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Agree with Mario. White spruce makes great tops. This stuff used to be available from a supplier in Labrador, Northern Tonewoods. Not sure he's still in business . Shane may have some as well. A friend of mine has a huge stockpile of this stuff although he doesn't sell it as such. If someone were interested in acquiring some of it, pm or email me and I could give you his phone number.

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Under Compensated Nut!

That is a great instrument Colin! So far my most well received instruments have been double or single side Mahogany OM's with Lutz tops and BZ bridges. White spruce is now on my radar. Thanks!

I'll be hitting 60 instruments next year, in some respects I feel that the mystery is enlarging rather than shrinking. Have you had that experience?

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Where did you get the spruce?

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James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee

For those asking about the density of the Beng, I would compare it to a good rosewood, actually closer to BRW than EIR. Rap on a plank and it rings like a marimba bar. I happend to get the opportunity to purchase the last pallet of perfectly vertical grained wood that the supplier had, about 400 bd feet (added to the 100 or so I already had), so I guess they have little or none left. I have to say that this is about the most stable wood I have ever seen, 14" wide boards, perfectly flat. Some has the burly figure that Colin used, but most is straight grained. Very easy to work with and bends like butter, with no tendency to cross ripple.

I am almost finished with my first guitar from it and am looking forward to the sound. Tapping on the box, I suspect it will be a keeper Like all of my guitars, it has a white spruce top, and that may well be a part of the equation.

Grant Goltz

Since folks were asking for specs on this species, here is what I am able to find.

I bought this under the name of Cambodian Beng, Pahudia cochinchinensis. I have also seen it refered to as Afzelia xylocarpa. I have the Wood Explorer database, which lists over 1,600 species. All of the Afzelia species they list are from Africa. They do not list Afzelia xylocarpa. They do list Pahudia cochinchinensis with the common name Beng, so I am willing to accept this as the preferable name. So much for the taxonomy lesson

They list the species as growing in Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and adjacent areas, Asian rather than African. The wood database gives pretty skimpy info on this species, so I weighed and measured a few pieces to determine the #/cubic foot. The wood I have ranged between 44 and 45 #/cubic foot. For comparison, BRW is listed at 43#, EIR at 52#, and Coco at 54# FWIW. As previously mentioned by somebody else, the wood I bought was sawn in the early 1990's and is air dried, so air dried for around 20 years or so. This probably explains the stability.

Too bad it isn't brown or people would want to build guitars out of it

OK, I figured out the photo thing
Here is what a stack of this stuff looks like with lots of consecutive sawn boards. These are mostly 10 1/2 to 11 feet long


Here is a closeup of a stack of consecutive sawn 11 foot long, 5 to 6" wide boards


And the face of one of them


And here is the box before binding of the beng guitar I am building (half of side and back wiped with mineral spirits)


Grant Goltz

where did/do you find the Beng? I've tried to google it, but didn't find any suppliers.

Steve

Steve, I initially found this about a year ago pretty much by accident while searching for a different species of wood. I have never found it except at one place and they eventually offered to sell me their last pallet of nicely quartersawn wood, which I purchased. I think they still have some odds and ends and mostly the slab sawn stuff and boards narrower than I could use. I don't think any of the regular suppliers of instrument woods carry it, but I could be wrong.

Grant

Guess you guys missed my post. They still have some.

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Ken Franklin
clumsy yet persistent
https://www.kenfranklinukulele.com

As i said In my original post, I bought my white spruce and the Beng from my good friend Grant Goltz. I know he has a good stash of both of these superb woods, so if you are interested in either of these woods my first stop would be to talk to Grant, either PM him here, or I know he can be conracted at the Luthiercom forum or by emial at ggoltz@aol.com. He is really a great guy to deal with, one of the best I have ever found.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.