brazilian rosewood

[irish blues]

How can you tell if a rough cut of board is brazilian rosewood or not.

All I can see is the end, where the board was cut from the original.

My piece is 26" long, 5" wide and 1 1/8" thick. I was hoping to make a few fret boards from this piece....any idea on how many I could get out of it?

If someone can PM me, I will send them the pix that I took and they can post them. I do not know how.

[ConnemaraGuitar]

PM sent. You should be able to get at least 6 fretboards from this board.

[tom]

depends how straight the grain is running on the board.

[ConnemaraGuitar]

Here are the pics:

http://i390.photobucket.com/albums/oo349/connemaraguitars/brosewood005.jpg

http://i390.photobucket.com/albums/oo349/connemaraguitars/brosewood011.jpg

[irish blues]

ConnemaraGuitar - Thanks for posting the pictures!!!!

Anybody want to comment? Is this BRWood?

[tom]

looks too light. has it been out in the sun or covered?

[tom]

a better face grain pic would help. you're also not going to get any quartered wood out of that.

[irish blues]

wood is sitting in his furniture making shop.....under one of the table saws.

can you explain quarter sawn.

[tom]

quarter sawn is vertical grain. when you look at the end grain, the year rings should appear as vertical lines. that piece is flat or slab sawn. you can see the year rings running mostly parallel to the face of the board.
most agree that quarter sawn is the most stable and stiffest on rosewoods.

[irish blues]

so if this were actually a rosewood (either indian or brazilian) you would not recommend it for a fretboard.

[tom]

we have had issues with flat sawn fingerboards. that could be indian rosewood.

[ConnemaraGuitar]

This looks (to me) like East Indian RW.

BRW has tremendous appeal because, although it is a great wood for building instruments, it is also very hard to get. If this board is sitting under your friend's table saw, I'd be curious how he came to possess it. Can he tell you his source?

For what sort of instrument were you planning to create fingerboards from this board? And how much (if anything) was this board going to cost you?

Just curious...

[irish blues]

Guy brought it from an estate - bunch of wood was purchased and this was in it.

Electric gibson style lp jr double cut.


Board was free. Kinda.....he carved a walnut finial to replace a finial from an old 1880 bookcase that I had purchased....and that cost me an arm and a leg.