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Another suggestion: Prima vera, a/k/a white mahogany. Softer and weaker than Honduras. And not the conventional color; it's pale yellow. Grows very quickly and can be grown in North America.

I love Ceylon satinwood, and think it can be a great back and side wood, but it is on the heavy side and in the USA is hard to find and very pricey.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Thanks for the input bob,

i have used blackwood and liked it very much and did not have any stability issues.
but i have only used a small amount of stock so i am sure it varies as much as any wood.

i do know however that it sells and that is also very important for me as i also have a business to run.
That said i want to offer the best wood i can and offer objective advice hence this topic.

queens land maple may be an option but it is very hard to source and in limited supply.
i am looking for alternative woods that are readily available.

As for figi plantation mahogany its awfull stuff.
i got stuck with a load of it i couldent sell becouse it was light fluffy and generaly pretty shoddy stuff i will never stock it again after that experience.

i think it just goes to show trends can vary from country to country.

i find the java stock much more stable and denser if you can avoid the pin knots.

but the stock that is most like brazilian is the plantation or fsc stock from belize or guatamala and that is my direct alternative at present.

i would also like to point out that only four or five boards out of a pallet will be suitable for neck the rest gets used for solid body guitars.

so far the favourate seems to be cherry.

joel.

I have been looking at prima vera and andiroba but i have yet you market test.
i am not sure whether they will catch on.

cylon satin wood is on the heavy side about the same as indian rosewood but funnily enough prices have dropped recently and plain stock can be purchased quite cheaply wholesale.
i think this is becouse it has gone out of fashion in the furniture trade.
i still like it myself though and sell alot of it for laminate necks.

Joel.

I like Entandrophragma cylindricum really well. It is quite different than Swietenia macrophylla. Stiffer, generally heavier and harder, a bit more brittle. Really I think it is a mistake to try to compare it viewing differences as flaws. Some of the differences make it stand on it's own as a fine neck wood. Khaya is a bit variable. I have run across a range of examples of Khaya(possibly different species of Khaya?). Sometimes very good material, sometimes very hit and miss. When you find good Khaya it is extreamly stable, machines like a champ, and has weight and stiffness very similar to Swietenia macrophylla. When it is not so good, you can find material that checks like a bugger with hard and soft pockets, often very light weight, and weak. I certainly think the best examples would be a viable alternate for Swietenia macrophylla. One big plus is availability in large enough stock to obtain premium straight grained well quarted stock at a reasonable price.

Trying to compair all neck woods to Swietenia macrophylla is a mistake IMO. It seems like a vicious cycle that keeps repeating. A wood that is reasonably cheap, available in large quantity, and works reasonably well in a manufacturing environment takes favor(becoming the new standard). This is dandy till availability falls off, and then all woods are compaired to it as if deviation from its properties is a flaw. I think it is smarter to consider a wood(or even composites) on their own merit. Prunus serotina on it's own merits is a wonderful neck wood. Entandrophragma cylindricum on it's own merits is a great neck wood. Both different from Swietenia macrophylla, which isn't bad, shoot it played second fiddle to and was a cheap substitute for Swietenia mahogoni when availability fell.

Rich

My current guitar will have a Makore neck. The stuff I have looks very similar in all respects to H. Mahogany... similar grain, similar color, etc. Very close in weight also. The 4/4 stock I have has been laying around my shop for a few years and seems very stable. I've tried Sapele also and it's OK. I use it for neck/tail blocks and linings instead of HM.

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Jim Womack

"Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for. "
Will Rogers

Of course!! Khaya is a genus name and not a trade name. Under the genus Khaya are several species and as many as six species are harvested and included in commercial shipments.

The average SG of Ceylon Satinwood is .98........compare that to other woods

Yes, That is my point. Khaya anthotheca, Khaya grandifoliola, Khaya ivorensis ,Khaya madagascariensis ,Khaya senegalensis. I am not sure how different these trees are from each other, or if the range is a factor. The variation is a problem. The potential is there for great neck wood. When I see reviews on Khaya, there is no mention or distinction usually, simply "African Mahogany" is fine, has issues, or is outstanding. I suspect, people who know the wood(when it is good, and can recognise it) will use the heck out of it. The people who don't know what to look for will buy hit and miss and become frustrated.

