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I haven't used it but I know that many builders have lots of problems with splitting. Some go so far as to soak the wood with superglue. I think Kathy Wingart does this.

There is 2 kinds of Brazilian Rosewood , That , which is cracked and that which will crack. CA has been used as a sealer for a while. I like it as it will glue the micro cracks that are undetectable. I don't think Kathy soaks is with CA as much as floods it . It does make a good sealer and fill for rosewood.
There is no reason not to use stump wood if the grain is on the quarter but there is not much good BRW on Ebay. When there is a good piece you will see a few regulars hit it. Good stuff will often go over the $500 mark . BRW is something you can get burned on big time if you don't know what you are looking for.

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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

No reason not to use stumpwood. As long as the wood is seasoned and cut properly of course.

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

John, (or anyone)
Could you elaborate on that? What qualities do you look for when handling a set of BRW?

Thanks for your input,
Hutch

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"After forty-nine years of violin building, I have decided that the search for a varnish is similar to the fox hunt. The fun is in the hunt."
Jack Batts Maker and Repairer of Fine Violins

First off, the fact that it really is Brazilian Rosewood.
Some Ebayer's have been know to stretch the truth a little bit.

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If you can't do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly.

You need to know graining orientation and what it looks like. At best when you look a photos ,you are subject to how good the photographer was . There are some woods that to the untrained eye appear to be BRW when it isn't. Just because a rosewood comes from Brazil doesn't make it Brazilian Rosewood. There are a few things about BRW that are concrete , the odor , I have not seen a true piece of BRW that didn't have that particular aroma .
Most of the stuff on Ebay is low end with a few exceptions. Expect to see worm holes and cracks in this stuff as most of it is not well taken care of or now harvested from diseased or injured trees. The nature of this stuff is that it is hard and there are soft spots in it. Many pieces are harvested from sunken logs . If the wood has a wide grain to it chances it is rift or flat sawn. You need wood that is as much on the quarter as possible.
On the backs avoid hi figure. While it may look neat , this is unstable and you can expect serious heaving or cracking . This is not something you just go and buy without some experience or education . Trust me , you can be taken to the cleaners in a real hurry. One of my students wanted to use BRW he bought . He told me how nice it was and when he got it here I could tell it was a limb not a trunk. This didn't get through the bender as it cracked before the heat got into the wood.
The best line is Old Martin Stock. In few cases this is true and in most cases it is a fabrication. Yes I have some Old Martin Stock. It was a practice of Martin if shop classes came for a visit to send the teacher home with a pile of wood. I don't expect to sell this on Ebay as this is wood that is now worth over $1000 a set.
If it sounds too good to be true it is, so if you want BRW ask me and I can tell you where you may find some good product. Expect to pay $500 on up.

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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

I've built 8 guitars with stumpwood, the oldest 8 years and no problems yet (is there a "knock on wood" emoticon?). They are scattered around in different climates and one travels regularly. One I know gets used quite hard.

I stabilize all mine with a heat press and that really seems to help. I think you can weed out any problem pieces well before building. One will occasionally go berserk during seasoning or sanding and will get culled out. Another reason for the huge markup.

The straight/quartered stuff can be just as prone to movement as the figured. I've had a couple pieces potato chip worse than any of the curly stuff. And I've repaired a few guitars with old straight quartered wood that was the most brittle stuff I've ever seen. One had a side that split from butt to heel.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

you are all most welcome

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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

It seems there is more brazilian stump wood on the market then there was regular brazilan pre cites treaty days.

I don't have any experience with stump, but BR is tricky to work with especially if it is old. The old stuff cracks at the drop of a hat while working. I check for cracks carefully before working it down, and check it again after I have it down to thickness. I flood the outside with alcohol and watch for seepage on the other side. I glue with thin CA and even cleat it using HHG before building.

John, Haans, everyone,
This is some good stuff here. Valuable information.

Thank you for sharing as some of us newbies never had the chance or never will have the chance to work with Brazilian. But, if we do have a chance to build with it, we will have a working knowledge of it.

Thanks again,
Hutch

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"After forty-nine years of violin building, I have decided that the search for a varnish is similar to the fox hunt. The fun is in the hunt."
Jack Batts Maker and Repairer of Fine Violins

I love BRW but the rarity of it makes it difficult to just build . I have built commissions with it. I have also used Bubinga with excellent results. Many woods are compared to BRW and very unfairly . You can't make a reasonable judgment about something like that with just 1 build under your belt.
I have used it on a number of builds and will speak highly of this . The wood have a definite BRW feel. It is hard and dense. The wood is brittle and has many of the physical properties of BRW . Scientifically I am guessing but the numbers can't be far apart and I hope someone like Al Carruth can chime in .
I think a good piece of any rosewood will be better than a bad piece of Brazilian.

