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I have an opportunity to pick up about 300 board feet of this at a ridiculous price. It's all in very good condition with straight grain and few blemishes. Bunch of 12'-16' length...2"x6" and 2"x8" boards.

I took a piece home and played with it to discover it is amazingly hard and dense. I'll be making only electrics and it sure gives me a good feeling when handling it but when researching...it seems to be a fairly common building wood. A lot of it comes from sustainable forests...not too expensive...good but...

...I'm wondering if anyone has an opinion on its characteristics as primarily a neck wood and maybe a tonewood. I can't find anything on it...which may imply its usefullness when making instruments.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Stuart,

My two cents....

We have actually made several acoustic guitars with this material ( back and sides) ....... Not bad on the sound side ....... it was a bear to bend the sides...... suspect the density has a lot to do with this. Very open pore when it comes time to finish ( also noticed it had some characteristics like teak , with oil etc.). We also had a hard time keeping the dust out of the pores before filling. If you wanted a very hard, heavy, dense neck, probably ok if you use a UV finish or something similiar in hardness etc. or some kind of acrylic/epoxy pore-on style finish (seemed to have extremely small splinters that would get you). Not at my machine with wood database but I would say that it is only slightly lighter than teak in density. Probably need a carbide tooth band saw blade to resaw (that's all we use). Price per ft in our area is $2.5-$6 range. Hope this helps.

Kevin

Thanks Kevin,

Reading more on it I find the sap gives it the dense quality and stability...and also protects it from bugs and decay. I can tell by the general rigidity that it'll be great from the standpoint of mechanical properties. It's like rock.

It took Tru-oil and Z-poxy nicely. Sealing it with epoxy, one could spray anything over it I guess.

Hmmmm....I'm wondering how wrong I could go here.

Tonewise....might I be facing an overly edgy tone if the neckwood was stiff like marble? If so....could that be attentuated by laminating some mahogany along side of it? A .75" center stripe of this with mahogany making up the rest?

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Stuart,

Only other thing that you might look at in lamination would be expansion/contraction figures on a chart showing wood movement ( for sure you would want something close ...... due to Cumaru nature and the properties that make it a good outside wood I would think that movement with mositure is small ). I do have this information but not where I am right now, if you can't find it let me know.

Kevin.

I think the only woods that would be "Bad" choices from a mechanical standpoint are those that are known for cold bending...... I might hesitate to make a neck out of Willow.....

Otherwise, literally every wood has been used successfully.... from Spruce and Pine and Cedar to the hardest Ebony woods....

That said, I did learn something instructive after making an Oak guitar neck.....

Oh, sure, it is a fine guitar neck and all...... Feels and plays fine... Seems plenty stable.....

It was a royal pain in the rear to carve it and pore fill all of those grand canyon size pores..... Mahogany, walnut, and Cherry are literally a walk in the park compared to that stuff.... and you are talking about a wood that runs 2x - 3x harder than Oak.....

I have some Cumaru -- the stuff is amazingly dense and hard..... While I fully believe that it would make a fine neck once you got it carved.... I think carving it would be a job.

Thanks

What about weight? Is it as heavy as it sounds? The other teak I've see was reeeaaally heavy. Building an electric with a really heavy neck might not be so playable.

that's a lot of wood to take a chance on - why not just try to build something with a sample of the same wood ?

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

I know teak is used as a fretboard wood, but if it's as hard and dense as you say, I'd definately give it a try as a neck wood. Never know 'til you try it, and I bet it would be fine, aside from possible weight issues. Then again, I've seen people build with rosewood necks, so if you build with the weight in mind you might not have anything to worry about there, either.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Oh yeah....heavy and dense....like rock. I'm leaning towards using it as part of a neck laminate though I worry about my nice Lennox resaw blade when cutting this stuff.

That was my first impression when working it....that it would make good fretboards. Reading up on it, it's known for its wearability though I thought it was also very pretty, very consistent wood.

Good question. With this source it's an "all or nothing" deal for about 350 board feet. I can't imagine that's less than a five lifetime supply for me.

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

eh ?


No, sounds bad to me maybe good for patio furniture
For necks think strong and LIGHT, Ya ? Hence Carbon Fibre etc..

I totally agree. i love the look of it as a fretboard material. If the price was good and I were you, I'd be tempted to buy just for the fact that you could definately use it as a fretboard wood. You'd never have to buy fretboard wood again. You might also be able to resell some of it in the classifieds.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Stuart,

If you really want some of this material ...... don't have a problem sending you some to try.
We keep somewhere around 2,000 ft most of the time. Let me know approximate size.

Kevin

Yes....differentiating between wearability and wereability... which indicates usefullness when fighting the undead....which would be significant considering how hard it is.

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

I have enough of it to make about half a dozen fretboards....but the offer didn't go unoticed. Thank you!

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

Indeed, I love the createability of these new words.

BUT don't buy loads of teak 'cause its cheap, buy a bit less of mahog, maple or walnut, ya ?

Hi, i am a newbie from brazil and I am here to learn.
I am just replying this topic cause i can found more information about Brazilian woods.
About cumaru
I have this link from database wood bank from brazil.

http://www.ibama.gov.br/lpf/madeira/car ... istica=284

I know that is in Portuguese but using google translator you can get more thecnical information.
Nexts days I will get a report from a university that did a lot of harmonic tests with 100s of Brazilian tonewoods.
I will give to you this report when I get
RegArds
J.P.
*****excuse my poor English *****