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I've just acquired a good quanity of massaranduba for free. I've worked a little with it and I know it's in the mahogony family but much harder than regular mahogony. Has anyone tried building a guitar with this. I'm thinking of it but don't want to spend a lot of time wrestling with this tough wood if it's not worth it.

Never heard of it, so I did some research.
It's used for decking, so I guess the hardness makes it a good choice.

However.... it's not a swietenia, so is it really related to mahogany?

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I'm not exactly sure. I work in a wood shop and I thought all of that massaranduba was mahogony until I started planing it. My boss said it was in the mahogony family but not certain.

Not of much help, i´m afraid, but this is what i know: massaranduba is a tupi (native brazilian) name for more than one species of trees (i think the name means "tree that bears flowers", or something similar - so it´s generic stuff). I guess what you should have is some kind of Manikara spp., which as Chris found, is a wood that is used for decking. It´s a very hard wood that is used in house building (structural joists and pillars) and is sometimes referred as "nail breaker" by brazilian workers, for its resistance to nailing. It is not, however, in the mahogany family, as Switenia belongs to Meliaceae and Manikara to the Sapotaceae family.

Here´s a link i´ve found out with some data (no affiliation and data not confirmed): http://www.mcilvain.com/hardwoods/massaranduba-decking/

hope this helps,
miguel.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Can be used for vln bows as an alternative to pernambuco. It is hard and should be tested to see if it has any kind of ring to it e.g. BRW or EIR