Mango Wood

[Mender]

I've seen a lot of furniture made out of mango wood, and it seems to be quite dense. Has anyone here used it for a guitar body or neck?

Also, does anyone know where I can buy the wood in the UK? Any web search only returns results for furniture, bowls, and ornaments

[verhoevenc]

I have some that I plan to use for a solid-body. Dunno if I'd use it for a neck though. A lot of it that I've seen has grain that's a little more "swoopy" than I would like to see in a neck. That said, if you can find some straight quartered stuff that's well season'd, I'd say go ahead and build with it and make it a bolt on just in case.

Chris

[Mender]

...That said, if you can find some straight quartered stuff that's well season'd, I'd say go ahead and build with it and make it a bolt on just in case.

Chris

I'd just like to find some mango wood! None of the (very few) hardwood timber dealers around here have any idea where to get it, and two of them have never even heard of mango wood I showed one of them a photograph of a mango wood coffee table, he said, "Oh, you mean spalted pine."

I swear, the UK is way behind other countries on some things, and hopelessly expensive on others

[jessejames]

I can get you some curly mango! I am in the states though. But I can get you some you can resaw into tops.

[Mender]

I can get you some curly mango! I am in the states though. But I can get you some you can resaw into tops.

Thanks my friend, but shipping it to the UK would be very expensive. Also I don't have the facility for resawing

[jessejames]

Well I can resaw it for you. If you want just a couple of sets, then you wouldn't get killed on shipping.

[guitar101]

Try this link but I don't know how much shipping would be..

http://www.curlykoa.com/mangoguitarsets

I bought a Mango veneered body from Warmoth several years ago and finished it. The wood took stain very well..

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=29815&st=0&p=328702&hl=mango&fromsearch=1&#entry328702

[Mender]

Thankyou both What I have decided to do is wait a while before pursuing this. You may have read on here a few months ago, I had surgery on my wrist in November to remove a piece of bone from my left wrist to relieve pain and allow me to rotate my forearm. Unfortunately, it didn't go well. The ulna hasn't settled down at all, and any movement of my wrist causes the ulna to pop up, making the back of my wrist look like a camel's hump, accompanied by a lot more pain than I had before the surgery

I saw the surgeon again last week, and he is going to carry out further surgery to try and stabilise it. He will be fitting a prosthetic radial ulna (the bit of bone he removed last time)to hold the bone in place, and he will be fusing to of the carpal bones in the back of the wrist. We won't know how much movement this will leave me with in the wrist until about four months after the surgery. I will be in a rigid splint from above the elbow to the tips of my fingers for eight weeks, then a flexible support and lots of physiotherapy for a couple of months. Hopefully, after all that, I'll be able to play guitar again - not been able to do that at all since the last surgery, and start building again.

If things don't go according to plan, I'll be stuck with very limited use of my left hand

[Muzz]

Hi Mender, Sounds like you and I are the walking wounded at the moment. I have been told by my doctor that the carpal fusion is usually very effective in stopping the pain, all the joints that inflame the soft tissue are immobilized and the tissue can heal and settle down. And the wrist can still retain a proportion of movement to allow guitar playing and woodwork. I hope it goes well for you and I think the odds are on your side for a good outcome. I broke my scaphoid a long time ago and had bone graft surgery to rejoin the pieces. I have had reduced (actually no) hyperextension movement in my wrist ever since but I have learned to compensate, and most people would never know. I too have had all the future possibilities explained to me, but it seems to be hanging in there well so far. Good chance that you will soon have a pain free wrist but you might have to relearn how to strum.

I can sympathize with the pain, I spent the weekend in critical care after a back injury. I was at level 8 pain when I went in to the hospital, then suddenly went into pain at the top of the scale, at that point I couldn't move apart from shaking uncontrollably and swearing my head off and just heard someone say, quick get a line into him, and then I felt the warm rush as the morphine swept through my body taking a good chunk of the pain with it. I have had the MRI scan, the injury is minor (geez I would hate to have a major one ) and I am back on my feet again and the pain is back to manageable levels and easing slowly with the passing days. I have just been able to get some sleep since yesterday. My doctor tells me I should be fully recovered in 3 months.

Hang in there

[Mender]

Hi Mender, Sounds like you and I are the walking wounded at the moment. I have been told by my doctor that the carpal fusion is usually very effective in stopping the pain, all the joints that inflame the soft tissue are immobilized and the tissue can heal and settle down. And the wrist can still retain a proportion of movement to allow guitar playing and woodwork. I hope it goes well for you and I think the odds are on your side for a good outcome. I broke my scaphoid a long time ago and had bone graft surgery to rejoin the pieces. I have had reduced (actually no) hyperextension movement in my wrist ever since but I have learned to compensate, and most people would never know. I too have had all the future possibilities explained to me, but it seems to be hanging in there well so far. Good chance that you will soon have a pain free wrist but you might have to relearn how to strum.

I can sympathize with the pain, I spent the weekend in critical care after a back injury. I was at level 8 pain when I went in to the hospital, then suddenly went into pain at the top of the scale, at that point I couldn't move apart from shaking uncontrollably and swearing my head off and just heard someone say, quick get a line into him, and then I felt the warm rush as the morphine swept through my body taking a good chunk of the pain with it. I have had the MRI scan, the injury is minor (geez I would hate to have a major one ) and I am back on my feet again and the pain is back to manageable levels and easing slowly with the passing days. I have just been able to get some sleep since yesterday. My doctor tells me I should be fully recovered in 3 months.

Hang in there

Oh my! Your back injury sounds nasty. I hope it doesn't leave you with any lasting problems

I have back pain, along with pains all over at one time or another, which is due to my rheumatoid arthritis. I've learned to ignore the pain in general, but it can still make me wince from time to time.

As for strumming, I don't think that will be my problem. My problem will be forearm rotation and wrist movement for fretting. The fingers of my right hand are deformed because of arthritic joint damage, but I can hold a plectrum with no problem, and the right wrist is fine, but finger picking (which I used to love doing pre-1982) is definitely out of the question for me, although simple hybrid picking should still be possible as long as I can operate the fingerboard with my left hand

[Workingman]

Good luck to both of you. I hope to see your back in action if for nothing else than the selfish reason that I enjoy your build threads.

[SwedishLuthier]

Mango wood uke:

http://www.ukulelevideo.com/mango-wood-ukulele/

one more:

http://www.myspace.com/mjlurveyguitars/photos/56172903#%7B%22ImageId%22%3A56172903%7D

yet another one:

http://www.dalymusic.com/eddy-finn-ef-80-mango-wood-tenor-uke.aspx

Quatro:

http://ukuleleacademy.bigcartel.com/product/makai-solid-spruce-top-baritone-size-ukulele

a whole buch of them:

http://www.drumza.com/product/Lanikai-SM-T-Solid-Spalted-Mango-Ukulele.html

for ukuleles it seems that mango are being used for both backs, sides and tops.