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Friend brought a 6.5-7" wide 1" thick and 7' dogwood board for me to resaw and help make a guitar for him. Its spalted and flatsawn and has character so looks are good but any experience with the sound. cured 7 years.
I read over the numbers and as we all know its hard but is it a good tone wood.

He is fine with 3 piece back.

Bob

I have some killer looking dogwood with crazy spalt. But dogwood taps like wet cardboard. Tap tone on back and side wood is not the only factor, but I am not that enthusiastic about dogwood for that purpose. I have made dogwood fingerboards, since it wears slick.

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John

Antonia Torres, the "father " of modern classical guitar making, is famous for making a guitar with hardboard back and sides to demonstrate that it is pretty much the top that is important for sound.

I have built with a couple of woods which, to me, seemed to tap a bit like wet cardboard.
Seems it can still make fine guitars, just don't expect the B & S to contribute much to the sound.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

FWIW I seasoned some boards of dogwood 11 yrs ago for bridges,fb. an chisel handles. I would not use it for back an sides, too much shrinkage warping an checking. It makes great chisel handles for use with a malllet though!

Agree on all points here. I experimented with it some time ago, reasoning that anything that dense and hard might be promising for back and sides. It simply has no resonance at all. Taps like wet cardboard. Maybe it could make interesting fretboards. It would certainly resist wear. Tough on the tools, though.