Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi!

This is a piece of a wood sold to me as a rosewood from brazil (not D.nigra). It´s density is 912 kg/m3. It´s fragrant, but not like the BRW i´ve smelled. it does smell like roses, though, but with a drier, spicier odour. the photos are lousy, which might defeat the purpose of this post, but my phone does not handle much better. don´t know if you can get some of the purple lines in it.

thanks for watching.


cheers,
Miguel.

_________________
member of the guild of professional dilettantes

it looks pretty much like "palo violeta" (purple wood, i guess in english)
its a dalbergia and original from south america "dalbergia cearensis".
ive seen it on bridges and fingerboards

http://www.madinter.com/b2c/index.php?p ... 1&ref=TTPV

The colors are so different in each picture, it's hard to tell from that. The first one just looks messed up. The second looks like Indian, but being from Brazil then maybe one of the species known as Amazon. The magenta color of the bottom picture looks more like Kingwood/Camatillo/Dalbergia cearensis, which does have a more spicy odor, very similar to cocobolo.

Thanks a lot for the replies, Bruno and Dennis!
The photos are really not that informative, i concur. SPecially the white balance was out. On daylight, this wood does look very different from the pau-violeta (kingwood, D. cearensis) that i have, though.
The pau violeta i have here is much richer in purple and overall lighter in colour (general aspect pink to purplish), with some light brown / yellowish vein and abundant sapwood. The present, darker piece of unidentified rosewood i posted about came from a board that is rather straight-grained and around 11 inches wide without sapwood, which is on the big side for D. cearensis. The smell is also very different. I´m not trying to contradict you, it could be that i was sold a different wood from d. cearensis in the 1st place and got confused as to the nature of kingwood... and i appreciate all the help i get.

I took another couple of photos, this time with daylight (cloudy) and proper white balancing, against a white piece of paper. Hope these are better, and thanks again.

cheers,
Miguel.

_________________
member of the guild of professional dilettantes

From the first set of pictures I would have guessed Indian rosewood but if you are certain it is from Brazil...
The second set of photos certainly look like Kingwood. Perhaps take a good photo of the mystery wood next to kingwood.

_________________
Build log

Looks like Kingwood to me - real Kingwood from Brazil, not "Mexican Kingwood".

If it is, you're lucky because it doesn't grow very large & it's almost always flat sawn.

Kevin Looker

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

I read somewhere (I think on the internet, so it must be true) that it's intentionally flat sawn because it's usually used for ornamentation & flat sawing reveals more dramatic grain patterns. But then again, quarter sawing is more wasteful so they could just be trying to improve the bottom line.

Kevin Looker

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Now i´m beginning to doubt i the log i have is real kingwood...
Yes, as said, the photos are on the lousy side. Absence of a good machine and lousy weather have their effects, as does the incipient photographer. The wood is brazilian for sure, it was expedited from Belem, in the Pará state.

I would like to take a combo picture of the two woods, but i have my (now increasingly putative) log of kingwood (the lighter, pinkish one) on a friend´s shop some 250 km from here - he is trying to make ribs for a lute out of it. i´ll try to do it by the end of this week.

thanks,
Miguel.

_________________
member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Here is a group photo, showing two kingwood, 3 Madagascar, 3 Rio, 2 Indian.

The two Kingwood are from the same square but you can see the grain variation from growth and cut. The upper piece has alight coat of shellac, which pretty much clears the purple.

The upper Rio has a portion that is very similar to your first pics and to the Indian rosewood but it is certainly Rio from the unmistakable smell.

_________________
Build log

from your samples, i´d say mine is between the bottom brazilian and the bottom indian. the plot thickens.


nice wood, BTW.


cheers,
Miguel.

_________________
member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Could it be Pau Ferro? Sometimes called bolivian rosewood. grows in Bolivia and Brazil. The Kingwood I've had is more purple in color.

