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Wood question

#81
DastarD said:
I still find it difficult, the Wenge is off, so now we either are looking for Rosewood, which is very hard to come by, and to get the right color is also difficult. We also found some Spanish Walnut which is very expensive, but I am not convinced that the grain is the same. So the search continues. I did found a guy on Reddit, who dyed his mahony bass body with 7 coats of danish oil to get a walnut/rosewood look.
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This is the first time we've talked cost - I presumed you were aware that Rosewood will be a very top dollar wood. Locally a board that has enough wood to make a body and neck will cost me around $350 CDN, or roughly 250euros. Comparatively, figured walnut locally costs me around 1/8th that cost. The bdft cost of rosewood locally here is around $60 whereas really nice walnut is about $7. Wenge is around $25. I figured you'd be aware that a solid rosewood body will be very expensive in comparison to some other really nice high dollar woods. :)
 
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#83
I've seen a few all rosewood instruments and with the right piece, man are they gorgeous. Same with wenge. The only reason I would pick to use all or a lot of wenge, even though it's also heavy and expensive is because it is very unique and nothing else looks anything like it. Because rosewood is even heavier and twice the cost, it's a good thing that there are other woods that come extremely close. The right piece of walnut with the right stain and finish could easily be as gorgeous as rosewood and even mistaken for it.
 
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#84
Black Walnut, check ✅️

IMG-20220309-WA0001.jpg
 
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#87
Yes, I agree with the others that walnut is going to be your best choice to get that look of rosewood. Walnut is a great wood for building basses, it's good for structures, good machining, medium weight, and reasonably priced.

I build most of my basses these days from walnut, necks and bodies. Our hardwood dealers in Southern California just call it Walnut, but I think it's the same as the Black Walnut as you bought. It's grown and harvested in California, Oregon, and Washington, I believe. Plentiful supply.

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Most of the walnut we get around here is about this color; a medium tan-brown with weaving grain.

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I finish it adding some brown and red tint, and some other techniques, to get it to this look: Old Walnut.

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It would be easy to adjust the color of the tints to get it more toward rosewood color.

IMG_7254B.jpg
 
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#92
***Edit*** just read through the entire posts and notice you've gone with walnut. Great choice.
I will leave this here just to give some examples of what's available down under..

There's some very dark Australian woods like Jarrah you could use.
the first picture is a Queensland sassafras Maton JB4 .
The second is an Australian Jarrah guitar.
Screenshot_20220310-075750_Google.jpg
Screenshot_20220310-075632_Google.jpg
 
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#95
Agreed. Hands down, I think everyone here definitely wants to see the building process. Inside this thread is fine, but it would also be nice to be showcased in it's own build thread. There have been many threads posted by customers of a builder as opposed to the builder themselves. Anything about building instruments is all good. :thumbsup:
 

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