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I would like to know if anyone has experience or knows of other builders who have used African Teak for acoustic guitars. I just bought a couple of nice planks, perfectly quartersawn..straight/tight grain...and wide enough to build Dread Size guitars without any runout. The tap tone is unbelieveably sharp and resonant. Just wondering about the workability and if it is a viable wood for acoustics. The price was high but, the quality seems to justify it. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Highly oily/waxy wood. Tough to finish, except with oil varnishes and the like. Great for marine applications though. It's a very nice looking wood though.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Don..have you built any guitars with it ?

Is African Teak different than other teak?

I made an electric out of teak. (Don't know if it's the same as African teak.) It sounds great, looks great, and is heavy as a dump truck. It is very oily and murder on your blades. I had no problem finishing it.

Jeff, no I've never built with the stuff, but work with plenty of people who do boat building etc, and have grilled them about teak.

Hopefully Michael Propsom will see this thread and give us his take...since he's a shipwright. I'm sure he has great insights into it.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

The wood we usually call teak, from Asia, is high in silica and thus hard
on tools. If I recall correctly, it also has very high damping. African
padauk (and probably a few other woods) is sometimes called African
teak.Howard Klepper38660.911724537

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

The Teak that I acquired is not heavy at all. In fact it's fairly light. It was very easy to cut...even with a very dull blade. Exactly the opposite of what I had expected. The two boards I bought are about 14' in length, 11" wide and 2 1/2" thick. Straight as an arrow and perfectly quartered. The tap tone is "Excellent"...even in this thickness. I'm looking forward to preparing a few sets. I'll post pictures when they are finished.