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  #1  
Old 08-17-2018, 03:26 PM
jim1960 jim1960 is offline
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Default Top wood knots in King Billy Pine

A question for the builders. I'm having a bouzouki built in Australia and I want to use King Billy Pine for the top wood. Clean sets are very difficult to come by these days and this one was just shown to me. Aesthetically, the knots do not bother me but I'm wondering from a structural and tonal standpoint, would those small knots create issues?

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2023 Iris ND-200 maple/adi
2017 Circle Strings 00 bastogne walnut/sinker redwood
2015 Circle Strings Parlor shedua/western red cedar
2009 Bamburg JSB Signature Baritone macassar ebony/carpathian spruce
2004 Taylor XXX-RS indian rosewood/sitka spruce
1988 Martin D-16 mahogany/sitka spruce

along with some electrics, zouks, dulcimers, and banjos.

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Old 08-17-2018, 05:44 PM
jim1960 jim1960 is offline
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Okay, so I thought those were small knots but my builder says they're spots from leaking resin from when the board was cut.
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2023 Iris ND-200 maple/adi
2017 Circle Strings 00 bastogne walnut/sinker redwood
2015 Circle Strings Parlor shedua/western red cedar
2009 Bamburg JSB Signature Baritone macassar ebony/carpathian spruce
2004 Taylor XXX-RS indian rosewood/sitka spruce
1988 Martin D-16 mahogany/sitka spruce

along with some electrics, zouks, dulcimers, and banjos.

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  #3  
Old 08-17-2018, 06:00 PM
peter.coombe peter.coombe is offline
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Yep, leaking resin, typical of King Billy Pine if it has been stored for a while. It is a surface thing so will disappear once it has been sanded. They won't re-appear under a finish. That looks like a nice clear piece, very difficult to get nowadays.
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Old 08-17-2018, 06:10 PM
jim1960 jim1960 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by peter.coombe View Post
Yep, leaking resin, typical of King Billy Pine if it has been stored for a while. It is a surface thing so will disappear once it has been sanded. They won't re-appear under a finish. That looks like a nice clear piece, very difficult to get nowadays.
Hi Peter. This will be the second zouk Jack Spira has built for me. I'm thinking of pairing it with Australian Blackwood. I'd like this to be an all-Australian woods zouk and haven't yet decided on woods for the neck and fret board. For the latter, I've read good things about Black Mulga but I've also read it can be heavy ...how heavy, I don't know. Not sure if that's a cause for concern or not.

I'd appreciate any input or recommendations you might have. Being a New Yorker, I'm unfamiliar with some of these woods.
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Jim
2023 Iris ND-200 maple/adi
2017 Circle Strings 00 bastogne walnut/sinker redwood
2015 Circle Strings Parlor shedua/western red cedar
2009 Bamburg JSB Signature Baritone macassar ebony/carpathian spruce
2004 Taylor XXX-RS indian rosewood/sitka spruce
1988 Martin D-16 mahogany/sitka spruce

along with some electrics, zouks, dulcimers, and banjos.

YouTube
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Old 08-17-2018, 06:44 PM
redir redir is offline
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But just so you know, yes knots would be a problem in the top. In the back not so much but in a stressed top they will crack. I know from experience. Of course it depends on a lot of things like the size and location of the knots. Knots over braces for example or under the fretboard extension might not be a problem.
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Old 08-17-2018, 06:58 PM
jim1960 jim1960 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by redir View Post
But just so you know, yes knots would be a problem in the top. In the back not so much but in a stressed top they will crack. I know from experience. Of course it depends on a lot of things like the size and location of the knots. Knots over braces for example or under the fretboard extension might not be a problem.
Thanks. That's what my gut was telling me ...probably because I've never seen an acoustic guitar with knots like that in the top.
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Jim
2023 Iris ND-200 maple/adi
2017 Circle Strings 00 bastogne walnut/sinker redwood
2015 Circle Strings Parlor shedua/western red cedar
2009 Bamburg JSB Signature Baritone macassar ebony/carpathian spruce
2004 Taylor XXX-RS indian rosewood/sitka spruce
1988 Martin D-16 mahogany/sitka spruce

along with some electrics, zouks, dulcimers, and banjos.

YouTube
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Old 08-17-2018, 07:03 PM
peter.coombe peter.coombe is offline
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I would use Blackwood with King Billy Pine, so you are on the right track there. I tried other woods with King Billy some years ago, but best results were with Blackwood. For the fingerboard there are lots of choices. Gidgee is popular, and I have used Gidgee, Lancewood and NSW Ironwood, but there are many others. All work and all are harder and heavier than Ebony, but I did prefer Lancewood because it seemed to work more like Ebony. Gidgee is extremely hard. I am not familiar with Black Mulga, so can't comment on that. For fingerboards, a bit heavier than Ebony is not going to make much difference.
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Old 08-17-2018, 07:53 PM
jim1960 jim1960 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by peter.coombe View Post
I would use Blackwood with King Billy Pine, so you are on the right track there. I tried other woods with King Billy some years ago, but best results were with Blackwood. For the fingerboard there are lots of choices. Gidgee is popular, and I have used Gidgee, Lancewood and NSW Ironwood, but there are many others. All work and all are harder and heavier than Ebony, but I did prefer Lancewood because it seemed to work more like Ebony. Gidgee is extremely hard. I am not familiar with Black Mulga, so can't comment on that. For fingerboards, a bit heavier than Ebony is not going to make much difference.
Thanks Peter. That's great info.
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Jim
2023 Iris ND-200 maple/adi
2017 Circle Strings 00 bastogne walnut/sinker redwood
2015 Circle Strings Parlor shedua/western red cedar
2009 Bamburg JSB Signature Baritone macassar ebony/carpathian spruce
2004 Taylor XXX-RS indian rosewood/sitka spruce
1988 Martin D-16 mahogany/sitka spruce

along with some electrics, zouks, dulcimers, and banjos.

