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I'am thinking of building my next guitar from Padauk,has anyone experience with this timber? Any tips? Has it ever been used for a soundboard?

Thanks.
John Metenkovic

I've seen it used as backs/sides, and heard it bends quite well, can be fairly brittle but a good tonewood overall. It can be had for pretty cheap, too.

I don't know about guitars, but Third Wave made some nice all padauk ukes. Last I heard the Third Wave company is for sale. Wish I had the dough to think about it.

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D..

I've used Paudauk and like it. I had no trouble bending mine and that is when I was still using light bulbs;) Just seal it well as the red will bleed into lighter colored wood when spraying nitro.

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tim...
http://www.mcknightguitars.com

[QUOTE=Tim McKnight] I've used Paudauk and like it. I had no trouble bending mine and that is when I was still using light bulbs;) Just seal it well as the red will bleed into lighter colored wood when spraying nitro.[/QUOTE]

My experience w/ Padauk is 50% of Tim's: the part about it bleeding. I thought that a holly (white) purfling line would look nice up against the red of the Padauk. Mercy, I had to scrape and scrape even after repeated coats of lacquer...it just kept bleeding. The 50% of Tim's experience that I envy is his ease of bending. This wood was quite difficult for me. But I should hasten to say that it was worth it! It makes a wonderful intstrument. And the wood is still fairly inexpensive.

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

I have made several padouk guitars. I can vouch the woods sonic properties. The stuff sounds great. If you like to tap wood, (probably you do if you post here) you will find that it makes a nice metallic clank like taping Brazilian or HOnduran Rosewood.

It really is hard to bend the sides. They don't seem to relax with ordinary heat settings. I had success with getting the wood nearly to the scorching temp and even then, expect some springback. (if you have a really strong external mold you can pull it back to shape )

Wade Lowe in Atlanta used to make classical guitars with Brazilian bodies and Padouk tops. Very interesting instruments. The sounded good, perhaps not as loud as a spruce topped classical, but they were well balanced with a complex tone. Classicals have less energy in the strings than steel so it would be an interesting experiment to see how padouk works with steel strings. I imagine it would certainly be no worse than mahog or koa and if kept thin enough, perhaps better.

The best part about paduk is the sweeeeeet smell. Love that smell!

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

[QUOTE=John Mayes] The best part about paduk is the sweeeeeet smell. Love that smell![/QUOTE]

Yes indeed. It's like the smell of cotton candy at the circus.

Ahhh...the smell of padauk dust....

...will put me in the hospital. I'm majorly allergic to the stuff. I have some padauk amboyna burl I used for a rosette and headplate for a dread a year or so back, and sanding it gave me a major asthma attack. Yuch.

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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."