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  #1  
Old 04-19-2021, 04:45 AM
fregly fregly is offline
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Default How similar is Wenge to EIR?

I ask as I hear the Rosewood comparison with Wenge, and I have had EIR guitars before (the only Rosewood I have played, so can use this as a somewhat useful comparison).
I am thinking of a build with Wenge. My other guitars all have light punchy type tone woods in the Mahogany realm and would like to try a denser wood with attendant characteristics for variety.

The caution is I grew weary of the Rosewood sound back in the day and found the mid scoop and metallic edge to be less and less appealing and moved away from it with other guitars. I also found the response a bit "slow" with a low mid muddyness that always had to be worked around.

Does Wenge have that mid scoop or edgyness? Is it a dark tonewood? What about clarity tnrough low mids and bass?
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Old 04-19-2021, 06:14 AM
RoyBoy RoyBoy is offline
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I'll let others who've built with wenge attest to it's tone. To work with, I find it an unfriendly wood- dense, brittle, huge pores, and prone to splits and nasty spikey splinters. I haven't tried bending it but suspect it would be tough. Not particularly attractive IMO, on the plus side, it's not expensive.

Luthier's Merc describes it: "The wood is heavier than either Indian or Brazilian Rosewood and is stiffer, but softer, with large pores and small pin holes that will need to be filled".
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Old 04-19-2021, 06:45 AM
fregly fregly is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RoyBoy View Post
I'll let others who've built with wenge attest to it's tone. To work with, I find it an unfriendly wood- dense, brittle, huge pores, and prone to splits and nasty spikey splinters. I haven't tried bending it but suspect it would be tough. Not particularly attractive IMO, on the plus side, it's not expensive.

Luthier's Merc describes it: "The wood is heavier than either Indian or Brazilian Rosewood and is stiffer, but softer, with large pores and small pin holes that will need to be filled".
Does softer equate to less overtone prominance, all else being equal?
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Old 04-19-2021, 06:57 AM
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Tim McKnight Tim McKnight is offline
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Wenge is well balanced bass to treble and more importantly (IME) has excellent clarity with no hint of muddiness that EIR inherently has.
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Old 04-19-2021, 03:50 PM
thomasfelty thomasfelty is offline
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I've built several guitar with it and found it a diffucult wood to work with and the splinters a bear to get out of you shin. It sounded very clean and bright and I think if you like that kind of sound you'll like it. It does have Grand Canyon type pores and I found that I didn't like that much. When you're done you'll have a beautiful looking and as I said before a bright clean sounding guitar. Will I ever build with it again? No. I build mainly with walnut and Cherry these days. I know where the wood comes from and I never did cracked the high end part of the market. They suit me well. Good luck.
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Old 04-19-2021, 07:10 PM
godfreydaniel godfreydaniel is offline
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Collings makes some great guitars with EIR. I have a 12-fret 02H and a 14-fret 002H, both Sitka/EIR. No scooped mids, no muddiness. Maybe the smaller size guitars have something to do with it, but I’ve also played two OM2H Traditionals, both with torrified Sitka tops, and they both sounded amazing. If I didn’t prefer short-scale guitars I would’ve bought one of those.
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Old 02-26-2023, 06:22 PM
cvman cvman is offline
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What is the state of wenge use today? I see it every once in a while, on a Collings inline build or from a custom builder. Is its low utilization a result of build challenges and looks, or does its sonic profile and cost still make for an argument for greater marketplace use as another BRW alternative?

Last edited by cvman; 03-01-2023 at 09:21 PM.
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Old 02-26-2023, 08:16 PM
Tim Porter Tim Porter is offline
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Stefan Sobell in the north of England makes guitars out of wenge and they've been very successful. I have one of his Martin Simpson models in wenge with a wenge neck and it's clean and powerful. He uses wenge for necks quite often, too.
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Old 02-26-2023, 09:06 PM
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Ervin Somogyi, Ray Kraut and Michi Matsuda immediately come to mind as other builders using Wenge with great success. I particularly like it as an Ebony replacement on FBs and bridges in addition to body woods.
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Old 02-26-2023, 09:30 PM
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I played a Laurent Brondel guitar made from Wenge that is my favorite of the half dozen of his I tried. I also do have several sets of perfectly quartered Wenge in my woodlocker is case someone insists on it, and a I’ve had it for 25+ years, but I hope to never be called upon to use it. I have used it for architectural projects, and I simply hate working it for all the reasons others have mentioned. It is no joke to say if you so much as touch it you better have your tweezers handy.
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Old 02-27-2023, 07:20 AM
Richard Mott Richard Mott is offline
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A number of years ago Mark Blanchard built a wenge guitar that I thought had tremendous clarity—perhaps less scooped than Brazilian can be and none of the muddiness that EIR can have. Also beautiful in a kind of straight-grained, chocolatey way. I don’t recall him mentioning the issue with splinters (although another builder on this forum once memorably said “If you even look at wenge, it can shoot a splinter into you from across the room!”) though Mark did mention the pore problem in finishing. But once that guitar was done, it was really something.

Last edited by Richard Mott; 02-27-2023 at 07:32 AM.
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Old 02-27-2023, 09:52 AM
cvman cvman is offline
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I've gathered from reading other luthier posts that once you get a few builds under your belt, a lot of building challenge insights are gained making it easier. The usual difficulties seem to still be in the wood hardness, splintering, bracing, adhesion, and pore filling. What amazes me after listening to numerous YouTube videos is that each really does have its own sound likely based upon the builder and how the guitar was built. I like the tone generated from larger sized dreadnaught or SJ sized models, but there still is a lot or variety on the darkness, warmth, mid-range, sweetness, and treble shimmer in them relative to BRW.

Last edited by cvman; 03-01-2023 at 09:24 PM.
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Old 02-27-2023, 01:40 PM
Kenny B Kenny B is offline
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So I owned a Collings OM with baked sitka/Wenge for maybe 6 months before I decided to sell it. It was a short scale model and I had many years of experience playing a Collings OM short scale with sitka/IRW.

The sitka/IRW Collings was one of those guitars that down the road one really regrets selling to fund another guitar. Shoulda kept it!

But I decided to try the baked sitka/wenge version and it was really nothing like the IRW model I once had. Not sure why. It could have been the baked sitka over the regular sitka or maybe just the wenge influencing the sound.

I would say the wenge version seemed to be brittle sounding (much like luthiers describe its inherent characteristics). I did not care for the sound, just couldn't get happy with it.

I also remember the sitka/IRW sometimes had a metallic sound which is one of the reasons I parted with it. Of course that might have been due to my playing techniques at the time.

Now with all this being said, i'm still willing to commission a guitar with Wenge b/s and at the point have one ready to start.
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Old 02-27-2023, 02:43 PM
cvman cvman is offline
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I get the impression that luthiers continue to evolve and learn about how to best bring out the heart of the wood consistently. I've seen it referred to it as an EIR Plus with a tone profile between EIR and Maple. Seems German Spruce is one of the most paired tops and getting down to the right wenge thickness is key for weight, tone, and responsiveness. Larger builds again seem to offer best opportunity for best balanced tone formation, which aligns to why I prefer dreadnaughts, GA's or SJ builds.

Last edited by cvman; 03-01-2023 at 09:30 PM.
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