YouTube
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Old 08-18-2018, 02:29 AM
B. Howard B. Howard is offline
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Actual knots in a top? NEVER! all I can say.....
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Old 08-18-2018, 06:23 AM
peter.coombe peter.coombe is offline
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Quote:
Actual knots in a top? NEVER! all I can say.....
That is all very well for you to say Brian because you are used to Spruce or Cedar where you can easily get clean pieces, but King Billy Pine is now rare due to 200 years of unsustainable logging and it is now illegal to cut down a living tree. So if you want to use it you take what you can get, and small knots are a very common problem. The only stuff available now is reclaimed wood, unless you have a stash from a tree cut down 20 years ago when it was still legal to log. However, it is an excellent tonewood, especially for smaller instruments such as violins and mandolins where I would argue it can sound better than any other top wood if treated properly. I have used it a lot in mandolins and a few mandolas and many have small knots that don't really matter. With Tasmanian Blackwood some of those mandolins are truly outstanding in sound and the small knots have not caused any problems, they are not like Spruce knots. I try to place the knots under the fingerboard, but it does often have hidden knots that come out and bite you when carving and you really can't afford to chuck it if the knot is small because where that piece came from there ain't no more. It is similar to Cedar, but does have a different sound that I prefer.
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Old 08-18-2018, 07:58 AM
printer2 printer2 is online now
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I want to build a guitar with a knotty top and maybe back and sides, just have not found the right piece yet.
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Old 08-18-2018, 12:18 PM
jim1960 jim1960 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by peter.coombe View Post
That is all very well for you to say Brian because you are used to Spruce or Cedar where you can easily get clean pieces, but King Billy Pine is now rare due to 200 years of unsustainable logging...
Jack Spira wasn't even sure if he'd be able to get his hands on a usable set for me when I first made the request. When he came up with a set, I first wondered if he'd bought it from you. I knew you had some because I had read your KBP description on your website.

This is the second time I've had Jack running around looking for wood. My first build with him was Cedar over Tasmanian Tiger Myrtle. It took him a bit but he found a really beautiful set for me. I really love how that wood combo sounds. It has everything I love about the zouk sound but the top end has none of the harshness or brittleness that I hear in other zouks sometimes. I ordered that one with a shorter 610mm scale. I'm going a bit longer on this next one. Probably in the 640-650 range so I have a bit more room for my fingers as I go up the fret board.
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Jim
2023 Iris ND-200 maple/adi
2017 Circle Strings 00 bastogne walnut/sinker redwood
2015 Circle Strings Parlor shedua/western red cedar
2009 Bamburg JSB Signature Baritone macassar ebony/carpathian spruce
2004 Taylor XXX-RS indian rosewood/sitka spruce
1988 Martin D-16 mahogany/sitka spruce

along with some electrics, zouks, dulcimers, and banjos.

YouTube
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  #13  
Old 08-18-2018, 12:39 PM
redir redir is offline
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Wow! That tiger mrytle id stunning.

Well here is one thing you can do to avoid knots in the top. Just use a 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 piece top. Cut the knots out. Nothing wrong at all with using multiple piece tops.
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Old 08-18-2018, 05:46 PM
peter.coombe peter.coombe is offline
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Jack is a good friend of mine, but that is not some of my King Billy Pine. No idea where he got it from. Occasionally a top does come up for sale on Ebay, but most of it is nothing like what I still have from 20 years ago.
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Old 08-18-2018, 06:12 PM
printer2 printer2 is online now
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I stopped at HD today looking for a knotty piece of wood. Just looking for pin knots and a little bigger. No luck. And I said I won't come home with any other wood. No such luck. Came home with two boards 6' by 10" (9 1/2" actual). The grain gets into some serious runout in one area due to a branch and there is a knot further on, but about 44" of the board looks clean. While in the center of the width the grain widens a little, one edge I measured 32 grain lines per inch. That was the easy side. Along the other edge the grain is more than 60 per inch. It was packed in tight for the first half inch and then settles out more like the other edge.

Did I mention it is quartered? Because of some blue stain and pith knots a 15" lower bout seems reasonable. The second board looks like it came from the same tree but it has some hard lines in an area and the weight is noticeably more than the first board. I debated for some time before I bought them. I have more than enough boards of straight grained quartered wood from HD. I have whole whack of actual tops that I really do not have to resaw more. But for $18 I took them, this is the last time though. But an interesting pin knot riddled piece? No such luck today.
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