Rich

I have access to tons of Acer Rubrum (red Maple). It's not as hard or heavy as rock maple, but seems to be quite stable once it's seasoned. It has nice cross silking when it's well quartered. I'm using it for a neck block in the guitar I'm working on now. It usually is straight grained and doesn't have many knots from trees taken in wooded areas. I would think it would make good neckwood with some carbon fiber. The color may be a little light for some peoples tastes.

Anybody have experience with red maple?

Interesting conversation here.

Cheers.

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Horton, MI

It seems to me that there are really two questions on the table.

1) What will factories move to and what will be the next thing that the market will accept?

and

2) What are we going to do when the (good) Honduran Mahogany is gone?


I really can't say with respect to question #1. My guess is that they will move to a Kayha or Sapele so they can continue to use the word "Mahogany" in their marketing, but I am sure price will be an important variable in that equation too.

However, from the small builder's point of view, I think we are going to be fine for the length of our practical lives as builders. Good stock is still available, you just have to look for it. Old cabinet shops and private stashes are around, as well as good commercial stock shows up. Just buy it and stockpile it.

Most of us could easily acquire enough necks to last us "forever" as small builders. I have been doing this for a while and have about half of what I will need, plus I am always on the lookout for good stuff.

I just found a 12/4 x 10" x 5' board of really old mahogany at my local woodcraft ... a local wood worker retired and took some of his wood there to sell. So it shows up in all kinds of places.


And as it has been said... we can move to scarfed headstocks and stacked heels. That will make it even easier on us to find the stock we need as small builders.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

If I may humbly bump my question about Acer Rubrum.

Here's some data I found.



I'm still liking the red maple, maybe laminated with cherry and walnut?

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Horton, MI

Kirt,

What is it that you are trying to figure out? It is viable as a neck wood.

Rich

Rich,

Yes, that's what I was getting at. I'd like to know if anybody has been using it for necks, and what their opinions are.
It appears to be about the same density as mahogany and maybe stronger too. I know these tables can be dependant upon the particular piece of wood. But I've not heard of anybody using it.

I used to burn it for firewood, but that will probably change.

Thanks.

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Horton, MI

Red maple is a good neck wood. You can often find it with nice curl, too. Maple has a reputation for being less stable than mahogany, and I've always laminated maple necks. Usually I try to find a flat cut piece, 1-1/2"-2" thick and 7"-8" wide, with the cup running as close as possible down the center of the board. Flatten the surface that would have been toward the outside of the tree, and slice the plank right down the middle of the cup, so that the cut face shows quartered grain. Book match the two halves. Any wiggle in the grain on one side will be balanced out by an equal and opposite wiggle on the other, and the result is a neck that stays put pretty well.

Rich i think your comments have very good merit and have made me think about this in a different light thank you.

you are right we tend to be looking at this in the wrong way and instead of looking at the induvidual merits of the wood we are using mahogany as the base line for what to expect.
If you think about it like this then you suddenly realise that you have to take each wood as a induvidual case and look at the positive quality,s that wood can bring as opposed to the negative.

Wood species vary so much that no one species is alike.
with this in mind the alternative woods suddenly look like better candidates in there own rights.

as far as kayha is concerned you are right it can vary imensly with the best stuff being very good quality and stable.
the problem is that it can also be very bad quality all to often, but the same can be said for honduras mahogany i suppose.

One of the problems is that all the kayha variatys are all sold as african mahogany.
this is like selling cuban mahogany as honduras and vise versa.
i think if the trade is going to start using lots of the kayha variaty's then the variaty's need to be sperated out before they get to the end user.

for example kayha ivorensis is the most common and it will be alot lighter than the denser kayha senagalis.
this makes a huge difference when using it for guitar necks and therefore this needs to be addressed if the industry is to start using it on a large scale.

Brock i think you hit the questions that i am trying to bring up on the head.

what will the factories move to and what will the market except.

