UKSteve wrote:
I'm half way through building a tenor guitar with Ovangkol (Hyedua here in the UK).
I picked the plank up years ago after trolling through a local hardwood suppliers off cuts because it rang like a bell when struck.
It's very hard stuff. Slow to bandsaw and very slow if you choose to hand plane. Also very prone to tear out due to the wild grain in my piece.
I was trepidatious about bending it, but it actually bent very easily for me.
I'm looking forward to seeing it under a gloss finish.
So overall it has its difficulties but I think it will be wortht He effort. Go for it.
I picked the plank up years ago after trolling through a local hardwood suppliers off cuts because it rang like a bell when struck.
It's very hard stuff. Slow to bandsaw and very slow if you choose to hand plane. Also very prone to tear out due to the wild grain in my piece.
I was trepidatious about bending it, but it actually bent very easily for me.
I'm looking forward to seeing it under a gloss finish.
So overall it has its difficulties but I think it will be wortht He effort. Go for it.
I'm building with some great Ovangkol now. It was quite green when I bought it from Madinter a few years back so had to store it to dry.
Smells like wet dog when worked with. I can't smell it now, used to it!
Sharpened hand planes doesn't even touch this stuff - terrible tearout at whatever angle I create the cutting edge.
I've had to make do with card scrapers. I have the time as an amatuer builder and don't have the setup for mechanical thicknessing.
