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kenny brown - Posted - 11/16/2009: 19:22:40
just curious who likes maple and who likes mahogany? i prefer maple because of the sustain it provides but i like the soft tones and workability of the mahagony. nehow what's your opinions?
Bill Rogers - Posted - 11/16/2009: 19:51:45
I like maple 'cause it's easier to finish.
Bill
eddie83 - Posted - 11/16/2009: 20:36:20
I like 'em all!
banjeaux bob - Posted - 11/16/2009: 21:13:25
walnut,cherry,rosewood
Oalbrets - Posted - 11/16/2009: 22:10:03
I like walnut.
Poverty Ridge Bluegrass
Stutts - Posted - 11/16/2009: 22:18:13
I wonder how a rosewood pot would sound? Plunky?
mike gregory - Posted - 11/17/2009: 00:30:21
Since I cobble up banjos out of repurposed wood,I like wwhatever's cheap, free, and solid.
Every now and then, a maple futon gets tossed by some neighbor or other. More than a dozen banjo necks, right there.
And salad bowls! Nine or ten inch banjo bodies, already shaped. $2 or 3 in the yard sales & thrift shops, but a chunk of teak or walnut that big, in a woodworker's supply store, would drain the wallet faster than Johnny Butten showing off with "Minute Waltz".
Tele65 - Posted - 11/17/2009: 02:25:58
quote:
Originally posted by kenny brown
just curious who likes maple and who likes mahogany? i prefer maple because of the sustain it provides but i like the soft tones and workability of the mahagony. nehow what's your opinions?
Kenny, I 100% agree with you. I do have a mahogany with a Huber ring and a OFF rim which I love and my next it's gonna be maple with a Blaylock and a Pass thin skirt. Cheers Fabio ---------------------------------------------------------- Come on cow, come a cow cow yippee ay yey!
strang - Posted - 11/17/2009: 04:41:30
1. mahogany
2. walnut
3. maple
ALL with rosewood fingerboard 
- = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = - = -
Bluegrass -- THE Original Country Music!
dhergert - Posted - 11/17/2009: 06:09:24
For ultimate adjustability and light weight...
Balsa
Just have to have a thick fingerboard and a very solid finish.
For neck sound woods, I really prefer mahogany. For wooden rims, maple. For spun-over rims, I suppose rosewood, but I don't think it matters much, it's just a vaneer.
Sound wood for a wooden resonator, doesn't matter much, it's all sound reflective plywood.
For beauty of the wood (not worrying so much about sound), Cocobolo and Koa
Best,
-- Don
http://www.youtube.com/user/dh5string
http://home.att.net/~dhergert
http://mysite.verizon.net/don_hergert
"If you must use your banjo as a snow shovel, do so:
only don't wonder if it sounds dull afterwards."
-- S.S. Stewart catalog, 1896.
farmer bob - Posted - 11/17/2009: 06:47:39
Any wood with burls swirls eyes quilts and curleys thats hard enough to burn when cut up with my table saw and excites the eye when finished in oil... Bob.
uncle.fogey - Posted - 11/17/2009: 06:48:05
I have just been working on kitchen cabinets made of maple and cherry and I was reminded once again of the HUGE variation of density and other attributes within pieces of wood of the same species - even boards from the same tree. They don't even LOOK alike in many cases - you have to sort and find pieces that match.
To ascribe specific acoustical characteristics to different species of wood is VERY general and should be taken with a grain of salt.
If you select the VERY BEST pieces of different species of wood, grown and seasoned under the best conditions, you can begin to make statements about which is best for what.
Think about maple rims - there are old pre-war ones, ones made from old factory flooboards and timbers, ones made from submerged logs, ones made from old air-dry lumber. They are not all the same just because they are all "maple"
Having said that, I like maple best for bridges, maple, walnut, cherry and mahogany just fine for necks and rims, and like rosewood and ebony for fingerboards, BUT I choose the pieces of wood very carefully.
A man wouldn't need many plastic heads in a lifetime.
Muddy Roads - Posted - 11/17/2009: 07:39:58
1. WALNUT for its beauty, workability, tone.
2. CHERRY i like its workability
3. MAPLE also for its workability but not a nice to look at. just personal preference.
MR
www.calkinsbanjos.com
TN_Picker - Posted - 11/17/2009: 08:19:25
I like the subtle differences in all of them and really love the look of tiger maple...but I keep coming right back to mahogany.
“Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help! I'm being repressed!”
Sgtp3pp3r - Posted - 11/17/2009: 12:09:31
I like any kind of curly or figured maple, claro walnut, and koa. Might be fun to make a blocked rim from koa - has anyone done that?
I like Macassar ebony for fingerboards.
Steve
Edited by - Sgtp3pp3r on 11/17/2009 12:15:17
kenny brown - Posted - 11/17/2009: 16:18:11
i specifically like tiger maple for the neck because it is so beautiful when finished properly.
ernieb - Posted - 11/18/2009: 10:02:48
I've been playing banjo for some thirty odd years and I've always preferred Mahogany... I never seemed to be able to get a Maple banjo to sound "right" to my ears. However, the more I play my maple Osborne Chief that I've owned for about a year now, the more I'm starting to re-think the matter!
Ernie B
Chief #121
CoT Mahogany Tradition
"Just Dreamin' of a Little Cabin..."
banjo-joe - Posted - 11/18/2009: 10:25:09
Maplhogany
Banjojoe
jeremy blankenship - Posted - 11/18/2009: 11:41:06
I cant resist the classic look of mahogany finished in a rb75 style. also own a flamed maple gibson wich is great for other reasons. But my favorite wich was a big surprise to me is my walnut special. I really have come to love the warm poppy tones walnut gives.
Jeremy
BvilleDon - Posted - 11/18/2009: 13:17:24
They can all be great tonewoods. My personal preference is maple in a high quality instrument. It can sound as sweet as anything out there or take the paint off the walls. I can get more variation wioth maple. But that is just me and I know others prefer other woods for very legitimate reasons. I do love the sound of a maple banjo with a rosewood fingboard! Don
rottenwood - Posted - 11/18/2009: 14:17:15
maple is king! today I bent 15, 3/16" rim plys, all quarter sawn maple, no cracks.
uncle.fogey - Posted - 11/18/2009: 14:36:02
Have to agree with BvilleDon. Maple, in my experience, is capable of producing the most complex sound. Maybe there's a reason why all the great Stradivarius, Amati, etc. violins are made of maple (spruce tops).
It's a friendly wood, not too expensive, relatively easy to work, it has MANY figured variations - tiger maple, fiddleback maple, curly maple, birdseye maple, quilted maple. It is not ring porous, takes a good finish, doesn't splinter, can be easily stained to any color (it's practically a white in its raw state) and has world renowned acoustical characteristics. Tough to beat!
My second choice would be cherry (which I think is underutilized in musical instruments),
My third choice would be a tie between walnut and (central American) mahogany - the actual species - "swetenia" beware of substitutes. Walnut is darker, walnut is an indigenous north American tree, while mahogany is coming from central America, both are stable, easy to work, take a finish, aren't splintery, and have good acoustical properties. Mahogany dust messes up my lungs pretty seriously, so I have to wear a mask. I won't hold that against it - I'll just wear a mask.
The Old Timer - Posted - 11/18/2009: 17:37:00
Certainly not wood from Madagascar, based on the FBI's work this week in Nashville with Gibson!!
banjohead22 - Posted - 11/19/2009: 12:11:12
mines maple and i love it
but i really like the look of burl walnut resonators havent ever played one though
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