# Wood selection dilemma (Ziricote and Walnut Burl content)



## AnarchyDivine88 (Jun 28, 2012)

So, I'm having a custom guitar built with a Ziricote fretboard and a Walnut Burl top and my luthier just sent me pics of some pieces he's found.


Here's the Walnut burl:















And here's the Ziricote:
























The Burl top is nice, but it's not what I was looking for. I was hoping for a more swirled looking Burl kind of like these:



















And i was hoping for a more figured looking piece of Ziricote something like these:











So my question is do you guys think should I just stick with the pieces he sent or have him look for different ones? They may not be what I originally had in mind, but they're still damn nice looking. But still, I can't help but think there might be some pieces out there that I'd like more. Does anyone know of a good source for these woods that I could have him use instead?

I'm so torn as to what to do, and I knew this would be the best place to turn for help. Thanks guys!


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## drenz (Jun 28, 2012)

It's your custom guitar man, don't be afraid to stress dissatisfaction with some of the woods, the builder can always use the ones he has for you for other people and find you different ones. Just be open with him and get in early with your concerns, because he can't read your mind for you, and if he starts building then you're stuck with what you dont like and wont be a happy chap given how much you're probably spending!

Just giving the names of woods can be one thing, but there can lots of different factors to the appearance of the woods aswell. When i was having my custom Daemoness built for me, i had the woods i wanted along with pictures that showed exactly what style i was after, and this eliminated all confusion instead of just saying "Swamp Ash" and then rolling a dice.

Hope this helps!


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## Jontain (Jun 28, 2012)

It's _your_ custom man, hold out for woods that really blow you away. Last thing you wan't is to finally get the guitar in your hands only to think "I wish I got a different top" etc.

If the luthier is a full custom builder I wouldn't have thought it would be a problem at all, infact he would probably apprichiate the honest feedback as customer satisfaction is very important.


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## Necromagnon (Jun 28, 2012)

The two first pics doesn't work for me.

I agree with the opinions above. It's your guitar. Personnaly, I'd be happy if a customer said it's not what he want, just because it means he KNOWS. He knows what he want, and I guess it becomes very rare has nearly anybody can afford a custom build guitars without ever took more than 5 minuts thinking about it.

But in another hand, what you're showing is veneer burl. A matter in wood is that it's quite hard to find awesome piece of wood that are no veneer. The reason is simple: when you cut out a tree, you don't know how it will look like inside. So when you cut a tree that as awesome figure, you to use it as much as possible => veneers.
I may be wrong, but it's what I think.


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## AnarchyDivine88 (Jun 28, 2012)

Oops, I guess the pics of the wood he sent me weren't working. Here they are again. They should work this time.


































Yeah I might tell him to get different pieces, but I just wanted to get some opinions of the pieces he has. So what do you all think of these? I think they look nice, but they're not what I originally had in mind, so I might go with different ones. Also, if anyone knows of a good source for these woods please send a link.


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## Murdstone (Jun 28, 2012)

Sure they're nice pieces but as far as figuring goes, they're a little lacking (the ziricote more so than the walnut). I'd hold out until better pieces because you'll kick yourself later when you aren't satisfied with what you have.


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## AnarchyDivine88 (Jun 29, 2012)

Yeah, I decided to reject those pieces. I wasn't sure about turning down that Walnut burl top at first, because it looked so nice, but I'm sure any other ones he finds will look even better. I've never seen a bad piece of Walnut Burl, just varying degrees of awesome. And the Ziricote doesn't look bad, but I can definitely get a more figured piece than that.

Thanks guys! And again, if anyone knows of a good source for Walnut Burl and Ziricote, let me know.


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## Necromagnon (Jun 29, 2012)

Murdstone said:


> Sure they're nice pieces but as far as figuring goes, they're a little lacking (the ziricote more so than the walnut). I'd hold out until better pieces because you'll kick yourself later when you aren't satisfied with what you have.


Yeah. It's always very clear to see the figure with raw cut pieces... 

Seriously, This walnut is awesome! Tell him to send it to me, I'll give my adress. 
The ziricote is very very red...  
Never seen like that (and I've seen some). I guess, before decided to keep it or not, you could ask him to plane those pieces and wet it a little, to reveal figure and stain. If you don't like it, at least it will be done.


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## UnderTheSign (Jun 29, 2012)

If that were offered to me as walnut "burl" I'd frown, tbh...

Gilmer has some real nice ziricote from time to time. California Fruitwoods Home Page these guys have burl up on their website. eBay usually has some nice stuff for low prices as well.


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## Pikka Bird (Jun 29, 2012)

I think both pieces are extremely high quality, but the "burl" is not very burly and the ziricote is more streaky than webbed, so I can understand why you'd want to keep searching if you were looking for something else. I would personally love to have both pieces in my workshop.


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## Necromagnon (Jun 29, 2012)

UnderTheSign said:


> If that were offered to me as walnut "burl" I'd frown, tbh...


While it is, actually.
Not the very burl, but it's burl. We all know terms like burl, crotch, quartersawn or anything like this, but I think having a drawing with the explanation of every terms would be interesting. Burl is referred to a place in the tree. It's generally like we use to know, but sometimes less figured.