Well that looks like it will be the kayha variaty,s.
allready the spanish tonewood companys offer only kayha becouse of the prohibitive price of honduras.
also it seems to have been taken up by most of the spanish factories which says to me the industy has allready made up its mind.

The fact is the average end user will not know the diference between african and honduras mahogany and they will be happy as long as they still seem to have a "mahogany" necked guitars.

the second question what will we do when we run out of honduras.

Well you are right its not going to effect most of you in the states for some time as you still have huge stock piles there.
for the last 20 years 80% of the worlds mahogany has been exported to the united states.
Thats 80% of 100,000 cubic meters of mahogany a year.
thats alot of mahogany that much of is still stacked in wharehouses throughout the states.

The probelem is its we only stand for a small percentage of mahogany users with boat building trade buying up the largest quantity,s.
add the furniture trade to that and you have a huge demand that needs suppling.
Those stock piles will deplete quicker than you would at first think.

That said many people have been buying up all the stock the can afford for the last year or so to make sure they dont personaly run out.
the chances are that much of this will not be used and find its way on to the market in a few years.

In the uk we have much less stock piled mahogany and you will find that many people here just can not get good stock already.

i know most of the large timber merchants here in the uk and i know that all but a few very big companys have completely sold out of true brazilian stock and are selling fsc plantation stock in its stead.

there is however a few stock piled amounts in garages and lock ups all over britain that will come on to the market at some point and these will keep most of the trade happy here for a while.
for example i was just offered 200 30 year old honduras mahogany neck blanks by a retiring guitar maker i am sure i will get more offers like this over the next couple of years.

That said we have to expect the prices to rise as more and more people become aware of the situation.

i feel that the problem is knowhere near as accute in the states but it is still something you should all be aware of.

if i were you i would be stock piling becouse in 5 years or less we will have situation like brw.

Thanks for your comments on this thread folks it has really made me think about this problem in a new light.

i feel much more confident that we will cope well with the alternatives we allready have available.


Joel.

Yes it is alot denser than alot of woods but again it is variable.
i have milled quite alot of it and while i would not recomend it for a one peice neck it makes great laminates.

Its also not as heavy as you would think try doing an a/b test with some against mahogany i think you will find its not that much heavyer.

also its as stable as any wood.


It just a matter of taste,

Joel.

here is an article by rainforest relief that is relevent to this subject.

http://www.rainforestrelief.org/What_to ... ogany.html

some food for thought anyway,

Joel.

Just to clarify, That was Larry's comment on Ceylon. I do love the golden look of that wood.

Joel,
I think the point of confusion regarding Khaya really drives home a comment Larry has made many times in his posts regarding the use of the actual species name instead of using common names. It would make it easier to know what you were buying. One of the most irritating things I have noticed is that many woodworking stores have taken to dropping the African, and just calling whatever is in the bin "mahogany".

The larger factories are going to use the wood that meets the need.

1. reliable long term steady supply
2. is reasonably stable(warrenty issues are expensive)
3. Machines well
4. works well with the finish they apply
5. it would seem not having to change market opinion would save money(similar look and feel to what the customer is used to).

That is the wood that will gain favor. Now Many of these things are important to small shops, but a small shop or hobbiest has no where near the same usage, and #1 becomes a very different story. That in a way is an edge also, because small shops and hobbiests are not bound by that requirement. In that sense can use just about anything they or their customers want. Lets face it a neck blank is not a huge cost issue on a custom guitar. Look at the variation in top back and side wood. A fine Sitka/Mahogany may run $70, a fine Brazillian or African blackwood/Adi. easily can exceed $1000. That is much more significant in terms of cost.

