Official Luthiers Forum!

Ok Need some help to clarify.... so is there a concensus on the differences between Malaysian ebony and Malaysian blackwood?

There seems to be concensus that true Macassar is Diospyros celebica - Which seems to have stunning tonal characteristics and looks great.

I understand Malaysian Blackwood to be Diospyros ebonasea which is also highly rated and is a true ebony

The confusion arises as I have seen some makers and even tonewood suppliers differentiate between M.blackwood and M. Ebony and some dont, are they the same thing or different? Help much appreciated.

Frank

I would say most dealers and builders do not mix the two together. Visually they are different. Malaysian Blackwood tends to have a clear straight grain pattern, sort of like Indian rosewood, while Mac ebony mixes dark and tan wavy stripes in a rather wild manner.

_________________
Build log

Sorry, in the above statement M Ebony was refering to Malaysian NOT Macassar. Macassar is the easy one! Its the difference between what some suppliers and builders call Malaysian blackwood and Malaysian ebony thats intreging, as i have seen suppliers distinguish betwen the two (although Malaysian ebony is often just referred to as 'Diospyros spp' with Malaysian blackwood as Diospyros ebonasea) but on several high end luthier sites and other suppliers they do not distinguish betwee the ... just wondered if there was a difference or not?

Thought I would resurrect this thread, as I'm currently using "Malaysian blackwood" in a build. It will certainly make a pretty guitar once it's finished.

Like the originator of this thread, I wondered "what is this stuff ... really??". My "other profession" is as a forest geneticist, so looking up this sort of stuff is old hat. Malaysian blackwood is described on luthier wood sites as "Diospyros ebonasea". I hate to break the news, but I'm quite sure that this very scientific-sounding name is a figment of some wood dealer's imagination. Diospyros is a genus which includes all "true" ebonies in the Ebenaceae/Ebonaceae (ebony and persimmon) family (the first spelling is now preferred, but both are in use). The species name given to what is marketed as Malaysian blackwood is a misspelled version of the family name, and no doubt was originally simply to indicate "a true ebony from Malaysia". Unfortunately, there are 400-500 species of Diospyros, and many of them are in Indo-Malaya!

"Diospyros ebonasae" is not on any recognised taxonomic listing -- if you google it (or the common name "Malaysian blackwood"), the only hits you'll get are related to lutherie. Given my "other" profession, I like to give my buyers an accurate description of what their instrument is made from. In this case, I'll have to leave it at "some ebony from Malaysia, Diospyros spp., that luthier's romantically refer to as Malaysian blackwood".

There are two rather distinct colorations to the "Malaysian blackwood" I've seen; one reddish, one greenish. FWIW.

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Recently, the Malaysian at Allied looks a lot more like Macassar, mostly black/grey. Looks like those greenish and reddish trees are gone.

_________________
Build log

In fact, the set used for the guitar in the pic was purchased from Allied. Wouldn't say there's much green in it, but certainly reds, brown and black. The set was chosen by the client from Allied's weekly special selection. He was lucky to get so much figure with sapwood on both the backs and sides -- I don't see much of that there now.