_________________
Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

Hi and thanks! Do you mean Machaerium scleroxylon (international trade name, i guess - in Brazil pau ferro refers to Caesalpinia echinata)? i´ve also wondered that, but the smell seems very "rosewoody" to me, and the wood seems to me more purplish, overall.


cheers,
Miguel.

_________________
member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Ok, a couple more pictures. These ones are of my "alleged" kingwood - it was sold to me as kingwood, that is - (1st pic on the left, 2nd on top, with sapwood) and this new mystery wood(1st pic on the right, 2nd on the bottom) - it was sold to me as some kind of rosewood from Brazil. could both be kingwood?
sorry again for pic quality, the machine can´t go any further.


thanks for watching,
Miguel.

_________________
member of the guild of professional dilettantes

In that picture, it looks like EIR. That would work with the purplish color.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I think if you cut it open or sand it down it bit, it will tell you more about what type of wood it is. I have an older piece of brazilian kingwood that looks similar to your piece, but when I resawed into it, the wood was bright purple (way more purple than any indian rosewood) and smelled like perfume,or dried rose pedals, much different smelling than dalbergia negra. On the outside, it was darker brown, and showed very little hint of purple actually.

Also, the pores in the kingwood I have are really small, and in your pictures they appear bigger, so maybe it's not kingwood at all. Anyway, the smell is really the best way to tell the rosewoods apart, IMO.

Thanks,

Jonas

Looks like EIR to me.

Bill S.

_________________
Dream to be a luthier

The new pics look like a hybrid of Pao Ferro and Indian rosewood

_________________
Build log

Hi again and thanks!
Regarding pores, i´ve also noticed the pore size, and they seem bigger than what i´d expect from proper kingwood.

Alexandru, you´d say pau-ferro ? which one, machaerium or caesalpinia? Here (portugal) some folks do tend to sell M. schleroxylon as rosewood, but the one i´ve bought had a much softer, "woodier" smell, not the fragant, rose-y smell of this wood. OK, maybe i should postpone sorting this out until i get a proper machine... the photos are really lousy. or proper knowledge, for that matter.

again, thanks all!
Miguel.

_________________
member of the guild of professional dilettantes

From some of the later pictures it does look like Pau Ferro. However the pau ferro I've worked with generally has smaller pores than most of the rosewoods and a spicy smell when milled. The smaller pores require less filling and make it finish more easily than rosewood.

Agreed. Pau Ferro has very small pores and a dream to finish.

_________________
Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

I have a back of Pao Ferro which came from Spain as backing board for some purchases. When I saw it I put on my radioactive suit and threw it outside, but here is my sacrifice in the name of science. I scraped it and took a photo against Kingwood and Rio. Even smelled it for a bit, from a distance, hoping I didn't breath any of the killer dust. It does seem to have a nice spicy smell. I don't really see any pores, so as the others said it should be a dream to finish, as long as you have the guts to work with the stuff
The color is a light, clean brown, no traces of purple.

_________________
Build log

thanks for the effort! doesn´t look like it´s pau ferro, then. the plot does indeed thicken.


cheers,
Miguel.

_________________
member of the guild of professional dilettantes

I was looking through my copy of World Woods In Color & I came upon Louro Preto which also comes from Brazil.

I've never seen it in person but the photo resembles your wood. The only other issue is that Louro Preto is only have to have a density of 700 kg/m^3.

Kevin Looker

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

ok, thanks for the tip, but it would be difficult for me to cross-check, as i don´t own and have never seen any louro preto. but appreciate your effort, thanks for that.


cheers,
Miguel.

_________________
member of the guild of professional dilettantes

I've worked with some Lauro Preto. Another name for it is Brazilian bocote. It is a bit more coarse textured than the Mexican bocote I've worked with. It didn't have a strong or distinct smell.


Alexandru,
The Pau Ferro I've worked with varies a great deal in color and the distribution of the color. Sometimes dark and heavily streaked and sometimes a light uniform brown - sometimes on the same piece. Maybe heart wood /sap wood differences?