Builders: what experiences have you had with Macassar ebony?

[Wade Hampton]

I just posted a duplicate thread over in the general discussion forum, but I'm particularly interested in what those of you who have built with this wood have to say. Not just tone, but also what its like to work with.

For those of you who own or have at least some experience playing guitars with Macassar ebony backs and sides, I'm interested in hearing what you thought of them and how you'd characterize the tonal qualities of that wood. I just had a phone conversation with the guitar builder Howard Klepper, who's built with it once and played a small handful of other people's Macassar ebony guitars (three or four of them, he said.) What was interesting to me is that the characteristics Howard described didn't match what another builder told me about.

That builder, however, hasn't built with it as Howard has, so I rate Howard's impressions higher.

Anyway, I'm thinking about it for a back and side wood for a guitar patterned after a Martin 12 fret Double O. The one Macassar ebony guitar that I played that I really liked, however, was a 17 inch jumbo, so I don't have the pertinent experience to figure out whether Macassar ebony would work as well in a smallbody guitar, too.

Any experiences, insights or impressions that any of you have to offer I'm eager to learn from you.

Thanks in advance,


Wade Hampton Miller

[nacluth]

Wade,
We've built three over here: a large guitar, a medium, and a parlor. We are this very day starting our fourth guitar - a 12 fret fingerstyle model (think similar in shape to a 00 just bigger).

Pic of our parlor:



I think that the wood could be used to excellent effect at that size. Typically Ebony is pretty dense but not as overtone rich as rosewood. Not that that means it isn't musical. Our experience is that it can be rich and glassy. If you hear with your eyes, you might hear it as a dark tone. Focused, clear with some thump is what I would expect a 00 with Ebony. It will support the lower end and have decent projection.

Ebony Parlor Soundclips

Here's a link to our amateur recording of the aforementioned guitar. If you listen through the playing, you should get a sense of the strong fundamental with some bass support.

For what it's worth...

[Wade Hampton]

Thanks, Ryan.


whm

[Tim McKnight]

Ryan,

Wow, that's a beautiful guitar! Is that Macassar Ebony (Diospyros celebica) or Black-white ebony (Diospyros malabarica). To my eye it looks more like black-white ebony but it could be the way my monitor displays the color?

I've built three mid sized guitars with Macassar and all of the wood sets that I've used displayed a very prominent black and brown stripy pattern. They all had a prominent bass response, more fundamental than over tones, excellent clarity with no hint of muddiness, good mid and treble response but certainly a tilt towards bass bias, at least the way my ear heard them. I'm not sure if that description coincides with Howard's?

Be forewarned that ANY ebony is extremely slow drying wood. Meaning that if its not sufficiently and thoroughly dry, (6%-8% MC) when you build with it, you can expect shrinkage down the road.

[Shuksan]

I built a OOO-size guitar with Macassar ebony back and sides about five years ago. The one thing that stands out as far as working with it goes was that the sides came out of the bending machine with pretty substantial rippling throughout both across and with the grain that corresponded to the different streaks and shapes in the figuring. It worked out in the end, but was a real PITA to level sand the sides. I bent the cutaway on a hot pipe and it was easy to bend, but it wanted to ripple there too. I don't know though if the rippling this particular set showed is common with Macassar ebony. There were no other issues working with it and it's beautiful wood.

[CE Sobel]

Awesome guitar!

I haven't built with Macassar Ebony but I've built with other ebonies and I would like to use Macassar fairly soon.

I've tested about 6 samples of Macassar and one thing that stands out to me is that it was quite a bit stiffer for its density than the west African et. al. For sure this is not a huge sample but the difference was on the order of 20-25% stiffer. The boards do seem to ring out more as well, which makes me think it will fare pretty well in guitar form. The ebony guitars I've built were unexpectedly pleasing and belied the heavy weight and high damping of the material...

Sounds like you have a nice guitar coming.

Best,

Chris

[Ken Franklin]

I had the same experience as Ryan in terms of sound, rich and glassy with strong bass response and fewer overtones than most rosewoods. The two macassar guitars I've made had sides that were easy to bend. The tap tone was different for both guitars with one rather dull and the other with more sustain. Handsome stuff.

0061 by KenFranklinGuitar, on Flickr

[dlowry]

Originally Posted by Shuksan

I built a OOO-size guitar with Macassar ebony back and sides about five years ago. The one thing that stands out as far as working with it goes was that the sides came out of the bending machine with pretty substantial rippling throughout both across and with the grain that corresponded to the different streaks and shapes in the figuring. It worked out in the end, but was a real PITA to level sand the sides. I bent the cutaway on a hot pipe and it was easy to bend, but it wanted to ripple there too. I don't know though if the rippling this particular set showed is common with Macassar ebony. There were no other issues working with it and it's beautiful wood.

I've built 2 guitars with macassar, and in both cases experienced the same issue of rippling parallel to the grain when bending, generally following the striping. I had no problems with rippling across the grain though, and actually found it one of the least troublesome woods for the bender. I tackled it with a scraper rather than sanding, but still took a fair bit of work to get it all level.

Other than that, no problems. From a builders viewpoint, its one of my favourite woods.

[nacluth]

Originally Posted by Tim McKnight

Ryan,

Wow, that's a beautiful guitar! Is that Macassar Ebony (Diospyros celebica) or Black-white ebony (Diospyros malabarica). To my eye it looks more like black-white ebony but it could be the way my monitor displays the color?

Honestly Tim, we're not 100% sure what it is. We've built out of the "sho-nuff" B&W Ebony and have a couple more sets in house, and it's what we bought the above set as, however, it was much denser and worked (and smelled) more like Macassar. The paler parts were lighter than most Macassar we see, but whatever it was, I wouldn't change my generalizations about the sound.

I thought I would put up a pic of the wood we've just started working since there's not been enough pics in this thread.




And here's one we built a long time ago out of Celebes Ebony.

[Richard Mott]

Hi Wade--I had a Macassar 00-ish sized guitar for about 10 years. Euro top. Using Brazilian as a benchmark, I'd say it was physically heavier and somewhat higher damping, slightly "fatter" sound with more emphasis on the fundamental, less ethereal and reverby than Brazilian can be, rich but with fewer of the super high partials. Big sound maybe a little less transparent. Great tonewood. --Richard

[mikealpine]

Wade, I had a Taylor Macassar Ebony guitar, their GA size, with a Sinker Redwood top. I got it fairly young in its life, and it lacked sufficient power. What I really lacked was patience. I put the guitar up for sale, and it took a while to sell. By the time it sold, the guitar really blossomed in volume. It had a very rich, yet very clear tone. I don't know if it was the combination of woods, the bracing Taylor uses...whatever the sum of the parts, that guitar sounded glorious and was the only guitar I ever owned that literally caused heads to turn with just one strum, the sound was just beautiful. I played a McCubbin (sp?) that I think had an Adi top, also sounded beautiful, not quite as lush, but musical and crisp. Outside of that, I played a few at Woodstock, each sounded great. I hope that's helpful.