Official Luthiers Forum!

Can anyone blurt out some possible ideas for topwood species (and maybe also sources to get them) from the four continents besides NorthAm and Europe, that'd be SouthAm, Africa, Australia, and Asia (forget about Antarctica!). I'm interested in either soft-woods or suitable light hard-woods.

Huon Pine and King billy pine, are Australian topwoods that can be sourced through Australian tonewoods our OLF sponsor.

Another possibility is Bunya which has been used very sucessfully by Maton.

Celery top pine might be good too, but I've not heard of anyone building with this yet. I'm going to try it soon.

You can use Mahogany as a top wood, which grows in S.America.

_________________
"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."

Sapele

[QUOTE=PaulB]

Celery top pine might be good too, but I've not heard of anyone building
with this yet. I'm going to try it soon.[/QUOTE]

You got some on order from Tim too? Do you have a particular
instrument youre going to use it on?

Cheers Martin

[QUOTE=kiwigeo] [QUOTE=PaulB]

Celery top pine might be good too, but I've not heard of anyone building
with this yet. I'm going to try it soon.[/QUOTE]

You got some on order from Tim too? Do you have a particular
instrument youre going to use it on?

Cheers Martin[/QUOTE]

Yeah, Tim's drying some now. I first identified it as a possibility when I read about it's properties a few years ago. Saw some at the Sydney Working with Wood show, but none was well quartered that was wide enough. I haven't seen any since then. I'll chose what instrument to use it on once I've got a top set that I can compare with other tops in my stash, I want to see how stiff it is first.

BTW, none of the species I mentioned earlier are true pines. We don't have any Pinus spp in Australia. The term pine generally just meant conifer or softwood when these trees were named by a bunch of uneducated convicts fresh off the boat.PaulB38821.80875

Nothing beats spruce. So why no get some spruce from Japan, Korea or China? Dragon Spruce (Picea Asperata) has a nice esoteric allure to it.

_________________
Instagram: @jfrenchluthier
Web: https://www.jfrenchguitars.com/

Matt, I see you are here in the US, why do you not want any of the Spruce varieties from US & Canada?

Just curious

Mike

[QUOTE=PaulB]


a bunch of uneducated convicts fresh off the boat.[/QUOTE]

Nothing much changes then

Colin

_________________
I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Oregon Myrtle is beautiful and supposed to be an excellent choice and very forgiving for beginners!
Its still pretty cheap too!
Cheers
charliewood

I may be looking for a nice set of high flame oregon myrtle in a bit, so if someone deals it please PM me. Thanks
Cw

[QUOTE=MSpencer] Matt, I see you are here in the US, why do you not want any of the Spruce varieties from US & Canada?
[/QUOTE]

I just had a notion it might be fun to build some guitars entirely out of woods from particular regions.

Cool idea, thanks for the reply. Keep us posted on what you find and decide.

Mike