Jatoba Anyone?

[nerosrevenge]

Hi everyone, I am new here. I have been doing some planning and research on an off for a few years now an I figure it is time to have a more serious look at building my first guitar.

The question I have for now is...does anyone have experience using Jatoba in their guitars?? I have access to some and want to know if it is usable.

Thanks!

Steve.

[jmrentis]

Yes, it can be used for sure. I would though be careful on what you use it though as it can be pretty heavy. It seems to be a pretty hard wood, which can make it a tad tougher to work with and hard on the tools. I have only used a little bit of it for a neck laminate, but I liked it for sure. It's strong, looks nice to me, and was something that not too many people used. Personally, I wouldn't use any large portions of it because of it's weight, but that is just my opinion. Here is a pic of my neck laminate. I used to have a pic of it before I glued it up, but I think I might have deleted it. Also, I am going to use the last scrap of what I have left to make a couple curly maple/jatoba pick up rings to tie in the neck to the body a little.

What were you plans for it? Good luck!

Aside from Jatoba there are a number of woods that look similar, that might be better suited for guitar applications, but again it somewhat depends on what you want it for.

Edited May 25, 2007 by jmrentis

[nerosrevenge]

I had hoped to use it for a neck, similar to the rosewood neck on the McCarty PRS. Have you finished that neck yet? if so do you have any pics?

I had considered laminating it as well but I am undecided as to what I want to use it in conjunction with. The pieces that I have access to are about 3/4" thick so I will have to laminate anyway. I thought about using 3 pieces with 2 pieces of Maple in between dark/light/dark/light/dark kind of an idea.

[jmrentis]

No, haven't finished it yet, but I should be getting a lot done in the next month on my project in general. My blank is fairly thick because I wanted a tilt back headstock 13degrees or so and I figured I would do one piece, but after a while I decided I would just do a scarf for many different reasons. This should allow me to actually get two necks out of my blank hopefully, which would be nice. I could make one for my old guitar and for my project. If I can get some time away from schoolwork I would like to get it all cut up by next week. I need to order some hotrods and CF as well. Then I will probably order some MOP from Woodenspoke to design some inlays, I already have designed them, but I need to learn how to cut them and so on. This will take a while, with all the homework I seem to have.

All in all jatoba I think would work perfectly fine in a neck laminate and looks good to me. It is somewhere between mahogany and padauk in color. So I say go for it and keep us posted. Good luck.