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Question for some of the tonewood suppliers or members that have had alot of experience with Brazilian Rosewood. In all of my previous experience with Brazilian Rosewood sets or bridge blanks no matter what the stuff looked like it had one universal characteristic. All the BRW that I have ever worked with had a sweet (Bubble Gum) smell to it when you cut, sanded or scraped it. Today I ran across some stuff that had all the characteristics of old BRW but had no smell to it at all when I scraped or sanded it. Is that Bubble Gum smell a universal characteristic that is always present in the BRW species?

Yes, to my knowledge all BRW has that characteristic.


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Mountain Song Guitars www.mountainsongguitars.com

Amazon can look similar and has absolutely no smell (to me, at least). Ime (not much...) brazilian smell can fade away too, specially on thin pieces but it does retain some of it. Strangely I don't associate bubble gum with it. It is a very special fragrance, though!

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

I heard a luthier describe the scent as bubble gum many years ago and I guess it stuck with me. I'm not sure thats the correct descriptor for the scent but it is a sweet fragrance. This wood has a glass like tap tone, very nice black ink lines and all the best characteristics of Brazilian Rosewood but absolutely no scent. Wish I would have taken some pics.

The older Brazilian Rosewood, the stronger the scent.

Yep all the BRW that I have had experience with smells like roses to me and the smell is unmistakable. I know well what roses smell like because when I was married every time I got in trouble I bought roses.

I bought a LOT of roses....

Kingwood is often passed off as BRW as well and lacks the roses smell.

Thanks for the input. After looking at pics of both Kingwood and Amazon Rosewood I am thinking that the wood is probably one of these two species but not Brazilian RW. It looks and taps like BRW but has no scent that I can pick up on. Other Brazilian RW sets I have encountered could be scratched with a fingernail and you would get a sweet fragrance from the wood

Amazon I don't find it to have any discernible scent. It does sometime have a yellowish goo inside the pores. Kingwood has a faint but very typical scent, fresh and slightly acidic to my nez - not flowery, I wish I could find the right word. Color wise in my (again, not very big) experience Amazon tends to deep chocolate brown while Kingwood has reddish-brown to purple lines, altogether a bit hotter hue than Amazon. Usually Kingwood logs are small and gnarly but I have seen some guitar sized sets - but never quarter sawn.
Brazilian rosewood , fwiw, I find it to be a rose scent , with other flowers thrown in (geranium ?) and some spices (faint cloves?) - whatever it is, it's a sweet and very in your face aroma that quickly fills a room.



Really? I defer to your experience, but not what I have found. I have some braz that has been cut 80 years ago and on the thinner pieces I can't only find a faint smell , while when I cut thicker ones the smell fills the room.

Btw, hesh, just bought the miss some roses today - amazing how it pays off!

Ok, sorry for waxing lyrical.

Cheers,
Miguel.

- edited for some typos, but I guess many must still persist -

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

I guess everyone's nose is different. I've never smelled "bubblegum" in wood. I've worked many hundreds of pieces of Brazilian, Indian, cocobolo. To my insensitive nose, they all have a similar, floral smell. Cocobolo is the strongest, then Brazilian, then Indian. My eyes are better than my nose. I can't imagine confusing the three by sight. (Well, okay, oxidized cocobolo looks a lot like Brazilian. Sand it a little, or wipe it with alcohol, and things become clear.) But then, I hear people say that spruces can't be distinguished visually.

I've heard this before. Where is the "Kingwood, often passed off as BRW"? The SGs are very different. The look is different. Who is buying all this "Bogus BRW"? Alarmed by the rumors, I've gone looking for misadvertised kingwood. I can't find it.

There are posts and threads here on the OLF of folks asking us if an eBay offering is really as billed, BRW and folks posting on the OLF indicating that they believe it to be Kingwood. Has happened at least several time on this forum alone over the years. Search the OLF on "Kingwood" and you will see what I mean.

I think this shows a pretty good list of materials that are BRW substitutes intentionally and otherwise

http://www.wood-database.com/wood-artic ... rosewoods/

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Eric,
I appreciate your post though I believe you might have to look a little harder. I also already admitted that "bubblegum" might be the wrong descriptor. The point is really that I ran across some wood that was labled as BRW either intentionally or by accident that side by side with verified BRW had the same attributes except for the scent. As for "Bogus BRW", Hesh nailed it. Many of your fellow forum members not only have run across it but we actually know who some of the ebay sellers are by name, so it does exist. This was not really the point of this topic. I simply wanted to tap into the vast experience contained in this forum to see what species could pass for BRW but not have the distinctive scent or if BRW exists without the scent.

All the D. nigra I've come across has had that smell. Some pieces may be fainter than others but it's always there and the scent is unmistakable.

Same here, I don't get the "bubble gum" smell. My 70 year old BRW smells like roses.
AND, I can smell a dryer sheet in a dryer half a block away...

Brazilian--
Has a sweet fragrance.
A sexy odor-Don't ask!!

One of the most incredible scents of all woods.

Mike

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Mike Collins

Again thanks for all the posts. I think it is safe to say that this legendary species always has some degree of sweet flowery scent associated with it. If there is no scent then it is probably some other closely related species but not the real thing.

Mike, I know you said don't ask but "sexy" ? I like the description but details please.

I'm sure it does.

Sometimes "group-think" takes over, and we all pile on.

Many of the discussions of bogus Brazilian rosewood have been dominated by members who have very little experience with Brazilian rosewood.

It's not difficult to test for real Brazilian rosewood. If you've handled it much, you rarely have to see if it floats, or pull out the black-light.

I don't worry much about identifying the real thing. I worry more about how it's sourced.

Amazon RW fits your description, especially if the density is a bit high (1.0+). I doubt I would ever confuse either the smell or appearance of Brazilian kingwood with BR. Kingwood is heavy and has a very disagreeable scent...at least to my nose.
There is an Ebay seller who consistently offers 'Brazilian rosewood' that is some other species. Most of the boards offered by this particular seller are coated in wax. Some of this wood has later been identified as kingwood.

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John