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A customer in Canada is inquiring about a guitar made with pernambuco and a baritone with Andaman padauk. After searching on the web both seem to be unobtainable. Allied shows 3 sets but are entirely flatsawn and priced on the high side. Andaman padauk is MIA.
Things also get murky with pernambuco in that what is being sold as such might not be the real deal. And, CITES seems to make exporting pernambuco difficult if not impossible.
Both of these woods appear to be in the genus "Unobtainium"

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Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

Andaman Padauk as well as Pernambuco are now considered endangered. It won't at all be easy to get anymore. African padauk should be easy to get in quartersawn boards or sets. Violin bow makers are very well aware of this problem. Ipe is considered a good replacement for Pernambuco for bows anyway.

Why Andaman padauk in particular? and how do you distinguish it from it's cousin's, African and Burmese Padauk? I have a couple of boards from an old table top that are some type of padaukand would be curious to know which it is.
Brazilwood (Pernambuco) makes nice fiddle bows, and that is probably the best use for it. It is somewhat plain looking and hedge apple would look (after it darkens) and sound about the same.

There are three sets of pernambuco on ebay right now. For the price, you could get some really pretty BRW.

Somewhere I have a couple of sets of Padauk that I had resawn from a board at Owl Lumber near Chicago about 25 years ago.

If you tell me how to ID the species, I'll see if I can dig it up. Also, dimensions. All I remember is that it was orange and vertical grain.

Tom many yrs ago I bought a book from mr KUN in Ottawa canada . It was a bow making book . The authors mr regh and KUn made pernam vln bows . Mr kun had passed away many yrs ago. I believe his wife and children are still around . perhaps they might have access to pernam wide enough to make a guitar. I will be making a few non 1/4 sawn pernam guitars. But due to cites . I cannot send them across the border , even though I am a us/cdn citizen. Hope this helps .

I don't know how to distinguish between Andaman and African padauk. I'm just looking into the requests from the customer. I saw the pernambuco on eBay and wasn't overly impressed. I'm certainly more in favor of pernambuco being used for violin bows. And, as I mentioned, there have been some doubts raised about the authenticity of the pernambuco we are seeing as guitar sets. Brazilian is not an option for international shipping and it seems like pernambuco might be as well. (Although I believe in pernambuco's case it is more about rough lumber and logs rather than finished goods.)

_________________
Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

Tom, you may know this already, but andaman padauk is the same wood as Narra. You may find more results searching for narra. I have a good stash of figured Narra, but not really looking to sell any at the moment.

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Guitar Maker and Purveyor of the World's Finest Tonewoods
http://www.aaronhixguitars.com/
http://stores.ebay.com/A-Hix-Tonewood-a ... r-Supplies

I agree with the confusion over pernambuco. Cook Woods sells the material in board form for much less than expected. They claim that they had the wood tested and it is in fact true pernambuco. However, the informal test I usually use to confirm that doesn't work- dropping small shavings in water and expecting a pronounced color to quickly leach out of the wood. Other examples I have of pernambuco do this almost immediately.

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

See if you can turn your customer on to osage orange. It turns a similar color to pernambuco after some UV exposure, although with coarse grain whereas pernambuco is more flat colored.

I bought a pernambuco guitar set from RC Tonewoods years ago, but I think it's a goner. The flatsawn backs developed splits from both ends, and the sides have cross grain splits in the middle indicating extreme runout, so probably will be impossible to bend.

Aaron, I did know about Narra. You mentioned figured narra but do you have any plain QS sets you'd part with?

_________________
Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

I was interested in the idea that oxidized osage orange resembles pernambuco. I have a varnished sample piece of pernambuco, which the snapshot shows alongside a piece of osage orange with oxidized edges. At least with these two samples, while I see a resemblance, it's not very close IMO. Kind of like comparing lauan to walnut.

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Tim Allen
"Never hurry, never rest."

The customer is more into sound than appearance. Hard to believe, I know. I've made a very successful osage orange guitar with wood I got from Kevin Looker right here. The main reason for my post was to check out availability of the 2 timbers. Glad to know Andaman padauk is narra, although it doesn't seem to be obtainable either.

