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The dust is still pretty yellow and it seems to be back to bare wood now(?). I can't really judge the weight, I'll weigh it properly and measure it when I have it resawn (if anyone in London could help out with that they can have a set or two(?)! ). That should give a few more clues.

Right now, I'd love if it was Aussie Red Cedar, though it doesn't seem very red as bare wood(?). I'd love to use it for tops based on what I've read.

Teak would still be nice. I love India and they use teak for sitars.

Hi Nick...I will stick with my wildcard guess of Aussie Red Cedar or one of the associated Toonas....If I had it in hand I would feel its weight and see how hard it is....generally you can mark Red Cedar with your fingernail so its reasonably soft. It got its name from the fragrant smell when it was first cut....it is delicious When it is first sawn it is pinky purplish but the surface oxidizes quickly red but under a finish it can look brown or even light brown but that is usually a finish on top casting a different colour that would make a colour identification a bit misleading....

Cheers

John

Hi Nick, Here is a pic of a piece of Aussie Red Cedar that I had lying around my workshop....it was photographed under florescent light so may look a bit washed out...

Cheers

John

Thanks John, (Though I watched Smokey and the bandit the other day, so I want to say "10-4, Woodrat"! )
[Movie Idea: Woodrat runs blocker for an eighteen wheeler to get 400 sets of Brazilian Rosewood over the border ])

I took a snap: The pores looked more like the ones in your photo when I was taking the picture. They don't show as much in the actual picture itself. I also cut a bit off where there was already a split and I got orange-y sawdust but not much of any smell. No discernible pinky-purple either.

I could dig my thumbnail into it but I wouldn't say it was soft as such. I don't have extensive experience with wood though. Just two guitars in, and still very much a rookie. I haven't even got a luthier themed "handle" yet haha

I wiped some oil near the split a few weeks back, so I've attached a snap of that too.

Probably, the best thing to do is to just wait till it has been resawn so I can measure, weigh and test it to see which category it falls into.
All help much appreciated though!

Cheers,
Nick

Thanks Nick....I will wait until you do some other tests like density etc....I think that the odds may have lengthened for AU cedar/Toona just a tad having seen your photo....
The pinky purple mentioned was for fresh sawn wet timber just off the saw....ie.. green log sawn open.

Cheers

John

As for a luthier handle.....how about Smokey the Luthier?

Note to self....sell movie rights for Woodrat-The Movie...Plot...Woodrat runs blocker for an eighteen wheeler to get 400 sets of Brazilian Rosewood over the border...thanks Nick!...Oh I would have to make sure that I get to play myself so I could actually get away with the Zoot! LOL

Hi Nick....another timber has come into the probable list for me. Today I started to saw up the top of an old mahogany table. The table was c1835 and is solid Cuban Mahogany (Swietenia mahogani) and I am resawing it into guitar sets. Anyway if you look at the photo below it looks awfully like your piece...the lines are not planer lines but grain lines very similar to what your piece has. I have just scraped the finish from the underside of the table. Cuban mahogany is very different from S. macrophylla ...it seems quite a bit heavier than Honduran or Brazilian hog. Is your piece very heavy? A density measurement will tell us clearly here if it is not a Toon...

Regards

John

haha! Forget about the movie, I'll drive the 18 wheeler, you take the Trans Am and keep those smokeys off my tail! I'll do my Jerry Reed routine (shame I can't play guitar like he could)... WoodBandit? I think I' have to earn that name... One piece of Mysterywood won't do.

I may get a chance to weight it as it is today. That should rule out a few.

Cheers, mate!

Well Cuban Mahogany would be quite a find. I once had a small 18" x 8 " piece of Cuban and it really had a lovely, rich colour.
My vote goes for Teak though. Yellow sanding dust suggests it. I was once given a long piece (I was told it was Mahogany) that came from an old Pub. On the surface and with it's age it did look like a Mahogany. Once I cut into it . . . Teak.

What did you do with it, Michael? Do you think it's a worthwhile experiment using it for back and sides if it is teak?

I used it for furniture but back then I was doing more furniture type things than Guitars.
Wood consists of Density, hardness and stiffness. Anything from Cypress (light, very soft) right through to Ebony has been used for the Back/Sides of Guitars. There's nothing magical about this stuff. Use it. There's almost certainly bigger fish to catch than the wood type of the Back/Sides. I think my best sounding Classical Guitar was built with Cypress and a Sitka Spruce soundboard. Sitka isn't well received by Classical makers but that Guitar happened to sound just that bit special, such that people were begging me to sell them it. I can't say that kind of reaction has happened since and we are going back over 20 years.
What is remarkable is that I've never used Sitka since! Lol!!

Why not? Maybe you should try another one. I'd love to get that reaction!

I like your thinking about whether or not to use the teak. That's kinda how I've been approaching it but every now and then I hear a voice in my head saying "taps like cardboard" and "rings like bell" and I waver!

I actually read a post of yours from a while ago on another forum earlier today when I was debating whether to use ebony for the bridge or EIR (this is the little guitar I'm planning, not the teak one). I think it'll probably be best to use the EIR from what I've read. I'd have liked it to be black. Maybe I could make it black.

Darn, I forgot to weight the plank. May have to do that tomorrow now.

I probably should have tried another piece of Sitka by now. For Nylon strings it's usually considered a bit on the heavy side - not much energy in a plastic string and that string has to get that soundboard moving.
It may well be the case that I happened to get a fairly light piece of Sitka. I don't know if that is true because at the time I wasn't weighing my wood. The only thing that I can remember about it was that the grain was fairly wide, not floorboard but maybe 14/16 to the inch and fairly even across the width. I know that it didn't have the tight grain that you often see on Sitka. It had a very nice cross grain pattern. The colour was also less Red/pink than you normally get with Sitka. That's all that I remember about it and the instrument is long gone. I might have to hunt pretty hard for another piece like that. Much easier if I was in N. America. I'm also getting a little fed up with grain run out on Euro soundboards. I plane and scrape Tops, trying to avoid sandpaper if I can possibly help it. Run out just makes it so much more difficult to use hand tools. I'm also pretty certain that's why I have seen so little run out in 19 th century Romantic Guitars. It's not so much the availability but they didn't like the way it works.