Rosewood/Mahogany "tweener" tonewood

[Alan Carruth]

Wood varies. I'm working on a couple of guitars now with mahogany B&S, but the wood is closer in properties to rosewood than the usual Honduras mahogany. I'm looking forward to getting them strung up. Of course, anybody looking at them will see mahogany, so that's what they will probably sound like...

Black Locust is a nice local 'tweener wood. It's got the stiffness of IRW, but with lower damping. The density is closer to that of average mahogany.

Quartered oak makes a great guitar. The density, stiffness and hardness are more in the 'rosewood' camp, but the damping is like mahogany, so it's got aspects of each.

Cherry is usually considered a good substitute for Caribbean mahogany; a bit harder and denser than Honduras, so more like a rosewood in that respect. You can sometimes find some really great figure in cherry.

The walnut I've used has generally been in the same class as soft maple for properties, but it varies as well. Sometimes, as with cherry, you'll find what I call 'enriched' wood. This will have small inclusions in it where it has been shot, and I've even found bits of lead that the tree had not digested yet. The wood is especially hard, stiff, and dense, and often has a characteristic figure as well. You have to work around the inclusions, though.

[Sage97]

Originally Posted by fitness1

I'll throw a vote in for Palo Escrito......

I've been wondering about this tonewood. They look gorgeous.

[SiliconValleySJ]

I personally think of Bubinga and "the tree" as falling nicely in between the 2 ends of the spectrum. Walnut with the right top perhaps too (redwood for me).

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

[fitness1]

Originally Posted by Sage97

I've been wondering about this tonewood. They look gorgeous.

I've owned a few and they have all been very pleasing (nylon and steel string) Apparently getting harder to come by through legal channels......

[Tim McKnight]

Already mentioned but bears repeating:
Cuban Mahogany, White Oak and Black Walnut are great tweeners.

Padauk and Shag Bark Hickory are a couple more that falls in this category that you may want to consider?

[Bruce Sexauer]

Technically and practically, as can be gleaned from the posts so far, there are very few usable woods that do NOT fall between Mahogany and the harder rosewoods.

[Tony Vines]

Well, I would just use what you know to sound good. Build the bass side out of East Indian Rosewood and the treble side out of Honduran Mahogany or vise versa. In other words, use both woods on the body, I am sure the tone will fall right in between. Coupled with your favorite top of course!

[printer2]

I have been thinking about this and am wondering how much the back bracing can dampen down the back resonances. I can see if the back plate has low dampening and the brace ends are tapered enough that the plate's characteristics dominate. As the braces are left heavier towards the ends do they start to dominate due to the increase in stiffness or is the plate still the big dog on the block? That is if it has low dampening.

Or in other ways, can you have a higher Q piece of wood and dampen it down? Can't see going the other way, a low Q plate and bracing controlling the dampening. Maybe a low mass back plate and higher mass bracing? Don't know, trying to figure out the relationship between the two elements.

[mmasters]

I think Palo Escrito sounds somewhere in between both.

[Howard Klepper]

Originally Posted by printer2

I have been thinking about this and am wondering how much the back bracing can dampen down the back resonances. I can see if the back plate has low dampening and the brace ends are tapered enough that the plate's characteristics dominate. As the braces are left heavier towards the ends do they start to dominate due to the increase in stiffness or is the plate still the big dog on the block? That is if it has low dampening.

Or in other ways, can you have a higher Q piece of wood and dampen it down? Can't see going the other way, a low Q plate and bracing controlling the dampening. Maybe a low mass back plate and higher mass bracing? Don't know, trying to figure out the relationship between the two elements.

I have, for the most part, let go of policing bad usage as an exercise in futility, but this one always gets my attention. So, NBD, but FWIW: decreasing the ampitude of an oscillation is called 'damping.' 'Dampening' is either wetting with water, or diminishing something's emotional content, but is not properly used for diminishing the amplitude of an oscillation system, which calls for the more technical term 'damping.'

Ye Olde Pedant

[justonwo]

Imagine a device wherein a capillary tube full of water is affixed to a mechanical oscillator. The end of the capillary tube makes contact with a sponge when the oscillator reaches the end of its travel. The momentary contact between the capillary tube and the sponge causes the sponge to absorb a small amount of water. The entire apparatus is located in a heated room that causes the water to evaporate from the sponge relatively quickly after the capillary moves away from the sponge. If one were to plot the dampness of the sponge vs time, one would observe a wave of sorts where the dampness of the sponge increases when the oscillator makes contact and then decreases as water evaporates from the sponge. If the oscillator timing is adjusted properly, this wave will have a constant amplitude.

Now the capillary tube is affixed to a tank of water. Into the water is dripped a fully water soluble, low vapor pressure liquid - let's say glycerine - such that over time the viscosity of the liquid in the tank increases and the amount of water absorbed into the sponge by capillary action decreases during each successive contact with the sponge. The resulting plot of dampness of the sponge vs time would then show a decrease in amplitude over time.

As a result, for this specific apparatus, the glycerin drip can be said to damp the dampening of the sponge.

[Nemoman]

Originally Posted by justonwo

...As a result, for this specific apparatus, the glycerin drip can be said to dampen the dampening of the sponge.

Love it! Too funny, Juston!

[Mark Hatcher]

+1 to what Bruce said. There's mahogany and rosewood and then pretty much everything else is in between. Hard question to answer wrong!

[OddManOut]

You might consider Ovangkol!

[lukybob2]

Originally Posted by OddManOut

You might consider Ovangkol!

I was just about to write the above. Doesn't Taylor promote ovangkol as being between rosewood and mahogany?