A.Blackwood & Ziricote
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Backs and Sides Click on Part ID to add to shopping cart More info below
African Blackwood Price PART No. Description Each 6 - 12 13 - 24 Out
African blackwood, 2-pc back, best See Weekly Special Out
African blackwood, sides, best Out
African blackwood, 3-pc back
Out
African blackwood, sides
Ziricote Price PART No. Description Each
6 - 12
13 - 24
Ziricote back, classic/steel str., best See Weekly Special Ziricote sides, classic/steel str., best
Front view of Michael Dunn D-hole guitar.
AFRICAN BLACKWOOD
Michael Dunn Belleview model Guitar at left. Not only is this an unusually striking instrument but the four-piece back is hand jointed with the two outside panel joints following the curvature of the sapwood. Michael's pretty good with a hand plane.
African blackwood, D. melanoxylon: hardest and heaviest, and rarest of the rosewoods used in guitarbuilding. It's not easy to process, it dulls edge tools, and it dries slowly. But it makes wonderful sounding guitars and is very rich looking, especially when sapwood is used. It's difficult to get 2-piece back sets, quartersawn or otherwise, as the logs are voluted, gnarled, short and full of defects. We are offering sets with 3-piece and 4-piece backs just to be able to offer the material. As of this writing (December 2002) we have pretty good stock of 2-pc and 4-pc sets. Jeff Elliott and Cyndy Burton in an effort to confuse me, used the simile, "Blackwood is to Brazilian, as Brazilian is to Indian." Figuring this was some kind of code, I responded with, "Marbles are to baseballs as baseballs are to bowling balls."
Above blackwood guitar with snakewood binding (we can supply, on request) by the Milburns. Click to enlarge.
Front of Belleview model at left. Below, 3-piece blackwood back set.
ZIRICOTE 
Close-up example of Ziricote, above. Below, Ziricote set ready to be glued up at Fox Guitars.
Ziricote guitar by Bryan Gallop guitars. I think it was the '98 or '99 GAL convention that one of the amazing De Jonge family guitarbuilders, Joshia, had built a guitar of Ziricote that made other luthiers stand up and take notice. It was a quasi-blind listening test, that is, the builder of the guitar being played was not announced in advance. I've heard a few say that they were inspired to try Ziricote that day. (Jan Callister, of Draper, Utah, emailed to say that that guitar is now in his hands, and claims that "500 luthiers can't be wrong." It's getting to be very rare these days, and prices reflect this.
Ziricote (Cordia dodencandra) is a most striking wood. In appearance it's like some of the old Brazilian rosewood with spider webbing," "volcanos", and "panoramas," to use some of the descriptive terms used in reference to Brazilian rosewood. It's heavier than most of the rosewoods with a specific gravity of 0.95 and it tends to be a little brittle, and can split with a little provocation. It's a wood where the consistency of supply is tenuous.
Right, as it comes off the saw. Click to enlarge.
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