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Mahogany Or Sapele?


chile

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I am about to make a 35mm thick bass with Sapele and have considered chambering however I think the weight issue is only really important for people who play upright regularly (I play upside down of course) and even then a wide soft strap does wonders. I'll do some thinking about the whole chambering thing when I post about my project.

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I like sapele a lot. The last board I had I sold to a guy I know who made an electric jagstang styled guitar out of it and it wasn't heavy at all I didn't think. I know taylor uses it for their acoustics but I think it's plywood that they use, at least my GS mini is 3 ply sapele/maple/ sapele. The stuff I have had is pretty light and it's around the same price as african mahogany where I get my wood, about $4.25-$5.00 a board foot. I know I can get a pallet of 100 BF or 8/4 african mahogany for around $500 and the sapele isn't to different from that. I don't really see how it would be a bad wood to use.

I compared a sapele acoustic to a honduran mahogany acoustic back in the spring and they sounded pretty close to the same. I'm not sure how it is in factories though since there isn't much freedom in shaping the braces to make a better sounding acoustic, which may be the issue with the guitars Martin is building like what was said above.

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