Rich

As far as species names is concerned as a small time supplier i try to make it my business to let my customers know what species they are buying (something that larry made me realise was vitaly important these days) but its not allways possable to know for sure in some cases.
even the biggest supplier get sold a wood that turns out to be something else sometimes.
for example i know that some species of kayha have been mixed in with swietinia for some time now with some of the less trustworthy dealers blatantly selling kayha as "true" mahogany and not letting people know what it realy is.
that has been a real problem here in the uk with a large percentage of lumber yard mahogany actualy being one of the kayha variaty,s.
quite often the customer thinks he is getting sweitinia when he is actualy getting kayha.
this will get worse as stock dry up.

another example is madagascan rosewood.
there are a couple of suppiers that dont give the latin name for there stocks and just sell it as mad rose.
This is fine if you are selling dalbergia baroni but there are two comercial types of mad rose on the market at present and some dealers are selling the lower priced wood as rio type.
of the two types of mad rose the first one is the rio type (dalbergia baroni) with the good red color and strong black line pigment figure on the outside of the log.
This is the expensive one that i sell for $$200 -$300 and is the type that you see with the good pigment figure and spider webbing.

The second type is dalbergia graviana this is a wonderfull wood in its own right and is allmost identilcle in its specific gravity workability and tone.
it also looks very very simalar.
but allthough it does have some black line it does not show spiderwebbing and is more like honduras rosewood in terms of pigment figure lines.
it also does not have the intense color of baroni and is much darker in color.
it tends to be plainer and more (traditional) in it apperance.
I sell this wood for $80 for a low grade (plain) set and £160 for the highest grade sets with good pigment.
Thats a large difference in price and think the average luthier should be made aware of the diference hence i sell the two types seperatly.
This is not good marketing for me but it helps to clarify the diferences and will help luthiers to make an informed decision when buying mad rose in the future.
Hopefully it proves i can be trusted when it comes to other items i sell.

you are right about the factories and i am sure for a while they will switch to the kayha,s without the mass market even realising for a while.
the thing that i worry about is that even some of the kayha,s are considered endagered and may well rise in price in there own rights in the next 10 years.

but that said there are many many rainforest woods and african woods that are not comercialy known i am sure that one of these will probably fill the void.
probably something like andiroba or something simalar will take the place of mahogany.
They may even resort to staining maple to make it look like mahogany superficialy.

who knows.
at the end of the day we have to decide for ourselves which woods we like and use them with there induvidual merits in mind.

most high end builders will have all the choice they want for many years to come is some form or other but small run production shops and factories will slowly but surley change the way the end user thinks in favour of whatever wood they find fit to use.
all ready we are seeing companys like art and lutherie using cherry and maple laminates and i am sure that these and other woods will be marketed as a special option therefore keeping the end user happy and givig the large makers a cheap and suitable wood to use for the forseable future.

i know i for one will be keeping my eye on the mass market to where trends lie.

thanks for this topic folks it has been good food for thought, i allways enjoy a good debate,

Joel.

I've made my last couple using New Guinea Rosewood Pterocarpus Indicus for the necks - most of you folks would call it Narra. It's density is around 610kg/m3, which compares well with mahogany which ranges between 540-640kg/m3 (according to the website I just looked at). Rings like a bell too, though I don't know if this is desirable in a neck.

The stuff is pretty cheap - I think I'm averaging about 9 bucks per neck, and it is in plentiful supply at least down here, and is noted by furniture makers for it's exceptional stability, beauty, and it's easy to work.

Gerard Gilet (a well known luthier down here) has been using it for years, which is where I got the idea.

Oh, I have compared it, Joel. Milled up an entire log this winter..planks 20" wide and heavy as ebony

For us Aussie, Queensland Maple is a great alternative. In fact I reckon it's probably superior to Mahogany. It's lighter, just as if not more stable, works well, glues beautifully, is relatively cheap and readily available.

It should also be mentioned here that just because you have handled a few boards of a particular kind of wood, it does not qualify you as an instant expert on the properties of that species. I have handled more Jarrah than I could ever recall, some, the darker brown blackish stuff can stink like a fart when you cut it and weigh as much as Gaboon Ebony. You would never even consider using it for necks.

