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Winter Build Off 2024 - Best Bass For...

#83
Lament for the one that could not be. My wife found another use for this board.

20240220_082406.jpg


I was hoping to get a bass body from it. Instead it will be a shelf.

20240220_082540.jpg
 
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#86
smart51 said:
Species identification is always welcome. It isn't sapele, so what do you reckon? Kospio? Utile?
Click to expand...
You've probably seen this article? Mahogany Mixups: the Lowdown | The Wood Database Kind of high level but for me shows that identification is pretty hard without some provenance of some kind. :D Regardless, that's a nice piece. Can you swap it out with some veneered marine plywood and fool your wife? :smug:
 
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#98
smart51 said:
Species identification is always welcome. It isn't sapele, so what do you reckon? Kospio? Utile?
Click to expand...

My guess would have been sapele or utile (more towards the latter) based solely on the colour and the grain pattern. Why are you sure it's not sapele? Sapele doesn't always have the big ribbon-y interlocks that we associate with it, and there's a certainly a degree of interlock there, looking at the left board. When was it cut / planed? It could be khaya or honduran if it's had a while to oxidize. Looks too dense and dark to be Spanish Cedar at first glance. Did it smell when it was worked? (both sapele and utile do, but sapele's typically a fair bit more noticeable).

Beej said:
You've probably seen this article? Mahogany Mixups: the Lowdown | The Wood Database Kind of high level but for me shows that identification is pretty hard without some provenance of some kind. :D Regardless, that's a nice piece. Can you swap it out with some veneered marine plywood and fool your wife? :smug:
Click to expand...

You can hazard a pretty decent guess if you're familiar with them. We get quite a lot of the african mahog-alikes over here, less so the the caribbean stuff (most of that comes from old tables and doors). Unfortunately, two of the main giveaways are smell and mass, which you can't really do over the internet. Sapele and Utile you can often tell apart from Khaya and Honduran just on mass and grain density alone; you get used to how they're 'supposed' to feel, although the variance within species can throw you off. Khaya and Honduran can be very difficult to split -- you often have to break out a loupe and start looking at the parenchyma. Spanish cedar's usually noticeably lighter, both in colour and weight.
 
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#99
Quills said:
My guess would have been sapele or utile (more towards the latter) based solely on the colour and the grain pattern. Why are you sure it's not sapele? Sapele doesn't always have the big ribbon-y interlocks that we associate with it, and there's a certainly a degree of interlock there, looking at the left board. When was it cut / planed? It could be khaya or honduran if it's had a while to oxidize. Looks too dense and dark to be Spanish Cedar at first glance. Did it smell when it was worked? (both sapele and utile do, but sapele's typically a fair bit more noticeable).



You can hazard a pretty decent guess if you're familiar with them. We get quite a lot of the african mahog-alikes over here, less so the the caribbean stuff (most of that comes from old tables and doors). Unfortunately, two of the main giveaways are smell and mass, which you can't really do over the internet. Sapele and Utile you can often tell apart from Khaya and Honduran just on mass and grain density alone; you get used to how they're 'supposed' to feel, although the variance within species can throw you off. Khaya and Honduran can be very difficult to split -- you often have to break out a loupe and start looking at the parenchyma. Spanish cedar's usually noticeably lighter, both in colour and weight.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I have reasonably good confidence when I can see them in person, but I can't here, and there's no pics of the sanded end grain, which is usually the best way to tell the difference IMHO. :thumbsup:
 
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#100
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