Official Luthiers Forum!

Pale yellow color. Very hard and dense. 1.5" x 12" section rings like a marimba bar. Ribbon striped on the quarter sawn face.
1/2 freshly sanded, golden half wiped with walnut oil
Sitting on 8/4 Sapele as a color reference

Any ideas?

-jd

That looks like some wood I was given called "Ayan", I think. The piece I had was not very stable, but I made a plane body with it that worked out OK. Hard and heavy, but squirrely (if it's the same stuff).

Adding: I think that the piece I had was of South American origin, and it had quite a distinctive scent.
I gave the plane away so I can't give it a re-sniff, though. ;)

Some sort of satinwood?
https://www.wood-database.com/sorting-out-satinwoods/

The wet part looks like very pale African mahogany to me.

Afrormosia?

Thank you. That Aformosia board looks very similar, so it may be a winner

I have been trying to sort thru the satinwood substitutes to try to figure out the identity.
This list seems to include:
Ceylon satinwood
Pyimna
Movigui
Yellowheart (second leading contender)
Avodire ( I have a nice set of this and is similar, but not a match)
Aformosia (now my leading contender)
Obeche (I have some of this and it is not a good match)
Primavera
Anigere ( I have a nice set of this and is similar, but not a match)
Chakte Vita

I have had this for at least 20 years and finally getting around to ID it...

I think this is the same an Movingui, very similar but not quite right.

Definitely not a match for any of the Khaya or Sapele I have in the shop, although the ribbon strip figure is similar so likely from a similar climate.

If you cut a piece off the end and sand the end grain, the wood database on the web might be helpful.
It looks like Mahogany to me, but there are multitudes of look-alikes.

_________________
wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Andiroba? It is called 'royal mahogany' by the flooring industry.

_________________
John

I built two parlors from a resawn beam of ship dunnage. Looked just like your board. Smelled wonderful while milling. And JD, the 6x6 beam did ring with great sustain. Ernie, RIP, thought it looked like Afrormosia.
I sent a piece to the USDA Forest Products Lab and they identified it as PTEROCARPUS SP. CF. INDICUS or Narra. I remember that while filling with epoxy (no sealer), the epoxy seeped through the pores in areas and it did tend to split.
When I look at the sample pics in the Wood-Database, I still think it looks a lot more like Afrormosia than Narra. Afrormosia is also a Pterocarpus.
My grandkids sure liked the guitars.

Pterocarpus is one heckuva genus for luthiers. Some excellenct guitar-making species there. I do agree the grain of the board looks a lot like pterocarpus indicus, only the color is a bit off compared to the stuff I regularly use for necks - but that could be an artefact of the lighting/photo…

If there was some way to upload the smell of a freshly sawn surface, I could tell you for sure …

The ribbon figure looks like some African mahogany I have, but I wouldn't call that a dense wood at all. Some quartered Padauk I have has the same figure, but darker color. It isn't really dense either, but more than mahogany. Padauk is a ptercarpus cousin.of Narra, and also smells good and rings like crazy. Pores tat go on forever, Maybe that reduces the weight?

I think Carl has it right.

_________________
Why be normal?

I know this as "Solomon Island Rosewood". It actually is Pterocarpus Indicus and I know it to be from the Solomons and I think they have another nickname for it. I had a friend there in the seventies who sent it back. I built this dreadnaught out of it a couple of years ago. I filled the grain with Z-Poxy and sprayed Nitro over it. It does have a distinct smell when cut or sanded.

Confident it’s not primavera…

Here's a pic of one of the parlors. Neck and body were the wood in question. The center strip and backstrap are Manzanita.