Wood choices...

[justrfb]

Hello All.
I move closer to picking my kit from Blues Creek to build with my son and I thought of an interesting question you, with much experience will be able to answer. I am a wood worker, amateur at best but I really enjoy it! My son has an exotic wood Dean, flamed maple, I have a friend that is always buying exotic wood for furniture building... I know wood can be very expensive. The question I am getting to is this... You can buy Brazilian Rosewood for $1,250.00 and you can buy Mahogany for $370.00. What can the great price difference be attributed to more, the rareness of the wood or the quality of the sound the instrument will produce? And, if it is both the rarity and the quality of the sound the wood produces, to what degree is each a part of the price? I look forward to your answers. Thank you!

Sincerely,
Rich

[Darryl Young]

Brazillian Rosewood (BRW) is sort of a can of worms. It hasn't been imported in years so it's in short supply. Another problem is that a lot of what is now available for purchase isn't very good quality.........rift/flat sawn, stump wood, leftovers, etc. There are exceptions, and you will pay dearly for them. BRW now has a cult like following. Maybe because the old pre-war Martins that are held with high esteem were made with BRW. It is a great tonewood......and back in the day it was available with beautiful colors and sometimes figure (inking etc.) but that's not necessarily the case today (there are exceptions). So the rarity of good sets has driven the price up. Another issue is that most folks don't know the charicteristics that make a good set for use in guitar building. Often non-builders are bidding on BRW that they think is pretty and that they will have a guitar built out of one day.......so it drives the price up on marginal sets and sometimes even on poor quality sets.

So if you are looking for rosewood tone, had you rather have a marginal set of of BRW at 4-8 times the cost of a good set of an alternative rosewood? Honduran, Amazon, and other rosewoods make good guitars. You get to decide, just don't make the decision on hype.

You can get good Honduran mahogany sets for less than $100.......I've bought some for $60-$75. I also like Cuban mahogany though it's often a little more money. It's not necessarily a better or worse tonewood.......just a different sound. A little more punchy/stronger attack but a maybe a little less sparkle than rosewoods. Those are subjective descriptions of course so go to a good guitar store and listen for yourself.

If I were building my first guitar and wanted rosewood, I would use Indian Rosewood and never look back. In fact, that's what I did! <smile> Now I'm building one with Cuban Mahogany.

[tippie53]

The big difference is that the $370 kit is from CF Martin and is mostly 2nds
Kits that are from Blues Creek, made to a Martin spec, are 1st quality

[justrfb]

Hello All,
I think I better redirect this question as I sense it is being taken as something it is not... I didn't mean to call attention to the actual prices of the kits, I was speaking more to the difference in price and the difference of the sound the wood produces when made into a guitar. I love Mahogany, I like the way it looks, I like working with it, that is why I am leaning towards that kit from Blues Creek. I am just wondering if you, who is more experienced in building, would say something such as, "if it was me, I would go for the rosewood as it sounds so much better."... I am interested in what you think the difference is in the sound these woods produce relative to the price of the kits and the wood sets. I hope this catches more of the intention of my question and thank you for your answers.

Sincerely,
Rich

[Kevin Sjostrand]

The best sounding guitars I've made so far I think were the two dreds I built from Palo Escrito, a mexican rosewood. I'm comparing this to Cocobolo, Walnut and Santos Mahogany. My next build is a dred with EIR, but it will be my first one made from that.
I have Osage Orange, Amrosia Maple, Curly Cherry waiting in the wings. Why? Cause I like how they look and what is said about the potential sound they might make, but who really knows until they are made into a guitar.

Kevin

Have a look.
http://www.pantheonguitars.com/tonewoods.htm

http://tonewooddatasource.weebly.com/sp ... butes.html

-tommyboy

[Darryl Young]

Rich,

If you want to hear what a good mahogany guitar sounds like listen to this Vince Gill video in the link below. This guitar is an old 1930's Martin 000 with mahogany back and sides. It sounds nice and has that reverby quality that mahogany sometimes has and also has a nice "dry" sound from the age of the instrument.

If you follow the link it plays "threaten Me With Heaven" first. It's the same guitar but you can't hear the tone of the guitar as well. After the first video there is another commercial and then Vince talks and plays The Old Luck Diamond Hotel. Before he starts the song he talks for a minute and while he is talking he strums on his guitar everyonce in a while and you can really hear the quality in the tone of this instrument. This gives you an idea of the potential of mahogany.

http://www.gactv.com/gac/ar_az_vince_gill

[tippie53]

you won't go wrong with mahogany to start .

http://www.myfavoriteguitars.com/search ... rch&page=1

you can click on the sound bite. Red spruce top BRW back and sides

[justrfb]

Thank you for all of your replies and information. Lots of reading material and sound bites... I appreciate it.

Sincerely,
Rich