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PostPosted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 1:39 am 
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Mahogany
Mahogany

Joined: Fri Nov 30, 2007 1:57 am
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Location: East Granby, CT

Just curious - at my buddy's cabinet shop he is substituting flat-sawn sapele for most of his mahogany needs now - the wood is very similar but a little bit heavier.  Would this be suitable for neck material?  Its a lot less expensive...


Mitch



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PostPosted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 2:50 am 
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Contributing Member
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Joined: Tue Jan 04, 2005 10:03 am
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Location: Abbotsford, BC Canada
I've heard of some who use sapele for necks, go for it.

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 3:02 am 
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Here are a couple of archived threads on neck woods, with some specific questions regarding sapele.

thread #1

thread #2

thread #3

thread #4

Lots of folks in these threads recommend sapele for necks and lots of other different nect woods, notably cherry.

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 3:18 am 
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Koa
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Joined: Wed Apr 18, 2007 6:46 am
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Location: Issaquah, Washington USA
Based on my limited experience, I find sapele as good as mahogany for
necks. Carves real nice.

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 3:53 am 
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Koa
Koa

Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2007 11:58 am
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My favorite.


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PostPosted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 4:50 am 
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Old Growth Brazilian Rosewood
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Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan
First name: Hesh
Last Name: Breakstone
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Country: United States
Status: Professional
Sure and very pretty too - now if I could just pronounce it........

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 4:57 am 
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Koa
Koa

Joined: Wed Aug 22, 2007 11:58 am
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S'ah-p'eh-'leah


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PostPosted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 5:08 am 
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Cocobolo
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Joined: Sun Mar 11, 2007 4:09 am
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I just did two Sapele necks.  It is a very beautiful looking wood under finish.  I did have a little splintering trouble with it, but nothing that was too difficult to work around.  


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PostPosted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 5:10 am 
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Cocobolo
Cocobolo

Joined: Sun Mar 11, 2007 4:09 am
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Location: United States
Okay Mario and others, here are two more woods I don't know how to pronounce.  Any answers out there?  Granadillo and Camatillo.  Are the l's pronounced or not?


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PostPosted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 5:10 am 
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Walnut
Walnut

Joined: Sat Nov 17, 2007 9:36 am
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Location: United States
i just went up to the WoodCraft store and got a huge piece of sapele for $23 and it's surprisingly good quality. I plan to use some of it for a neck very soon. i'll let you know how it goes 


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PostPosted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 6:40 am 
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Brazilian Rosewood
Brazilian Rosewood

Joined: Sat Jun 17, 2006 3:48 am
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Sapele is nice. I've got a few chunks waiting to be laminated into necks.


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PostPosted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 7:06 pm 
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Brazilian Rosewood
Brazilian Rosewood

Joined: Wed Jan 05, 2005 6:25 pm
Posts: 2749
Location: Netherlands
Sapele's lovely. Bit 'grayer'/less warm in colour than Khaya or the true mahoganies when fresh cut, but it ages very nicely, looks great, carves well, wonderfully stiff...perfect attributes in a neck.

In fact, I recently sliced up a board of flatsawn 8/4 sapele into laminates for 2-piece necks (or more, if I add contrasting veneers in the middle). Got a dozen acoustic neck blanks and four electric neck blanks out of a board I paid about 70 dollars for (that's including 19% sales tax, by the by).

Also have five sets of billets upstairs waiting to be resawn into back/side sets (quartered, ribbon-stripe) from the same lot, which will come to about 5 bucks per set (excluding consumables) if I do my cutting right. Perfect wood to practice resawing on, and great wood to build with.


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 2:54 am 
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Cocobolo
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Joined: Wed Apr 25, 2007 2:29 pm
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Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
David, replace the double L's with a long e. "camateeo" "granadeeo".


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 2:27 am 
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Cocobolo
Cocobolo

Joined: Sun Jul 15, 2007 5:01 am
Posts: 140
Location: United Kingdom
i realy like sapele and i think we will all be using a lot more in the future
as mahoagany gets more scarce.
It does however have two problems that should be taken into account.

1,
it is very brittle and as such it is very prone to end checks and splitting
and i think in the long term it wont holdup as well under pressure
becouse of this.

2,
it can be pretty heavy but this should not realy be much of an issue if
your making steel strings but i wouldent use sapele for a classical
becouse of this.

Apart from that i know it has been used to graet effct by many builders so
go for but avoid the slabby stuff if you can.

Joel.


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PostPosted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 5:51 am 
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Cocobolo
Cocobolo

Joined: Sun Mar 11, 2007 4:09 am
Posts: 252
Location: United States
Thanks Tommy.  That is exactly how I thought they were pronounced.... but I didn't want to sound like an idiot if I was wrong! 


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