Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Full Version)

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Anders Eliasson -> Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Jan. 21 2013 16:33:27)

The other day I joined a back of grewillea robusta. And to day I took it down to final thickness. I did it together with a set of very nice top grade Cypress. When I had finished both to the thickness my thumbs told me thay should be, they were both exactly the same thickness (2,4mm) and exactly the same weight (184 grams) The taptone of the cypress is a tiny bit higher. half a tone or something like that. So I expect it to sound pretty close to cypress.

So now I´m curious, has anyone worked with this wood. I bought it from Madinter some 6 - 7 years ago and they called it "Silver oak" As far as I can see, it has nothing to do with oak. Its an evergreen with a in texture like cypress, but it has some very strong silking or figuring that looks like oak x 10.
I think I will make a test 2A guitar with it just to try it. Its cheap and it looks very good and will end up with a color close to that honey color that Ruphus likes.
The spot on the wood is a bit of shellack.



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Leñador -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Jan. 21 2013 16:39:05)

Never seen it on a guitar but I like the figuring, I like texture in instrument woods. Wikipedia says it is a type of oak but NOT closely related to the true oaks, the pic's do look evergreenish though, and the wood itself looks evergreenish...........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grevillea_robusta



TANúñez -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Jan. 21 2013 16:59:08)

I can't even pronounce that.



TANúñez -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Jan. 21 2013 17:00:50)

The figure is nice. Similar to Koa. Let us know how the sides bend.



Jeff Highland -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Jan. 21 2013 20:15:24)

quote:

grewillea robusta


Spell it with a v not a w
It's an Australian native, commonly called silky oak here, and often used as a substitute for english oak in furniture especially during the early 20th century.
Wiki lists south african plantations.
I have a couple of planks in my shed.
I have only used it in making a few boxes not for guitars.
It does tend to move a lot with humidity changes and split if restrained, so humidity control and sealing endgrain is recommended (I had quite large cracks open up in the ends of a 250mm wide box lid.
Pretty easy to work with.
Only shows that great figure when quartersawn, otherwise quite plain.



Jim Kirby -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Jan. 22 2013 0:02:36)

I have a couple of sets that came from Allied maybe 6 years ago? It looks a little like American Sycamore, too - sort of half way between that and QS oak. I've admired it a few times but it has never gotten close to the workbench yet. Thanks for the info on the similarity to cypress.



Anders Eliasson -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Jan. 22 2013 7:53:07)

quote:

It does tend to move a lot with humidity changes


Well mine stayed the same place for many years.[:D] Thanks for the comments Jeff. Since I knew it came from Australia, I thought you might know something. Its very easy to work and polishes quite well.
Searching the web, I found out that Larrivee has made steelstrings with it, that some rave about, but on the web you can always find someone raving about something.
It is pretty. (but whu did they put a white heel cap on the guitar? It looks totally out of place.



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tijeretamiel -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Jan. 22 2013 13:06:21)

I've not made a flamenco guitar from Silver Oak, but I have played one.

The Kremona brand of guitars (made in East Europe) have a Rosa Diva which is a budget blanca of sorts.

I enjoyed playing it for the very brief duration I had the chance to do so. To my ears it sounded a little somewhere between a maple and a cypress guitar.



Anders Eliasson -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Jan. 22 2013 15:55:04)

quote:

I enjoyed playing it for the very brief duration I had the chance to do so. To my ears it sounded a little somewhere between a maple and a cypress guitar.


Thanks for the feed back. I also thought it would be somewhere between maple and cypress, and maybe it will, but the characteristics of the wood is a lot closer to cypress than it is to maple, so now I believe it´ll be very close to cypress in sound. And the cypress, I used to compare was a really good, well aged and hard piece. Not one of these swampy varieties.



tijeretamiel -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Jan. 22 2013 16:20:36)

I'm going back to the guitar shop (to buy some golpes) where they had the Silver Oak Blanca, and I will try it again and report back a slightly more detailed report.

I remember the guitar which I tried seemed nice enough, well built, decent weight but I was having one of those days when I couldn't seem to work out my right hand from my left, just played bum note after bum note. It was the best budget blanca I've played by quite a distance.

