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Jatoba Anyone?


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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.

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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.

BuildingPics031.jpg

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 by jmrentis
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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.

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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.

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