Official Luthiers Forum!

Has anyone used Persimmon or Pecan as a tonewood for back and sides? What were the results? These trees are available here in west central Illinois and I have used them for various wood working, bowls, boxes, and the like. As a beginner in guitar making, I was hoping someone here has experimented with these non-exotics.

Thanks

Danny R. Little

Persimmon is very hard...it used to be used for the wooden heads in golf...back in the days when woods were actually made of wood!

I have heard of persimmon being used for bridge plates...can't remember where or who reported on its use. I'm sure others will chime in.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Periodically many luthiers take an interest in Persimmon becasue it is an ebony. I think they lose interest when it isn't any better tone than other woods, and it usually is not very pretty. But, it cannot hurt to give it a try.

I've been using persimmon for a while now. As has been pointed out, it's a great wood for bridge plates: it is diffuse porous, quite hard, and tough. In fact, I used some persimmon samples in my 'side tape test' and they took twice as much force to break and Indian rosewood samples of the same size and thickness. Those samples were quartered, too, skew cut wood is even tougher.

I made one persimmon guitar, just to try it out. It's not bad, but not 'magic' either. It is quite dense, like a rosewood, but the damping is higher, so it may not have quite the high-end 'ping' if used in a classical. It's fine for steel strings, though, especially if the buyer plays in the sort of venue where they put chicken wire between the audience and the stage. That was a real 'street fighting' guitar.

Sometimes you find persimmon with black streaks, but mostly it's either a brownish grey or white. It makes a good fingerboard. I like to stain it with a 'tea' made by boiling black walnut hulls in water.

What I have was a gift for turning into bowls from storm damage in west-central Illinois. It is spalted and so more interesting than normal, I suppose. I have used some for rosettes, end grafts, and a face plate. The gentleman that gave it to me said they used it for the pegs in ship building, which makes sense, given some of the other posts.

No one has yet mentioned Pecan. I have enough of this to resaw for back and sides. I made a coffee table from the stuff in 1976. It is harder than the local walnut, orangish in color, straight grained, but with a little birds eye figure here 'n' there. I have also turned wet green pecan, but gained nothing from the experience usefull to luthiery.

Thanks for all the posts so far!

Danny R. Little

as far as the pecan goes, it is often substituted for hickory. You can mix the two woods together and cant tell the difference. Some flooring is actually a mix of the two woods. the trees are actually cousins so telling the difference is really difficult. Hickory makes a good tonewood, so I dont see why pecan wouldnt be just as good.

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Reguards,

Ken H

I would not recommend pecan. I bought some freshly cut boards several years ago
and was told to be very careful to sticker and stack it with quite a bit of weight. I
also bought a bunch of mesquite at the same time so I put the pecan on the bottom
weighted down by the mesquite which is pretty heavy. When I finally got around to
checking things the pecan had twisted, cupped, and warped in every dimension. It's
pretty much worthless for anything other than fuel for my smoker. Pretty though.

Dave
aka mesquite8