And I personnaly prefer greatly the piece he propose you than very "burly" pieces.


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## Murdstone (Jun 29, 2012)

Necromagnon said:


> Yeah. It's always very clear to see the figure with raw cut pieces...



Sure you can see that the pieces have figure to them, but when you look at the crazy burls that were posted there's no way that type of figure is going to magically appear on the board.


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## AnarchyDivine88 (Jun 29, 2012)

Thanks for your input, guys! Check out the new piece he found!







 
This one is waaay better than the first one! I'm so glad I turned the other one down. I'll have him keep looking, but this one would certainly make a nice top if he can't find a better one.


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## AnarchyDivine88 (Jun 29, 2012)

UnderTheSign said:


> If that were offered to me as walnut "burl" I'd frown, tbh...
> 
> Gilmer has some real nice ziricote from time to time. California Fruitwoods Home Page these guys have burl up on their website. eBay usually has some nice stuff for low prices as well.



Wow, thanks! Those look awesome! He has some really nice Buckeye Burl tops as well! I'm tempted to use one of those instead. I'll check ebay too. Thanks, man!


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## Levi79 (Jun 30, 2012)

That second top is awesome man. I'd personally try for a different piece of ziricote. Get some with some sapwood


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## bob123 (Jun 30, 2012)

better is subjective I suppose. Id prefer a WHOLE peice of wood 


If youre happy thats all that matters hombre.


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## Necromagnon (Jun 30, 2012)

Murdstone said:


> Sure you can see that the pieces have figure to them, but when you look at the crazy burls that were posted there's no way that type of figure is going to magically appear on the board.


Yes, off course. I wasn't talking about this being more burly.
I was saying that, evenif it's not as burl as he wants, without being planed, it's hard to see how beautiful it is.

When we bought the complete tree (8 lumbers of 3 m long  ) of ziricote with some fellows, I can assure you that the wood wasn't so beautiful, and when I firstly saw it, I was a little disappointing.
Then we planed a small part with plane and scrapers, and then...



That's what I wanted to say. 

And I clearly prefer the 1st one, but it's your custom, so go with your choice!


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## Demiurge (Jun 30, 2012)

AnarchyDivine88 said:


> Thanks for your input, guys! Check out the new piece he found!



 Nice.

I gotta say, though, I think that the original ziricote board might go well with this top. With so much going-on with the top, a less-busily-grained fretboard may not be a bad thing.


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## AnarchyDivine88 (Jul 19, 2012)

So after looking at the tops from the site that UnderTheSign posted, I'm considering getting a top from there. In addition to some great walnut burl tops he also has some really nice buckeye burl tops. So now I'm wondering, does anyone know what the tone of buckeye burl is like? I can't find anything online about it, except for some people saying that it absorbs tone, which I hope isn't true.

Does anybody have any insight on this? Much appreciated.


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## Necromagnon (Jul 20, 2012)




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## Jason Spell (Sep 1, 2012)

+1000 to the new top piece.


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## mwcarl (Sep 1, 2012)

Keep in mind that the first walnut top and the ziricote are likely covered in wax, so they'll look different (mostly lighter) once the wax has been removed. That said I'd also agree that if you're not crazy about the way it looks then I'd ask for other options, while being specific about what you're looking for. Expect that something that you didn't have in mind might blow you away though.


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## UnderTheSign (Sep 2, 2012)

Necromagnon said:


> While it is, actually.
> Not the very burl, but it's burl. We all know terms like burl, crotch, quartersawn or anything like this, but I think having a drawing with the explanation of every terms would be interesting. Burl is referred to a place in the tree. It's generally like we use to know, but sometimes less figured.
> 
> And I personnaly prefer greatly the piece he propose you than very "burly" pieces.


Oh, never saw this response... But I'm well aware of where wood burls come from (strangely enough it's called "root" burl in Dutch while it has fuck all to do with the roots...) and most burl pieces I've come across just have the better known "knotty" chaotic look.

Terms like quartersawn shouldn't be too hard to look up on woodworking websites but I agree on the crotch, birl, birds-eye, etc definitions. They're usually very vague and have been used and labelled incorrectly a lot (thanks for that, internets!).

OP's new top looks pretty sweet, wonder how it'll look as a top.


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## AscendingMatt (Sep 2, 2012)

check out gilmerwood.com they have nice pieces


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## Polythoral (Sep 2, 2012)

Note for people: Threads a month old, he probably decided on both things by now.


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## AnarchyDivine88 (Sep 4, 2012)

Woah, I forgot about this thread haha well, as long as it's already bumped back up, I might as well update you all on what's happened since. Actually, I didn't go with any of those. Instead I ended up contacting that wood supplier that UnderTheSign posted (thanks again, man!) and decided to go with a Buckeye Burl top instead of a Walnut Burl, because he has such nice Buckeye Burl tops. Originally I wanted to go with Walnut for the tone as well as the looks, and I was afraid to use Buckeye because it's a very soft and porous wood and would absorb sound and therefore not be as good, as far as tone goes. But then I found out that if I have a very thin viscosity epoxy applied to the buckeye burl, than it would solve any tone absorption issues. I had to wait for him to get a new inventory of buckeye burl tops and then after he did, he showed me all the new pieces and I've narrowed it down to a few selections. