I have a number of sets of Premium Grade Malaysian Backwood.

Blackwood set

The overall coloring of the Timber, is in my opinion very similar to Ziricote , with black and dark grey colors, highlighted by subtle reddish browns and or green Hues.

Blackwood is denser tham most Rosewood, but that’s not suprising as Malyasian Blackwood is not a true Rosewood.

Blackwood  has a sustaining ,glassy taptone not unlike African Blackwood (which is a true Rosewood). All in all, it is a Premium Tone wood ,suited to all sorts of Guitars types.

I have decided to take the set shown in this post and make a cutaway steel string, the project will be known as “SP3.”.At this stage I intend the Guitar to have a Northan Californian Redwood top, which I concider is a superb Tone wood, haveing very similar qualities to spruce .With its georgious Honey Brown colourings this top should really set of the Blackwood.

If you want to follow the building of this instrument then do so under the “Special Projects” Category,”SP3.” which will detail the building if this guitar from start to finnish.

he first Job is to join the two halves of the back Set.I do this in LMI’s Front and back joining Unit, in my view “the best thing since sliced Bread”

The two halves are jointed so that not a speck of light can be seen when the two halves are held together up to the light.I like to plane my sides on a “shooting board” with a No.5 or 6 Plane. I can achieve perfect results every time using this method.

Once satisfied that there is no light showing between the boards,glue is applied and the boards are pulled up tight in the LMI Unit.I then leave the back to dry overnight.