver but I've seen that some uses it for laminating necks (and i have no idea, but i think it can make an flamedmapple-asskicking top)

Well, if anybody knwos about the prices of this woods, I'd like to know (there are three lumbermills here in Veracruz City, but I've visited just one... they got tzalam but I totally forgot to ask for the price).

PS. Sorry for my poor fragmented english... I haven't practiced since highschool (8 years ago)... and I never was a good english speaker, however.

I am a retired dendrologist, I lectured in wood science for more than 30 years.
PhD (Botany) LaTrobe, '72. Picking guitar for 50 years. Bluegrass banjo for 30 yrs.

The elastic/mechanical properties of the top transfer the vibrations to the rest of the instrument. As such, the uniformity of the top anatomy is of paramount importance.
While the secondary xylem fiber length of a hardwood, any hardwood will never come close to the fiber length of white spruce (Picea glauca) from my part of the world, there are some key features that you have to evaluate to decide if one sheet of wood is top or crap.
1. Tight Usually you see 12-15 growth rings per inch. Yes, I measure guitar tops in the music stores and I count. The store people worry about me but I could care less.
2. The rings are evenly spaced. This is so important for uniformity.
3. The summer wood does not end abruptly but instead, it's a soft brown finish to the year's growth.
4. Elasticity. Good water, growing in cool cold shady conditions. Interstitial growth makes all the fibers exceptionally long. Adirondack spruce from the North-East of the United States or P. glauca from the north sides of mountains growing with good water up here at 53N. The longest hardwood fiber will come from warm conditions, (low altitude) and once again, good water BUT not so variable as to cause sudden growth ring maturation.

Yes, "tone wood" is harvested here. Yes, we even have people who are "tone-wood prospectors". Martin, National and Yamahahahaha are here every year to buy tops (a #1 rough spruce top is about $50.) A truely exceptional tree may be logged by helicopter, one piece being flown off at a time, so that there is absolutely no possibility of internal shake when it hits the ground.
The last tone wood quota that I know in my area, the Robson Valley, was some 2,000 m^3, more than half of which is crap. That was 2009. As you cut the log, a lot of it can't be cut radially so isn't of much use.

5. So, with good wood in short supply, another way to even things up is to use a very carefully book-matched pair of pieces. Two really good but smaller pieces. Personally, this takes far more care and far more thought, so I'd rather buy an instrument like this than 1/5000 with a somewhat poorer, solid, 1-piece top.

I don't know if this helps at all. You see the wood. What do you see?

i thought the best tone wood grows on the north west side of a 11 month a year snow covered mountain

then slowly dried ( while frozen )
perfectly quarter sawn , where the log was split in 4 then every thing turned to shaving apart from the bit you want ( to appease the tone gods )


, tap them when you shape them , dense timber is stronger and heavier so can be thinner , than light northern hemisphere tone timber


tap tone them ?????? unless its electric , then just get a better bridge/ pick-up and strings winding your own pickups would be better than expensive tone timber

what glue do you use to layer your ply ? some of the epoxies i play with have MPA's of 120 , the harder the better , west system is 55mpa , and tone dead

ROTFL as for radiata pine ROTFL

some of the local timbers ive tried ( rulers , tap toned for matching tone , and vibrated on the edge of the bench ) are crap , the tropics in australia has 6 months of full rain ( 3meters last wet ) and 6 months with out a drop , produces a huge " wet " ring and a real hard and narrow "dry" ring , lol local mahogany can have a 3/4 inch wide "wet" ring with a 1 mm wide "dry ring " not good , all though a promising one is "burdekin plum " a dense and as hard as crap , on the wood lath it will purple your chisel and the wood chips will burn your hand way worse than " iron wood " or "iron bark " , but it just keeps vibrating as a ruler on the table, real nice figuring at the root trunk level ( cyclones ) and great ???" coherency " ( clear grain that lets you see into the grain the with mudarully rays riding on top )