I have a friend and former shop partner who made an acoustfic archtop guitar with Pau Rosa back and sides. I remember how arduously he labored, for weeks, to carve the back. He tried to work it very thin, but the wood has interlocking grain structure, and is so hard and so resistant to sharp tools, he had to hone his Sloane planes every day to keep going. It also dulled scrapers pretty quickly. The resulting guitar my friend made has a Sitka top, and as I recall, it sounded very un-archtop-like, in that it sustained for a long time, and had a really cool depth of tone color, almost a high-end flattop vibe. My friend said he's never making another Pau Rosa archtop, because the labor of working that wood was just too much! And it took a LONG time for him to sell that guitar, because Jazz players tend to only want the classic archtop vibe, and the PauRosa deviated from that. I think it was a brilliant guitar in every aspect, but admittedly a bit of an odd duck to the Jazzer community.
Coffee + Apple Fritter + Tommy's Tonewoods = Great start to the day!! Very plain/straight grained but sounds as good or better than anything you have tapped to date; as per this audio. I always liked "fancy" grain when i started purchasing tonewood, but soon figured out why seasoned builders much preferred some straight grained stuff. And now it has become pleasing to the eye for me now as well. I do have a couple sets of Pao Ferro. I have heard they are the same. Is this true???? 🤔 Thanks for the content Tom.
Reminds me of oxidized Brazilian tulip wood. Have you ever sampled that? Apparently there has been some confusion about it, in the past, which is leading me to feel confused about what the current Latin name for it is (I guess there's two different, but related, trees marketed as Brazilian tulip wood) but it's a great wood to work with, in my experience. The fresh wood really does smell like flowers, and it planes buttery smooth.
Seems like Pau Rosa is a really, really hard tonewood - right up there with Grenadilla or African Blackwood. With such a brilliant, glassy and metallic tap tone, seems like it would be an absolutely excellent reflector of the whole gamut of overtones from the strings and the soundboard, even to the highest frequencies. The question is: Which wood for the belly or soundboard would it team up best with?
Ive wondered if toner would affect the tone. I have a nice martin that was 'stained' or antiqued on the top. Would it have affected resonance? I would presume it would have an effect as the colouring may have seeped into the wood to color it. Have you ever coloured a top?
Yes I have. There are two types of coloured finish, one which is rubbed into the wood and one which is applied over a clear coat of lacquer. I don’t have experience of the former but I would assume the small amount of pigment used wouldn’t make a difference at all. With a sprayed finish, similarly, the quantities applied are negligible in terms of added mass. Hope that helps
That is gorgeous, but it's too bad there's almost no way to keep those purples and blues clear after finishing. And man, that taptone was lush on my phone speaker; I can't wait to relisten on decent equipment.
It reminds me of a few pieces of glossed macacauba i've seen... Literally as i'm typing that you said the same thing 😂 Very nice set. I'm always wary of rarely used tonewoods, makes me wonder if there's a reason why
I think it mainly comes down to the reverence of traditional ‘Tonewoods’, I really can’t see why one wouldn’t build with something like this. The tap response is amazing!
@@TomSandsGuitars Why is maple rarely used? They say it doen´t get in the way of the top and is for complicated, melodies where sustain would get in the way.
@@TomSandsGuitars As a player, before this video I wasn't sure what to expect from the tonewood at all. So this does help that, Good to know a builders perspective :) But give me cocobolo any day 😅 Can't help it
I built a guitar out of Pau Rosa recently, it's insanely beautiful. But the back cracked all over the place. Like 5 cracks. The wood was in my shop for probably 2 years. A local luthier said that it's known to split. so I'm done with that....
I braced the back in October in Maine. I don't know specifically the humidity but it was likely pretty dry. It's been mostly in my dry house or shop since then. It cracked in the case sitting in my shop. It's definitely dry but it hasn't travelled far. I showed it to a local high end luthier who you probably have heard of and he was like Pau Rosa? Don't even try to fix it for 2 years. Let it crack all over and then fill the cracks afterwards. First time any guitar of mine has had a crack. It cracked in like 4 places in 24 hours, sitting in my shop, no big temperature changes @@TomSandsGuitars
@@TomSandsGuitars I´m wondering why it is so much heavier. So much denser? I suppose that the thickness is similar (maybe you luthiers know the perfect thickness -or does it depend on the model, the type of music or the taste of the player?)
@@lebe220 thickness usually depends on the stiffness of a piece of wood. With factory builds, this tends to be less of a consideration and material tends to be left thicker than would otherwise be optimal. As rosewood is significantly more dense, the guitar is likely to be heavier than a mahogany guitar. Not to mention you might just have a particularly dense set of rosewood and a particularly light mahogany set.
@@TomSandsGuitars Thank you. Maybe you are right about the thin mahagony (cheap guitar). Well....Furch designs the thickness for every piece of wood with a computer system, they say. That means the wood is thicker in one place and thinner at another. They say it´s about resonance.
Just to clarify, African Rosewood, that we buy in South Africa is Guibourtia coleosperma and is definately diffrent from Bubinga
Still not rosewood.
I have a friend and former shop partner who made an acoustfic archtop guitar with Pau Rosa back and sides. I remember how arduously he labored, for weeks, to carve the back. He tried to work it very thin, but the wood has interlocking grain structure, and is so hard and so resistant to sharp tools, he had to hone his Sloane planes every day to keep going. It also dulled scrapers pretty quickly. The resulting guitar my friend made has a Sitka top, and as I recall, it sounded very un-archtop-like, in that it sustained for a long time, and had a really cool depth of tone color, almost a high-end flattop vibe. My friend said he's never making another Pau Rosa archtop, because the labor of working that wood was just too much! And it took a LONG time for him to sell that guitar, because Jazz players tend to only want the classic archtop vibe, and the PauRosa deviated from that. I think it was a brilliant guitar in every aspect, but admittedly a bit of an odd duck to the Jazzer community.
Yeah I can’t imagine it would be a good fit for an archtop!
Coffee + Apple Fritter + Tommy's Tonewoods = Great start to the day!!
Very plain/straight grained but sounds as good or better than anything you have tapped to date; as per this audio.
I always liked "fancy" grain when i started purchasing tonewood, but soon figured out why seasoned builders much preferred some straight grained stuff. And now it has become pleasing to the eye for me now as well.
I do have a couple sets of Pao Ferro. I have heard they are the same. Is this true???? 🤔
Thanks for the content Tom.
Sounds like a good Sunday morning! Pau Ferro is a different species 🙏
Reminds me of oxidized Brazilian tulip wood. Have you ever sampled that? Apparently there has been some confusion about it, in the past, which is leading me to feel confused about what the current Latin name for it is (I guess there's two different, but related, trees marketed as Brazilian tulip wood) but it's a great wood to work with, in my experience. The fresh wood really does smell like flowers, and it planes buttery smooth.
I believe Brazilian tulip is a true rosewood
Hello sir, what's best tropical wood for guitar top. Thank You...
Seems like Pau Rosa is a really, really hard tonewood - right up there with Grenadilla or African Blackwood. With such a brilliant, glassy and metallic tap tone, seems like it would be an absolutely excellent reflector of the whole gamut of overtones from the strings and the soundboard, even to the highest frequencies. The question is: Which wood for the belly or soundboard would it team up best with?
Would love to try it with euro spruce
Tom! Tommy! We need to talk about cedar!
Ive wondered if toner would affect the tone. I have a nice martin that was 'stained' or antiqued on the top. Would it have affected resonance? I would presume it would have an effect as the colouring may have seeped into the wood to color it.
Have you ever coloured a top?
Yes I have. There are two types of coloured finish, one which is rubbed into the wood and one which is applied over a clear coat of lacquer. I don’t have experience of the former but I would assume the small amount of pigment used wouldn’t make a difference at all. With a sprayed finish, similarly, the quantities applied are negligible in terms of added mass. Hope that helps
❤🎉❤🎉
That is gorgeous, but it's too bad there's almost no way to keep those purples and blues clear after finishing. And man, that taptone was lush on my phone speaker; I can't wait to relisten on decent equipment.
UV resistant lacquer?
It reminds me of a few pieces of glossed macacauba i've seen...
Literally as i'm typing that you said the same thing 😂
Very nice set.
I'm always wary of rarely used tonewoods, makes me wonder if there's a reason why
I think it mainly comes down to the reverence of traditional ‘Tonewoods’, I really can’t see why one wouldn’t build with something like this. The tap response is amazing!
@@TomSandsGuitars Why is maple rarely used? They say it doen´t get in the way of the top and is for complicated, melodies where sustain would get in the way.
@@TomSandsGuitars
As a player, before this video I wasn't sure what to expect from the tonewood at all.
So this does help that,
Good to know a builders perspective :)
But give me cocobolo any day 😅
Can't help it
@@StringsAtHome cocobolo is both visually striking and tonally fantastic, absolutely horrible to work with though! Still, I can’t help buying it
@@lebe220 i’d say Maple is used quite a lot.
GANG GANG!
Yes
I built a guitar out of Pau Rosa recently, it's insanely beautiful. But the back cracked all over the place. Like 5 cracks. The wood was in my shop for probably 2 years. A local luthier said that it's known to split. so I'm done with that....
Humidity? Wood doesn’t tend to crack for no reason
I braced the back in October in Maine. I don't know specifically the humidity but it was likely pretty dry. It's been mostly in my dry house or shop since then. It cracked in the case sitting in my shop. It's definitely dry but it hasn't travelled far.
I showed it to a local high end luthier who you probably have heard of and he was like Pau Rosa? Don't even try to fix it for 2 years. Let it crack all over and then fill the cracks afterwards.
First time any guitar of mine has had a crack. It cracked in like 4 places in 24 hours, sitting in my shop, no big temperature changes
@@TomSandsGuitars
@@PaulMcEvoyGuitars I’ll keep an eye on it. Cheers!
My rosewood guitar is much heavier than my mahagony.
I imagine it would be
@@TomSandsGuitars I´m wondering why it is so much heavier. So much denser? I suppose that the thickness is similar (maybe you luthiers know the perfect thickness -or does it depend on the model, the type of music or the taste of the player?)
@@lebe220 thickness usually depends on the stiffness of a piece of wood. With factory builds, this tends to be less of a consideration and material tends to be left thicker than would otherwise be optimal. As rosewood is significantly more dense, the guitar is likely to be heavier than a mahogany guitar. Not to mention you might just have a particularly dense set of rosewood and a particularly light mahogany set.
@@TomSandsGuitars Thank you. Maybe you are right about the thin mahagony (cheap guitar). Well....Furch designs the thickness for every piece of wood with a computer system, they say. That means the wood is thicker in one place and thinner at another. They say it´s about resonance.