Official Luthiers Forum!

Yep, no pores, and no worm holes.

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I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said.
http://www.brackettinstruments.com/

All righty guys. After carefully examining each and every single post, I have come to a conclusoin. I went and bought it ALL!!!!!



LOL Just kidding

I took Joel Stehr down there, and he did the sniff test, he has a stash at home and knows exactly what it smells like, and after smelling it, he couldn't tell for sure. He said it felt like it and that it was similar (and it does have pores) but he said he wouldn't get it. So we chatted at the store for a while and went back home

Thanks a lot everybody for all the opinions and insight, the verdict stands:

not a true Brazilian Rosewood

Happy building everyone!

I'm hijacking your thread!

Pictures of the French rosewood are up at the other place...

http://theunofficialmartinguitarforum.y ... ion?page=2

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https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008907949110

i know the party is almost over by now, but shouldn´t pau-ferro / morado / bolivian RW / santos RW be lighter in colour? just asking for enlightenment´s sake.

thanks,
miguel.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Dalbergia nigra is the chameleon of rosewoods, it can have diverse and sometimes very different appearance. Colour, grain pattern, figure, you name it. Then there is old and more recent growth.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Whatever it is, that is quite a pile of good sized planks !

lots of pith cuts with plenty of checking.

-jd

Not necessarily. I have cut some that was very dark brown.

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John

thanks! the billets i have are in the light brown with slight pink streaks side of the spectrum then.
cheers,
miguel.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Maksim,

Although it sounds like you've passed on this supposed stash of BRW now, I thought I'd put in my 2 cents worth so that other potential buyers can be aware (beware!).

I talked to Richard Hoover (very nice fellow!), the owner of Santa Cruz Guitar Company, this morning to see what his take on the claim by the seller was. He took a look at this thread. Predictably, he said "The use of our name is misleading at the least and the photos he posted do not look like the real thing" and that (paraphrasing) although he gets several leads a year on hardwood stashes, he NEVER makes offers in boardfeet, nothing about this lot sounds right, and he doesn't recall this particular stash ever passing his way. Therefore, the seller is not being truthful.

He invites you to call him (831-425-0999) if you'd like to talk to him about this.

Hope this helps (someone).

Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Hi everybody, funny to see those pictures.. One year ago I saw an add on "le boncoin" (a french website for classified ads) for this rosewwod, a huge stock for sell for 12 000€.. a nice bargain.
The seller send me some pictures (those you could see on the link) and a friend (not a newbie in wood) living just near gone to him to see this wood, scrap it, smell it and take some others pictures... both me and my friend were convinced that it is not Dalbergia nigra. I send the pictures to Paul Hinds (the man of the famous site Hobbithouse), who told me the same, it is not D. nigra.
For me and my friend it is pau ferro, for Paul Hinds it could be honduran rosewood but it is probably not rio rosewood.

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http://www.cherubin-luthier.fr
https://www.facebook.com/FranckCherubinLuthier

So, with all the new laws and everything, if you had undocumented Brazilian from a while back in your stash, can you still use it?

Also, is the smell so distinct when you sand that it's pretty certain when you smell it?

The fragrance of BRW is unique. Nothing else smells like it.
As to the legalities....who knows? It's a pretty grey area right now, but it's probably better to not have it than to have it.
Ask David Berkowitz...he seems to be the most informed and has done due diligence, and no longer offers it as a result.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

the issue isn't having it ,it is having it and selling it across the border . If you do that , and they come to your home or place of business, the undocumented wood can be confiscated and you may be fined . If you have documentation , and receipts you can at least show where it came from.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

This whole experience was a huge learning experience. At first, the shop owner seemed like a decent fellow, however, after I visited with Joel, he (Joel) said to me quietly "I can't say it's the real stuff because it doesn't really smell like it" so as we were walking out, I told the owner that we werent interested because we weren't sure, and Joel confirmed that decision, and the owner seemed offended that we didn't believe and didn't take his word for it being BRW. After we left, Joel once again said "come to my shop and you'll see the real stuff, I just didn't want to step on anybodys toes (shop owner)". It will be interesting to call Santa Cruz to see their take on this.

Thanks everyone for all the input

It is my most reliable method to identify it. There are many woods that can imitate the appearance of BR, but nothing else smells like it.

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John

Brazilian Rosewood is so over.
I'm surprised many buiilders are still running after it.
Considering that actually confirming what you are being offered is Brazilan can be problematic, the fact that without the proper documentation you cannot legally export (or can a buyer) what you make from it, the neccessity of having to charge a premium (which will exclude a significant portion of your potential clients) for it in this shaky ecomony, the fact that the overall quality in terms of being defect free and having good color or cut is not likely and last of all it's propensity to crack, makes me very hesitant to invest significant resources into procuring or processing any more of this stuff.
I suggest that we as makers focus on making our instruments appeal on some other basis than the use of the last scrap of some rare and soon to be unobtainable wood. There is lots of work to do to educate clients that there is not just one "Correct" combination of woods for certain styles of guitars. This is one of the several reasons why I stopped making steel strings a number of yerars ago.
Over lunch at the recent ASIA show, T.J. Thompson threw his hands up in the air and said "what the heck, if we can't use Brazilian any more we'll still be making guitars, we'll make them out of Ash or something" and of course, he's right.