The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #127074   Message #2830927
Posted By: Bill D
05-Feb-10 - 03:52 PM
Thread Name: Is this Brazillian Rosewood guitar?
Subject: RE: Is this Brazillian Rosewood guitar?
"Ogalava Rosewood " is a real problem if it actually is wood from the American Southwest. It is WAY too common around the world to name woods after 'famous' woods, because ...umm... well, it sells better.

There is NO...I repeat...NONE...of genuine 'rosewood' grown in the USA, except for the aforementioned stuff, a variant of Indian Rosewood, that has been naturalized in Florida, and which has become almost a trashwood there. It seems to have produced some trees large enough for some luthiers to take an interest, but you can often find it laying by roadsides where it has been culled as invasive.

There is also NO Rosewood in Bolivia....

tree
and a guitar

There is ONE wood grown in the American southwest with a common name... "Arizona Rosewood"..Vauquelinia californica.
It is a beautiful wood indeed, but I doubt anyone has ever had a piece large enough to make a guitar from. It is full of voids and cracks when dried, and seldom get large enough to even do woodturning.

I have some pieces of wood flooring which some friends brought me after they had new floors installed, that they were told was 'rosewood'. It is pretty, hard and they like it, but it is NOT rosewood....and calling anything 'rosewood' ought to mean it is Dalbergia spp..... otherwise, it just a description.