I remember reading a testimonial from Jean Larrivee, that he thought Silver Oak was a excellent tonewood and his dissapointment that few people would want to buy such a tonewood for a steel string acoustic guitar on the grounds mainly that people like to buy tonewoods that look a particular way being dark back and sides.

Anders, I look forward to seeing/hearing your Silver Oak 2A.



Anders Eliasson -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Jan. 22 2013 21:02:43)

quote:

Anders, I look forward to seeing/hearing your Silver Oak 2A.


You have to be patient. It might take me a year or so to finish it. But I appreciate your effort and I´m looking forward to your update.

Larrivee is right, and if all guitarists were blind and with very good ears, lots of thinkgs would look different.



jshelton5040 -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Jan. 22 2013 22:57:21)

Anders,

I think it's really pretty and has a nice color for a blanca. Of course you'll have to find the right customer who's not averse to something a little different.



Anders Eliasson -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Jan. 23 2013 8:10:19)

quote:

Of course you'll have to find the right customer who's not averse to something a little different.


You´re so right and thats why I´ll make a 2A guitar with it, because low price always help with accepting different things.[:D]



tijeretamiel -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Feb. 17 2013 15:58:57)

Anders,

I got around to finally playing the Kremona Silver Oak 'Blanca' in question over the last few days in London Spanish Guitar Center.

Describing properties of a tonewood is pretty damn hard but I'll have a go at it. Not only is it a tricky thing to describe a sound itself but a tonewood in the hands of different luthiers will produce different sounds, eg on the same day I tried two acoustic guitars both above £2k made from Cedar and Walnut- one had a fat midrange warmth to it (which I really liked) the other a lot brighter, with better note separation but sounded a little thin (which I didn't like), tonewoods have common properties but the more guitars I play the more I believe it's really all down to the hands of the luthier.

Tonally it was a little 'darker' sounding than a cypress blanca, I'm pretty sure Silver Oak is a slightly heavier wood and there was a little more of a pronounced bass than with a cypress guitar (this however is a difficult thing to fully appreciate as the body of the guitar I played was slightly wider than other flamenco guitars in stock), not as much as a East Indian Rosewood Negra however. On a similar term the midrange is a little smoother than a Cypress and the trebles follow a similar pattern, but were very pleasing to my ears nonetheless. In terms of sustain it has a little more than a Cypress guitar but a lot less than a EIR negra.

I mentioned a while back that Silver Oak's somewhere between Cypress and Maple and I think that probably still is the case (Silver Oak I think is in the Lacewood side of timbers, which is quite a broad classification of things; some of them are in the Maple family eg London Plane) but like you mentioned it's tonally closer towards Cypress than it is towards Maple.

I don't think it sounded like exactly like a Cypress guitar, but to my ears anyway it produced a very pleasing tone nonetheless which I enjoyed greatly, a excellent guitar.

It's a shame that flamenco players are generally quite conservative in their tastes towards their guitars. I think Silver Oak would make a great tonewood for blancas. There are some other tonewoods which I think would be great for flamenco guitars, eg Bubinga (some premium steel string acoustic makers are starting to use) which I think is a little like Coral/Padauk which is a pretty cheap tonewood too.

I hope I could have been of some use and didn't ramble too much…



Anders Eliasson -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Feb. 17 2013 16:33:12)

Its confusing what you write, because now you talk about white oak, which is a totally different species tha "silver oak". Popular names for woods can make a lot of confusions. Oaks, which are not oak, cedars which are not cedar.

White oak is a true oak. Quercus Alba. Its from the US and is used for many things furniture, boats etc. As all oaks, its heavy. Its interesting what you write about it. I like the idea of making a true oak guitar one day.

Silver oak, the wood I presented, has nothing to do with oak. Only its popular name. Its a conifer from Australia. What i found interesting is that when I worked it down to final thickness, it had the same thickness, weight and stiffness as a first grade piece of mediterranean cypress that I worked at the same time. The silver oak is a very little bit lower in taptone, but very little. These factors should normally mean a very similar sound....
One day I will know, when I´ve built the guitar. I plan to do so after summer.



tijeretamiel -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Feb. 17 2013 17:09:29)

Sorry about that!