_________________
Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

The wood database lists Andaman padauk and narra as two different but related species. I've also seen narra used as a general term for padauk type woods, so it might not get exactly what you want buying narra.
"Pernambuco" is the heartwood of the Brazilwood tree which produces the darker "brazilwood" (sapwood) as well. Both are use in bow making. Pernambuco bows are generally better than brazilwood bows, but not always. In the picture of the pernambuco / osage the pernambuco looks as dark as the brazilwood bows I've had. The better pernambuco bows have been closer to the osage in color but a bit more orange.
The problem with "Unobtainium" is often that what might be available may not be the best stuff to build with. So you wind up with a wood that is both problematic and expensive.

I believe Pterocarpus Indicus is a species that is often lumped under the name “Narra”. It grows widely across in SE Asia and is attractive a fantastic wood for guitars, and not prohibitively expensive. But it is generally lighter in colour and density than some other Padauk/pterocarpus species. I suspect it might not meet the expectations of a customer who was set on andaman.

Just my opinion but if you built each of these instruments with woods of a similar density to padauk and pernambuco I'm pretty certain he/she wouldn't be able to tell them apart.
I know, that doesn't help at all.

Allied has a couple, they don't look too hot IMO

https://alliedlutherie.com/collections/backs-sides

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

As mentioned Narra is Pterocarpus indicus. Andaman Padauk is Pterocarpus dalbergioides. They maybe the same genus but they are not the same. I've been lucky and used Andaman Padauk, it rings like glass. A fantastic wood that smells sweet like bubblegum when worked. Superior to the African Paduak that I've had experience of.

Not much help I'm afraid but the person I bought the Andaman from said most of the trees were destroyed in a hurricane which might explain the scarcity if that is to be believed.

Hi all,

I might be able to add to the story of why Andaman Padauk (Pterocarpus dalbergioides) is unobtainable. Unfortunately, my info is from 1999. I was in the Andaman Islands travelling at that time and tried to purchase some Andaman Padauk. I went on the tour of the large sawmill near Port Blair on Chatham Island and inquired about purchasing some Andaman Padauk. My inquiry ended up by me being shown into the general manager's office to have a cup of tea and a chat. He explained to me that no Andaman Padauk was allowed to be exported from India without obtaining an export permit from the relevant department on mainland India. He indicated that he thought that it was nearly impossible to get such a permit. He did, however, tell me that that I could export finished products like furniture without getting a permit. Apparently, this arrangement is to benefit the local economy and artisans. In the end, it was just too difficult for me to pursue. I did find a number of shops in Port Blair filled with large furniture items made entirely of Andaman Padauk (beds, settees, dining tables, etc). It was a bit demoralizing to see all that beautiful wood being used for furniture but not one bit was available for making guitars .

I believe that the sawmill on Chatham Island may have been destroyed in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and their stores of Andaman Padauk with it. The sawmill has been re-built but given that many of forests (on what is a relatively small set of islands) may have been damaged by the tsunami (and any subsequent tropical cyclones), I doubt there is much Andaman Padauk available for export outside India. There is a general interest article (from 2017) on the Chatham Island saw mill at https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/chatham-a-stroll-through-asia-s-oldest-saw-mill-in-the-andamans-travel-feature-117120900188_1.html that is of interest.

Regards,
Steve.

https://www.experienceandamans.com/chatham-sawmill.php

Would like to travel there so much, already for years draming about it....

Hello, I am doubting a lot about that statment. Density may be an important pysical and mechanical property, but also internal damping, velocity of sound in the wood, etc should be considered.

Cheers, alex

Hello, you might ask Jürgen Jordan.....perhaps he can help....

https://www.espen.de/de/produkte/tonholz

Herr Dalbergia,

just to motivate you a little more, go to http://lifeisavacation.in/2017/06/17/chatham-saw-mill-andaman/ and scroll down to the picture of the Padouk wood storage area. This is pretty much what I saw in 1999 when I visited. Piles of Padauk stretching off into the distance but I think the piles were much higher when I was there. It seems they are not processing to full capacity now (see https://www.onmanorama.com/travel/beyond-kerala/2017/12/09/andaman-nicobar-islands-travel-chatham-saw-mill-india.html).

Regards,
Steve.