I have the pleasure of building a Koa Piña parlor guitar for TomB'sox. Tom visited my studio in January and we picked out woods and I got to watch him play (and hear his daughter sing) and had a great talk about comfort, tones and expectations.
Piña means "little pineapple" so a Koa parlor certainly seems right, doesn't it?
This will be the tenth guitar I've made from this billet (two more left). It has worked out so well that I bought some additional beautiful side wood to stretch how many guitars I could make. This billet has provided some great tone for the active backs I make on very light guitars. Here is a close up of the figure in the side wood:
Of all of the available domestic tonewoods I think most would agree the most exotic is Koa:
One of my favorite things about domestic woods is you can go see them when they are still trees. So naturally Koa shouldn't be an exception! Last November Karen and I went to Kauai and saw quite a few Koa trees while visiting. They say the best Koa tonewood comes from above 2,000 feet so we went to Waimea Canyon to check them out. They call this canyon "The Grand Canyon of the Pacific":
It is unlike the Grand Canyon in that instead of it being a deep hole in the ground, its sides go up 3,600 feet. We hiked down into the canyon and it wasn't hard to find the Koa trees:
Here is a picture of the lovely and ever patient Mrs. H taking a rest under a Koa tree:
And so we're off on a new adventure!
Hope you enjoy the ride
Mark