Official Luthiers Forum!

I bought a few sets of Allied's opportunity grade rosewood a couple years back, and I just finished a dread cutaway with the first set. I'll post some pics soon, but the wood is really pretty, and the guitar sounds great out of the gate. In fact, it may be my best sounding guitar to date.

My thanks to Allied.

But don't tell my wife -- someday she might figure out that, for my guitars, there doesn't seem to be any correlation between the price of the wood and the quality of the sound.

I bought a heap of the op grade IRW from Allied a few years back and it was a great buy.

What is the "opportunity grade" of which you speak?

It was (for the most part) some lower grade East Indian Rosewood that sold at the time for around $26 a set if my memory serves me. It wasn't tight, straight grain...a lot of it was wide grain, or with some small defects etc. It was fantastic wood, and I'm sure wishing I had bought more than five sets of the stuff. I happen to like "imperfect" wood.

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Looks like you can still get it at $30/set if you buy 3+. It's hard to find on their site, but here's the link:
http://www.alliedlutherie.com/makeover.htm

The sets I got were considered "opportunity" because the color was not perfectly even -- they were lightly striped. Personally, I like the stripes, and I've always hated the rather boring uniform color of "high-grade" rosewood. But who am I to argue?

I'm a big fan as well. The sides are perfect for anyone who wants to laminate their sides.

They're great for laminated necks too.

_________________
Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

If you bought 10 sets ( I did) it was $20 per set. Have used two so far and it was one of the best deals I have scored yet.

Tom

_________________
(alias: gasawdust)

I've just relieved Allied of 25 sets.....should keep me going untill I reach 175.