Coachwood

Any ideas if coachwood would be a suitable instrument timber? It is very light, with a tight, straight grain.

What sort of instrument?

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Originally Posted by dubrosa22

What sort of instrument?

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Ukulele, guitar, dulcima, etc

I was thinking it might be a good neck material. Perhaps good for internal bracing too.

Should be fine for a neck mate, the heartwood would be the pick( darker pinky brown colour), it machines well and and has the right sort of strength to weight ratio.
Post a pic if you build a neck out of it.
Cheers.

Might be a while mase. I need to recover some fallen timber from a property I own. It is a rainforest tree.
I did a test some years back, running a curved piece through a thicknesser. It was so light and stable. They used it to make coaches and later auto-mobile frames, hence the name. I imagine it would be a fabulous furniture timber.

Sounds good P, you'll get the pick of the boards then.I'd make sure I got some of it sawn on the quarter.
Good luck with it anyway.

Just as a matter of interest, I have a lot of coachwood, would love to swap it for something else. I think the boards are about 140x15 about a metre in length.

Paul

That's handy to know Paul. I have not had opportunity yet to cut any into boards. Each of those boards would be pretty light?
Did you have a project in mind when you milled it?
Would probably make nice furniture.
How do you think it would go as a ukulele or guitar timber?

Hi there Prozac. A mate from bowls gave me 3 lengths of very old Coachwood, each length was about 140x140 and about 1 metre long. I ripped those up into about 140x15 lenghts. So I have quite a bit of it. Mate told me he had it laying in his shed for about 30 years and it was old when he got it. I ripped it up into that size for making boxes. Had no intention of a guitar. So I am not really sure how it would go. Personally I wouldn't use it myself for guitar making. My earlier guitars I made I used Queensland Maple.

Paul

Also used to make mosquito bombers in WW11. Great timber.

That's the sort of answer I was after Paul. You don't think it would have good tonal qualities?

Hi there Prozac,

I just did a google search on tonal qualities for Coachwood, but didn't really come up with anything of note. To be honest I don't really know if it would be suitable or not. I am guessing if you mentioned internal bracing you are talking about acoustic guitars. I personally wouldn't use it, but, thats just me.

Good luck with this,

Paul

I agree with Paul ,and yes, Qld Maple is pretty good for instruments , but imo , New Guinea Rosewood (which is reasonably cheap, readily available and can be really stunning, as well as ringing like a bell) is probably the pick of the lot at the moment for looks, value and performance.
I'm not trying to start a hijack of this thread , I just thought I'd give you another option . . I did notice the other day , Gilet guitars in Sydney, which has a lutherie timber supply page, now offers New Guinea Rosewood as their standard acoustic gtr neck blank, instead of Mahogany
so the word is out! . .