I meant to write Silver Oak and edited my last post with the correct information. The pitfalls of writing things offline and hungover, then drinking bad beer in a bad pub on a Sunday afternoon....



Anders Eliasson -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Feb. 18 2013 7:11:41)

quote:

drinking bad beer in a bad pub on a Sunday afternoon....


At least it wasnt a bad sunday afternoon.[:D]



vechap -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Mar. 16 2014 0:34:45)

I have not worked with the wood but own a guitar built with Australian Silverwood (Silky Oak, Gravillea Robusta, and so forth) and it is absolutely fantastic.

This is probably the best sound reproduction of the guitar that I have heard:




constructordeguitarras -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Mar. 18 2014 20:00:58)

This wood looks like sycamore, which has that characteristic ray fleck.



Joan Maher -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Mar. 19 2014 7:10:34)

Looks like flamed Sycamore



Anders Eliasson -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Mar. 19 2014 8:34:12)

I think it looks very different and it feels very different. it has a different color and its lighter. Here´s how it came out with natural colored shellack. I find that the medular rays looks more like quatersawn oak and that must be the reason it sometimes is called silver oak even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the oak family and the color is more gold than silver. I think its very pretty.



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boral -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Apr. 9 2014 13:03:24)

Hi Anders,
Can you please tell us something about the sound?
I have build a few guitars in the past and I am thinking of building a flamenca for myself: I still have some wood and I was thinking what would be the most appropriate for (not having any cypress or rosewood). I am glad I did a search before asking because I must have bought a silver oak set from Madinter more or less at the same time as you.



Anders Eliasson -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Apr. 9 2014 18:41:58)

This is what i wrote when i had just finished the guitar. I havent seen it since.[:D]

The back and sides are what is called silver oak (grevillea robusta) I dont like to use the common name as it creates confusion. Most think its heavy and in family with oak, which is not true. Silver oak is an Australian evergreen much closer to cypress than anything else. The only thing it has in common with oak is the figuring of the wood when perfectly quatersawn.
In fact, when I thicknessed the back, I did so together with a top grade piece of cypress and I ended up with the same thickness, stiffness and weight and a tap tone just a hair below the taptone of the cypress. And it sounds and feels like cypress. And it looks very good in my opinion.
I will not build more 2A guitars with this wood. I will reserve it for special 1A projects.
There are more photos on my blog and in the classifieds section.



Sr. Martins -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Apr. 9 2014 19:01:36)

I would add that it looks like tri-dimensional wood, very cool.



boral -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Apr. 10 2014 10:08:01)

Thank you Anders,
I guess you did not have much time to play it; just wanted to know if the sound of the finished guitar is also similar to the cypress.



Anders Eliasson -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Apr. 10 2014 10:37:10)

I dont know if its similar. Its a big word, my friend.

besides sound, that is important, equally important is it how the instrument works and i found that guitar to be very much like a cypress blanca in response and feel. No surprise, because that is determined mostly by the weight, the stiffness and the damping qualities of the wood. And this wood is pretty close to Med. cyprees in these aspects.



boral -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Apr. 10 2014 11:14:25)

Thank you,

No doubt I will use silver oak; the other options being mahogany or okvangol.



Anders Eliasson -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Apr. 10 2014 15:05:40)

Mahogany is a very interesting choice. I have never tried, but I´m 99% sure that it can be an interesting flamenco tonewood. Feel, weight and taptone is interesting.
I´ve worked with Ovangkol on a steel string and i would NEVER use it on a flamenco. Its very heavy and dampens a lot. Good for steel strings which have more power, but I cant imagine it on a flamenco. But, of course, I might be wrong.



boral -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Apr. 10 2014 16:59:32)

Anders, please stop !!!!
I am not yet sure that I will build this "silver oak" and now I have a mahogany, a padouk ( meanwhile I found in the middle of the mahogany pile) and an okvangol to give a try [;)]



Anders Eliasson -> RE: Has anyone worked with grewillea robusta for back and sides (Apr. 10 2014 18:05:11)

ok, I stop. (even though I dont really know with what, so i just stop).



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