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After several commissions, I'm gonna build one for me, dangit. I tend to play stuff like Townes, Neil Young, some Robert Earl King, Steve Earle, etc. have some beautiful Koa, with a small check that I can hide or handle. I also have some really nice, chocolatey, straight grained quartersawn Guatemalan Rosewood 4-piece backs. I'm stuck. The Koa is so intriguing, so pretty, it taps "doiiingggg", while hog taps "donk!" and the Guatemalan taps "piiinggg!". The Guatemalan is pretty like a beautiful, unpretentious farm girl with her hair in a ponytail. The Koa is the surfer girl in a bikini... I've been seduced by both and now I have to decide. Help me. Or at least help me help myself.

I'd use the Rosewood and save the Koa for a commission, especially if you're making a strummy dread tuned to DADGAD

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Old growth, shmold growth!

It'll be a strummy OMish 24.9 scale sorta thing...That is decidedly good advice though. Flash does sell.

Maybe, just maybe, build one and hang onto it while I build the other, then keep the one that talks dirty to me?

Rosewood back and sides, koa top.

Build both of them and keep both of them. And don't show buyers the one you like best.

Nice, chocolatey, straight grained quartersawn Guatemalan Rosewood.
Go for it.
Surfer girl is only an infatuation, The rosewood's a keeper!

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

"Surfer girl is only an infatuation, The rosewood's a keeper!"

I think that about sums it up, but it doesn't make it any easier to resist a quick fling

Maybe it's time to build 'two for me'.....both great woods....what soundboards? redwood, spruce? Koa/spruce has worked well for me lately...

Hi Doug! I have three really nice adi tops plus bracewood from Old Standard. I also have a bunch of Sitka, I bought 12 tops (look for that deal on their site. Seriously) from Alaska specialty woods last year that are imperfect in one way or another, mostly a knot or something out of the pattern. I've never held perfection in high regard. Turns out 3 of those tops are the best I've ever held in my hands. They are stiff as can be and ring like a bell, could tell the minute I touched them. It was really fun turning that purchase into 3 distinct stacks of perceived quality. Anyhow, I'll use one of the two, probably the Adi since I've never built with it. There is also a really cool curly RW billet in the garage that I snagged from a salvage pile at Almquist. That place has been good to me that last few months. Or maybe I've been good to them....

Maybe someday I'll make a flamed Maple/curly Redwood, all bling, all the time guitar, just for fun.

The Koa isn't going to work for a top, it has a small cross-grain check/fracture that I'll need to cleat. I did have designs on an all-koa at first though.

No question... Adi/Guatemalan RW (tucurensis)

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Brad

I'd go for the koa. I love the look and tone.
But the idea of building both and keeping the best one sounds wise to me....maybe you'll end up keeping both

There are no losers here. Pick the wood that will make you the happiest. If it was me I'd go with something like this .....if I could

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust