New Wood

I've just got some Caucasian Spruce (Picea Orientalis) in. I've been reading alot about this stuff & wanted to see for myself if its true. 'Caucasian Spruce is native to the Caucasus and adjacent northeast Turkey'. Its got a very good weight to strength (stiffness) ratio. For tonewoods its cut high in the mountains on north facing slopes, because the growing season is short the annular growth ring count per inch is high making it very stiff. I'm going to use it on a few new guitars to see what it's like. I'm very excited! I've also got some British Columbine Sitka & Western Red Cedar which I'll be testing along side my European Spruce.


Here's some of my Honduras Rosewood. This is remarkable stuff it's got the tap tone of a piece of metal. Its little lighter than Cocobolo but a lot easier on the hands. Cocobolo is bad for my hands & the dust is toxic so I won't be using it again.

I'm still trying to track down some Scottish Sycamore as I would like to use some native hardwood in my work, however its hard to come across quality stock. But for now here's some of my Rippled European Maple. This stuff is beautiful in every way, I put one of the plates though the sanding master so you can see the Ripple. This set has Parlor Guitar written all over it, what do you think?

And lastly some European Walnut (Juglans Regia) not to be confused with American Black walnut (Juglans Nigra). The two are similar however European is a little more stable than American although not quite as dense its got a more interesting grain pattern. I don't have a favorite & use both for different reasons. You get a wonderfully warm mellow tone from Walnut, similar to Mahogany but with more depth.