Ipe Wood

[JohnRossitter]

My brother is a trim carpenter, and works with a lot of exotics (like myself).

He saves me his scrap stuff and I pick it up once every couple of months.

He has some scrap 3/4" x 6" Ipe wood that he set aside for me.

Have any of you worked with it before in the context of guitars?

I think that it may be a bit toooooo dense.

http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/ipe.htm

[MzI]

Cant say that Ive worked with it, but in terms of density, Ive made a pair of guitars out of solid purple heart, so unless its that much more dense and heavier then purple heart I wouldnt worry bout it and just use it.

MzI

[JohnRossitter]

It's heavier than Purpleheart.

It' heavier than Ironwood.

Something on the order of 77Lbs per Cubic Foot

[Maiden69]

Ipe have been called ironwood in the woodworking comunity for a while now, I think that it will be very bright in tone and hard to work! But it is up to you, try it and see what you think!

[JohnRossitter]

I don't know.

I was thinking about trying to turn it on the lathe as a set of drum sticks for my drummer

Edited November 13, 2006 by JohnRossitter

[Vince D]

I have made a neck for my strat out of it, and it is fairly hard. I found it not that hard to shape for how dense it is.

[spazzyone]

i used to use ipe for the deckboards on dock's ( for rich people lol)when i lived in south Florida

very heavy and very dense but not as bad as say cocobolo

and its open grained so it would need to be filled for a finish

never tried on a guitar but it does have a good tap tone

[RGman]

Ironwood will work for a neck better than anything, it isn't too hard to work with providing you have sharp tools, but be warned, they won't be sharp for long after working with alot of it.

[fryovanni]

As everyone is pointing out IPE is dense as all get out. It is very stiff(extreamly high MOE). Very Stable. It is also a oily resonous wood. I would expect it to act much as most woods that have these charictoristics(Rosewoods). The main difference being this is going to be pretty extream on the stiffness, and weight. If it was not an oily wood I would expect extreamly bright, but the oils and resons will dampen it back a bit. Hard to say how it will dampen as that is kinda unique to each bit. Could be an interesting wood to try out. Maybe a bolt on so that you could try to compair other necks to it.

Peace,Rich