On the other hand, the lighter coloured salmon pink stuff smells just fine when cut and can be as light weight as Mahogany. I would not hesitate to use this lighter stuff for necks. Same deal with Tassi Blackwood, I have some in the shed that is quite heavy but yet another small board that weights in quite favorably against Hondo Hog, it's well 1/4ed so I will use it for necks, after all it has the properties, it's strong, it's light weight, it's stable and workable. At the end of the day, that is all that really matters.

IMO, with the tightening up of availability of the more traditional species, we need to start looking at each board and judging it on it's own merits, we need to be moving away from neatly slotting each species into a tidy easy to assume category. Granted, some types of wood are simply not suitable for certain things but, if the properties you are after appear evident in the board that is in your hand, you would be hard pushed to provide a rational argument for taking yet another from the bush.

Cheers

Kim

.[/quote]

Oh, I have compared it, Joel. Milled up an entire log this winter..planks 20" wide and heavy as ebony [/quote]

no need to be rude larry

O.k point taken but the fact is the stock i have is alot lighter i checked sg weight and it is about 72.
(do you want me to send you a sample)

and yes this is alot denser than mahogany but the electric guitar guys i have love it.
It is no denser than indian rosewood which is being used by loads of people for electric necks.

also ebony has been used for years in laminate necks and was a traditional wood to be used before we had truss rods.

i am not saying you are wrong larry but should know more than anyone how much a wood can vary.

also larry i am not saying it will ever replace mahogany just that its one other option for high end users.
The fact is i get repeat orders for it from a very well known maker who is more than happy to use it for his laminate necks,who am i to argue.

mainly we are just talking center strips and electric necks though and i agree that it is way to heavy for an acoustic but for f.s sake i have a customer who uses honduras rosewood ,macassar ebony and even snakewood (allthough he said he would never use it again after last time) for all his necks and thins down his bodys to help balance the guitar.
i have also seen many people using bubinga,cocobolo and other dense woods the same argument could be used for all of them that they are not suitable.
but who are we argue they have the right to try diferent woods to see what works for them without being ridiculed.
its a matter of personal taste at the end of the day.

we all have diferent ways of working and one wood that suits one person will not suit another who am to disagree.

o.k. so we have agreed that cylon satin is not suitable for acoustic guitars this is good, but can we now please get back to the subject at hand

also larry you have to realise that my busines relies on offering a specialist items that others cant this may be why i am more willing eperement with the heavier woods.

as allways i respect your input larry but can we please keep this constructive.

Joel.

Kim yes i 100% agree with you.

The reason that woods change so much from board to board is why i am offering deflection tested tops these days.
just becouse a wood fits visualy in the right grade does not mean it will have the physicle properties you need.

wood varys so much from tree to tree to and even board to board that to a certain extent each peice has to be taken on its own merits.
for example, i recenly picked up some old stock brazilian mahogany that my local merchant found at the back of one of his sheds.
it looked ok in the rough but it was very very heavy.
when i milled it turned out to be the densest mahogany i have ever seen (probably up there with my satin wood ) and such i cant offer for necks.
its just to heavy and dense.
it will probably be miled into electric guitars and acoustic guitar back and sides in the end.

the fact is you can handle a wood all your life and then one board will come along that goes against every thing you know about the species.

i think that for the small luthiers it is viable to look at diferent boards with there own merits but for the production run luthier etc this is just not posable.
the factories buy the wood buy the container and the have to use every last peice to maximise profits

while they will have a grading systems these will mainly grade the visual properties of the wood.

i think in the long run it will be to hard test the sg of every board that comes through the door but you never know it may become standard practice especialy for necks.

I would to love check out queensland maple as i have heard such good things but i wouldent know how to go about sourcing it.
that said i will be on the look out though.

Joel.

Wow- 89,000 acres logged to provide ipe for NYC boardwalks. All this forum's stashes combined are a drop in the bucket compared to that.

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It's not the miles ahead, it's the stone in your shoe


In Markham,Virginia

Mahogany is still available from Allied:
http://www.alliedlutherie.com/neck_blanks.htm
It will (and for good reason) get harder and harder to get, but it's out there.
At $75 for a blank that will yield 2 necks that's by no means the most expensive part on an instrument. People frequently put several times that into a pickup.
-C

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