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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

In a way but if you are going to take the time to build a guitar , use the best materials you can. Bad BRW is ok for inlay and decorative but if the graining is not right you are just going to have too many problems . I know a person that started to build a guitar with a bad piece. Yes a few cracks are to be expected but he never even got the back on it till he gave up . Between the cracks and warping the side set was just to unstable to be a guitar. The sad part was he paid over $600 on ebay for the stuff.
A $100 set of East Indian would have been better. This wood is too rare and the price is very high . This unfortunately is a recipe for crooked dealers and hungry buyers . This is a buyer beware market. I am sure there are others here with horror stories . I just can't stress this enough ,know your supplier. A few bucks more may hurt but it is better to have a guitar than a piece of junk.

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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

John is right, and if the sides do not have some resemblance to Q-sawn, don't buy it. I remembered that I have a couple of sets that have backs that are pretty wild with knots, voids and such, and I will most likely make P/H veneers out of those sets and save the sides for spares, butt wedges or laminated bracing. I try to keep the most quartered grain toward the middle. My BR is over 70 years old and very, very dry. There is hardly any oil left in it (sands like a dream) and you just don't flex it across the grain.
My sides are well quartered and I use SS on them...no water.
Another thing to consider is making it very clear to potential BR customers that the stuff cracks...

I find all Brazilian likes to crack, stump wood or otherwise. (but so does madagascar and amazon)

Honestly I find the sides are the worst offenders, so if you can find cleaner sides those usually make the better sets. I have not had much trouble with the backs. If the cracks are obvious I flood them with CA, but I don't use CA until I find a problem.

However I laminiate my sides so after the lamination any potential cracks will be "fixed" by the glue getting pulled up in the pores of the wood.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

BRW is not really a very stable wood at it's best, in my experience. I got into an old stash years ago, and that's almost all the BRW I've used. Mostly it's been easy to work with, once I had a side crack across the waist when it 'shouldn't' have. But I've lost count of the number of chencks I've seen grow in backs where I could swear there were none.

Stump wood has the added drawbacks of having pretty squirrely grain, often being flat cut, and having all the built-in stress of any large hardwood tree at the butt, so it's likely to be a bit more problematic at best.

One of the issues is that we tend to compare it with Indian rosewood, which, according to one source I've got, IS the most stable wood in the world. Even if that's merely 'close', comparing it with BRW in terms of stability and such is not going to look good for the 'good stuff'.

I avoid stump wood, in large part because I can. My BRW is 'boring' to look at, but it sure works well.

For what it's worth, the guys I know in Brazil won't work with it.

If I'm reading this thread correctly, it seems that the people who have actually used stump wood have had fewer problems with it (none in my case) than the people who have only used older wood. And the people who have expressed the strongest reservations about it have apparently never built with it. Am I mis-reading?

I currently have one set of older wood, about 30 sets of stump wood and 5 sets of beam wood (not counting the stuff I've already built with). After handling, seasoning, sanding, and building with this stuff over the last 10 years, my experience has been that the curly stump wood actually moves around less than the straight-grained, quarter sawn. Maybe I have some anomalous wood but it goes to show that theory is just theory. And the older and straighter the wood, the more brittle and split-prone it seems to be, and certainly the harder to bend. The curly stuff bends easily! My solution for the brittle stuff is to use a lattice braced back.

The curly stump wood doesn't quite have the crystaline pinging tap tone of the old stuff but I'm not sure that's a bad thing for steel strings. The stump wood does still lend that deep, dark bottom end, sparkling highs, and nice sustain associated with Brazilian.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

If ziricote is Mexican Crackwood, then I guess BRW is Rio Crackwood.

I have 2 sets resawn from a plank inherited from an Argentine friend whose father built grandfather clocks for the rich & famous in S. America, stacked & stickered and waiting for the right inspiration and the accumulation of experience. It is of the straight-grained "boring" variety and has moved hardly at all in 2 years.

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The member formerly known as erikbojerik....

80 years of seasoning on the stump does a lot to stabilize wood. And remember that these stumps are 5-6 feet tall, and the topmost cut is wood that grew adjacent to some that is now prized as old growth, cut 80 years ago.

Sets of BR, whether stump or not, need to be individually evaluated.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Are players and builders sucked into the mystery and mystique surrounding this highly prized wood? Had Martin built those early guitars with Claro Walnut would we be having the same desire to seek out what dwindling reserves there are either CITIES or otherwise?

