Australian Blackwood

[fenderbender4]

What are people's experiences with Australian Blackwood as back and sides in a guitar? Is this the same as Tasmanian Blackwood, just a "location" designation difference? I know Maton uses it a lot, I'm guessing out of practicality.

[Athens]

My Webber MJ has Tasmanian Blackwood and it has a wonderful tone.

But I attribute that more to the builder's expertise.

[DukeX]

Tasmania is part of Australia, so AFAIK they are the same thing. As a Taylor 324 owner it is a wonderful tonewood IMO. Lots of info on the Web, including threads on this forum.

[rmyAddison]

The flagship of my little collection is a Martin OM-45 (Engelmann over Tasmanian Blackwood), wonderful guitar from Martin's last "run" of OM-45's in 2005, D-45's are standard/annual, OM-45's are rare and when Martin feels like it.

Australian/Tasmanian Blackwood to me is a close cousin to Koa, and both are "tweener" woods in my experience; not as fundamental as mahogany and not as lush as rosewood, and IMO better looking than both.

With an Engelmann top it makes an outstanding fingerstyle instrument. Happy shopping.......

[iim7V7IM7]

Australian Blackwood, Tasmanian Blackwood and Acacia Blackwood are the same species (Acacia melanoxylon). I have a large bodied Oz' Blackwood SJ with an Adirondack (Red) Spruce top. I really like it as a tonewood that falls sonically between mahogany and rosewood in terms of the nature of its contribution (i.e. The fast attack and strong mids of mahogany with a bit more overtones like a rosewood).

[BluesKing777]

Well, it may be all Australian Blackwood but there is Tasmanian Blackwood and there is TASMANIAN BLACKWOOD.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacia_melanoxylon


Photos below of my 1993 Lowden S35 Tasmanian Blackwood/Cedar with the Tasmanian Blackwood hand harvested by George Lowden in the deep, deep forest of a secret location in Tasmania on a cold windswept full moon at midnight, whereas my Maton's Blackwood is probably some kind of roadkill....







BluesKing777.

[rockabilly69]

Here is my Australian Blackwood gigger and it is a phenomenal sounding guitar. I call it "The Music Box" It was made in Korea by Parkwood and they made 150 of them. I used to own two of them but I sold one to girl up in Canada who absolutely fell in love with it! Mine has a B-Band 2.2XOM system in it, and it was me who cut the hole in the side of it for the Barndoor electronics. I can plug this guitar into almost anything and it will sound good! I also put the Grevin pickguard on it. I own quite a few nice guitars, and I've never gotten as compliments on my tone with any other guitar than I do with this one!

[Antipodean Ed]

Hi. Have a look at the photos (scroll down) of my handmade Blackwood guitar on this thread from 2012 - https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=269975 . I was thrilled then, and it has continued to open up, and everywhere I go, people comment on tone, sustain, and of course looks!

It's a beautiful tonewood - go for it! Ed.

[colins]

As other posters have said – it’s the same wood. It can be found up the east coast of Australia. Tassie has a colder climate than the mainland and that will probably impact on the growth rate and hence the characteristic of blackwood from there as opposed to say Queensland.

And it’s a tweener like Rich said – similar to koa (or walnut IMHO) and in between mahogany and rosewood. If that’s what you are looking for then it can give you a really fine guitar.

My Williams below pairs Tassie blackwood bought in a town called Devonport in the north of Tasmania with a kauri top from New Zealand some other Kiwi and Aussie woods for neck and trims.

Col

[Wade Hampton]

I've owned two Australian/Tasmanian blackwood instruments, one being a Blue Lion mountain dulcimer that I gigged with for a few years, then gave to my daughter for Christmas one year because she really likes it, and a late 1990's or early 2000's Larrivée L-03BW that I got in a long distance trade and wasn't able to play before I agreed to the deal.

That one was not an especially good-sounding guitar, but it looked gorgeous. I traded it off to someone who did get to play it beforehand and liked it, so it's all a matter of personal taste, I suppose. I have played a bunch of other Aus/Taz blackwood guitars that DID sound good to me.

I should mention that I'm very fond of both koa and black walnut, both medium density hardwoods that are more similar in tone and response to each other than to most other tonewoods, and while Aus/Taz blackwood LOOKS a lot like koa, to me it sounds somewhere between koa and rosewood, and often closer to rosewood than koa, at that.

Bob Baker, who builds Blue Lion dulcimers, told me after making mine that it was more like working with rosewood than koa. (Bob also built the koa Blue Lion that's been my main stage dulcimer for more than thirty years now.) I think that the fact that both koa and Aus/Taz blackwood are acacias and look remarkably similar to each other inclines us to believe that they're very similar tonewise, as well, but none of the instruments made from it that I've owned or played have been as lively and responsive as good koa is.

In other words, all of the Aus/Taz blackwood instruments I've played have had a slower, more rosewood-like response to them than the best koa instruments have. (Playing bad, mediocre, and overbuilt koa instruments is like playing instruments made out of soggy cardboard, so they aren't my reference point here.) I'm not trying to put down the Aus/Taz blackwood instruments, but do feel that the easy equivalency many players assign to them and koa has more to do with their looks rather than their tone and response characteristics. In my experience, they're somewhat different from each other, certainly more so than you'd expect from reading discussion threads about them like this one.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

[Wade Hampton]

PS: I found this list of names for the tree on the Wikipedia page that BluesKing linked us to:

"Acacia melanoxylon, commonly known as the Australian blackwood, is an Acacia species native in South eastern Australia. The species is also known as Blackwood, hickory, mudgerabah, Tasmanian blackwood, or blackwood acacia."

That's it - I'm not going to call it Australian or Tasmanian blackwood anymore, from now on it's "mudgerabah" so far as I'm concerned!


whm

[The Bard Rocks]

We went with it on my recent MJ Franks resonator build and I have not been able to get enough of it - but can't compare it to a regular guitar very well as the voices are so different. I believe Wade's first post states things as I see it: a koa lookalike but not a koa soundalike (they are both acacias, but again there are 2000 species of acacia, mostly bushes).

[larren]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

PS: I found this list of names for the tree on the Wikipedia page that BluesKing linked us to:

"Acacia melanoxylon, commonly known as the Australian blackwood, is an Acacia species native in South eastern Australia. The species is also known as Blackwood, hickory, mudgerabah, Tasmanian blackwood, or blackwood acacia."

That's it - I'm not going to call it Australian or Tasmanian blackwood anymore, from now on it's "mudgerabah" so far as I'm concerned!


whm

It's pronounced mud-gee-ra-bar in case you're wondering!

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

I believe Wade's first post states things as I see it: a koa lookalike but not a koa soundalike (they are both acacias, but again there are 2000 species of acacia, mostly bushes).

Bard, thank you for summing up my view far more succinctly and memorably than I did: Australian/Tasmanian blackwood/mudgerabah is a koa lookalike but not a koa soundalike.

Well put. I'm using that from now on.


whm

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by larren

It's pronounced mud-gee-ra-bar in case you're wondering!

I wouldn't have known to pronounce the second syllable as "gee" instead of "juh," so thank you for that. I owe you, so in case you ever need help with colorful Missouri Ozark hillbilly expressions, let me know.

I can teach you how to whittle and spit, too!


whm