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James Ringelspaugh
PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 10:41 pm 
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While on vacation recently a fellow wood butcher took me to visit a local veneer factory where they had supposedly recently found a crate of old brazillian rosewood. Sure enough, they had a big pile of small (2-3" x 12-36") pieces of 4/4 wood from a crate marked as sent from one of their sister factories in Brazil 30 years ago. I bought what they had that was either quartersawn, perfectly flay sawn, or had spiderwebbing.

I have milled a few pieces and while some has that intoxicating sweet bubble-gummy smell of BRW, most does not. Some smells like dirty chocolate, some smells a little like pee. It is all beautiful wood and very dense. The colors range from orange to purples to dark chocolate, and lots has spiderwebbing figure. I'm 90% sure it's all dalbergia, but not all D. nigra. What else could it be?


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Alexandru Marian
PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 10:55 pm 
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That reminds me of my first 2 Brazilian bridge blanks I bought. One had the strong bubble gum smell bliss but the other not, and it was like gaah definitely rosewoody smelling though, but more restrained and resembling Indian rw. But the looks were far off Indian. Probably textbook very dark chocolate Braz.

Offtopic being said, I think the striped ones look different from all Braz I've seen so far. :( The smell part doesn't sound good either. Even Madagascar which soemtimes smells like a dirty greased Diesel engine still has the floral quality once you filter the fuel content out :)

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Steve Kinnaird
PostPosted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 11:13 pm 
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What a pretty pile of wood....

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Ken Franklin
PostPosted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:47 am 
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Looks like it could be pau ferro/ morado. What are the pores like? Pau ferro is very close grained.

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SniderMike
PostPosted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 1:10 am 
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Would that be like the smell of pee after you've eaten asparagus, or just normal pee?

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Hesh
PostPosted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 8:13 am 
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Also on the subject of pee - if I had a box with all that BRW and smelled pee I am sure that it would be me....... :D laughing6-hehe

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Erik Hauri
PostPosted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 9:36 am 
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I've resawn a bit of certifiable old-growth BRW and actually, most of it emits only a very subtle bubble-gum whiff, not very strong at all. Maybe because it has been dry for so long (30 years or more for my stuff).

If it comes straight outta Brazil, it could be brazilian tulipwood (D. frutescens) and/or amazon rosewood (D. spruceana), the striped ones look more like the former. Without spiderwebbing, it is very difficult to tell D. nigra from D. spruceana. The lumber guys in Brazil cannot not distinguish them, and historically they were both sold as "Brazilian Rosewood" pre-CITES (and so you can bet that there are a LOT of vintage instruments out there sporting D. spruceana backs & sides).

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James Ringelspaugh
PostPosted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 11:17 am 
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Ken Franklin wrote:
Looks like it could be pau ferro/ morado. What are the pores like? Pau ferro is very close grained.


Ah, good call Ken. Some of the more orange pieces closely match a set of Pau Ferro I dug up.
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James Ringelspaugh
PostPosted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 11:45 am 
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I have also identified what I believe to be kingwood (D. Cearensis) as it is extremely dense and has tiny tiny pores. It is looking more and more like a 'grab bag' of a bunch of different species.


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Howard Klepper
PostPosted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 1:19 pm 
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Nothing there looks like frutescens. In the top photo, the two longest pieces have the color of cearensis (more purple than nigra). But the photo just above this does not. In any case, the natural variations in these species cover a wide range. In Brazil, they refer to at least four subspecies of nigra, although part of the difference may be climate and soil.

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James Ringelspaugh
PostPosted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 3:22 pm 
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I am beginning to think Howard is right. The tulipwood I have seen was pinkish to padauk colored and had a very sweet smell (I think thus the name frutescens). The purplish wood I have looks an awful lot like what is advertised at a lot of reputable sites as 'Kingwood' or D. Cearensis.

From http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplrp/fpl_rp632.pdf:

Quote:
Although there are many other tree species of Dalbergia
in Brazil, most of them are not commercially valuable. Alves Camargos et al. (2001) list 15 species, and de Carvalho (1997) lists 13 tree species, plus 26 species that
are lianas or shrubs. The ones that are commercially important include kingwood (D. cearensis Ducke), tulipwood
(D. decipularis Rizzini & A. Mattos; syn. D. aff. frutescens
(Vell.) Britton), and Amazon rosewood (D. spruceana Benth.) (Kribs 1968, Record and Hess 1943). Some are easily identified to species. Dalbergia decipularis is ring-porous and D. cearensis has numerous small (<100 μm) vessels, which make these species distinct from D. nigra and D. spruceana. However, D. nigra and D. spruceana cannot be easily separated on the basis of anatomy. They both have large (>200 μm) vessels, storied rays, and axial parenchyma that is both aliform and in apotracheal bands, as well as other similar macroscopic and microscopic anatomical features.


Side by side the pores are a lot smaller. Now I'm not sure what this dark chocolate wood is with the tiny pores. It is denser than all the rest.


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Mike Collins
PostPosted: Thu Dec 04, 2008 3:23 pm 
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Lex;
How deep & large are the pores?
I have Kingwood sets and they are more purple.
I have some Ocelot Ear that is the same color and comes from Brazil but only in small pieces.
Yes that's the name !!
But like Howard said natural Variations and soil conditions can make
any species tough to ID .
Mike

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James Ringelspaugh
PostPosted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 2:22 pm 
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Mike Collins wrote:
Lex;
How deep & large are the pores?
I have Kingwood sets and they are more purple.
I have some Ocelot Ear that is the same color and comes from Brazil but only in small pieces.
Yes that's the name !!
But like Howard said natural Variations and soil conditions can make
any species tough to ID .
Mike


It's the top wood in this pic next to the same board that was in the above comparison:
I just read in AL#2 about Ocelot Ear. Don Musser says it is harder than nigra, has smaller pores, and can have the nice black streaks and other colors of nigra, so who knows, maybe that's it. Whatever it is, it is striking wood. The pictures do not do it justice.


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Howard Klepper
PostPosted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 2:30 pm 
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Decipularis appears to be another name for frutescens, BTW. Thanks for the USDA link re nigra and spruceana.

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