It's a question that I have asked myself more and more since I started building - Previously just as a player, there was certainly a desire to own a Rio guitar, but as wil all these things the price premium - surprizingly more from new builds was possibly a factor - amazing how we can sometimes think something is better because its rare and expensive! . Here in the UK you can buy a good late 60s Brazillian D28 or D35 cheaper (Approx £3000-£3500) than a new custom build from Rio (typically £4000-£6000+)... dont get me started on how much Martin charge for a new Rio build!

Is a Rio Guitar really worth in tonal qualities 3 to 4 times the amount of something buid from say Malaysian Blackwood or A nice piece of Honduran? Sure its all subjective, and customer demands will most likely dictate and feed this need to have a stash, but I am struggling to 'hear' a difference in quality that should be demande4d by a £3000 premium... supply and demand is one thing, but is the demand justified by the tone or is it the mystery?

I think string makers have been luckier in that customers do seem more willing to try alternatives, yet as soon as they get popular so the price increases.. Classical makers still seem to be more under teh cosh from customer demands for the traditional (ironic really considering Torres used avariety of tone woods for back and sides)... yet many classical makers would argue that Honduran is a fine alternative

Eventually it will be all gone, as so even I succumbed resently and found a set of lovely Spiders webbed Old Growth to use one day when the skills would justify the price - but considering the results I have seen and heard by makers using alternatives including Macassar, Amazonian, Ziracote, Blackwoods etc, I am not sure
that it will make such a huge difference as would be expected by the price?

PS. Still could not resist scraping a bit and rubbuing over with the spirit - absolutely stunned by the richness of the colour!

More counterpoint - I have sniffed bona fide BRW that did not have that strong of a bubble-gum smell at all. I will go out on a limb and guess that the older the wood, the less it will smell like BRW.

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The member formerly known as erikbojerik....

Eh, hang on to that branch, it's goin' down...
My BR is over 70 yrs old and really perfumes the shop when I sand it.

I have been using BRW for over 10 years. I have yet to handle a piece that when sanded didn't have that aroma. Still BRW is a terrific wood but there are other good woods also. BRW also has a signature grain structure as do all woods. This can be identified under a good micro scope or through chemical analysis. Old stock will often need to have new surface exposed for the smell but it will be there. It will also feel very hard and brittle. The colors can run from black to yellowish often with spider webbing streaks. I can't pass 10 years of experience with this stuff in a few paragraphs but once you handle it and see and smell it you will learn .
At ASIA I had a set of BRW binding mixed in with EIR to see if anyone would notice. Sylvan Wells saw it on Fri and he got to take it home. I was surprised how many looked at it and put it back not knowing what it was.
As Alan Carruth points out , this is a difficult wood to work with . It is not a wood for a beginner to try to work but it is one that is worth the effort once you have some experience or if you have a good mentor to help you. The post of If martin used Claro Walnut , well they used BRW and I agree that is part of the mystique. Martin is the bar to which guitars are mostly rated on .
If you do plan on getting BRW , educate yourself to what it is and what is or isn't a desirable piece. Ebay is flooded with sellers that are exploiting the market and know less about it . You can get burned big time if you don't know what to look for.
Good luck on your search

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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

Quick question for bluescreek: Thanks for the insights by the way. You mention its difficult to work, and certainly my mentor who builds pro standard classicals has tales of woe of cracks and sides distorting etc and he has close to 20 years experience working with the stuff... how would you say it works in comparison to other tonewoods such as the ebonies (B+S), or some of the other more 'exotic' woods?

The set I have is beautiful in colour, that deep rich reddish brown spiders webbed in the centre section moving to a darker colour towards the outer edges. I dont intend on using this for a number of years when my skills will hopefully have improved and the number of guitars under the belt has significantly increased, or I might even keep it and have a pro name build me something with it...

Sorry final question for you and others experienced with this wood. I have a very nice pice of AAA Adi Spruce from Uncle Bob. Its a nice uniform colour piece that has some nice close grain in the centre but it does widen towards the outer edge - has great tap tone, but is not as stiff as some of the two Master German spruce tops I have which have similar bell like qualities. Would you consider using the adi or German with the Rio? I know its tricky without seeing the sets, but I ask from a 'general perspective' - I am wanting to build a traditional OM so my gut instinct is Rio/Adi, but if the German is better? I only ask because finding this set was not easy and it was not cheap - so I am trying to think of everything as I may only get one shot at a Rio guitar...