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I found great wood in Perry GA.
I have bought a lot but wasted money on most because not sawn on vertical
Just riff saw. Also lots have spalted to far.

The last board was 7 bf for $56 but cost $90 for UPS shipping because of mixup in shipping in instructions. You have to approve the board or you will get riffsawn and little beauty. One mill in Gainesville have never had a decent board.

I found the mill on the Forrestyfourm.
Great site for small sawmills

Bob Howell

A friend of mine bought some QS sycamore at Appalachian Tonewood in Lewisburg, WV. Very pretty stuff.

I love to see this - - - folks building with domestic wood. Thanks for sharing.

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Peter Havriluk

Yes, really nice wood very light I made a few guitars with it. Great stuff.



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I had a chance to play some Santa Cruz guitars made with a locally fallen sycamore about 15 years ago and absolutely loved them.


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I have some from upstate New York that is stunning!
love it for guitars

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Mike Collins

I finished a baroque violin last year of sycamore. I did another as well before. I hid it some. Alternative woods are not looked on well by the violin crowd. The wood I had was very resonant when tapping. Both violins came out sounding good. I've heard that some can be like cardboard.

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Why be normal?

I’ve built quite a few sycamore guitars. Quartersawn planks are easily available at lumber yards here in Virginia. Tapping an 1/8” thick back half before jointing and thicknessing sometimes does sound like cardboard. But, once assembled into a guitar, it gives a nice, rich tone with strong, defined bass notes. Aside from making a visually beautiful guitar, sycamore makes a nice sounding one, too.

Bob—

I’ve had the same tap-tone experience with QS white oak. Tapping made me think it was going to be a dud, but the finished guitar was great! I figure tapping is not a reliable way to predict hardwood performance as a back/side wood.

Gorgeous back, Brad! Looks like a funhouse mirror

I also love the stick wood. It usually has an irregular dark streak near the center that's a bit crumbly, but sturdy enough to be machined and then hardened with CA. And it grows proportionally with the rest of the wood, so small sticks can make bridge pins with a small brown dot, and larger sticks can make tuner buttons with a larger streak. It also has a nice radial ray pattern.


Last year the giant twin-trunk sycamore in my back yard dropped a big branch, about 6" diameter, which had some nice spalting in it. I plan to make some even better tuner buttons out of these slices. There's still more of it left rotting away that I could cut up hunting for treasure. And another big dead branch hanging up in the tree out of reach, which I expect will fall sometime this year.