What's In a Name?

The back and sides of this guitar are of narra, which is an alternative name for a wood that's most often marketed here in Australia as New Guinea rosewood.

According to Wikipedia, the tree is a species of Pterocarpus native to southeastern Asia, northern Australasia, and the western Pacific Ocean islands, Cambodia, southernmost China, East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Ryukyu Islands, the Solomon Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam."

The wood is closely related to padauk - it's most definitely not a true rosewood - and as its range extends well beyond New Guinea, I much prefer to choose a less misleading name when discussing this guitar.

Most significantly, it's beautiful, easy to work, smells great and has a good reputation as a tonewood. What's not to like?

Cheers, Pete 

Wow Factor - Australian Blackwood

I couldn't wait to see the grain of this Australian blackwood come to life when epoxy was applied, so I didn't!

This wasn't a particularly expensive set of back and sides, so I'm very pleased that a thin film of epoxy has had such a dramatic effect.

More practically, this not only gives me a head start where pore filling is concerned, but has provided a level of protection to the wood ahead of routing binding channels and installing the ebony bindings.

Cheers

Pete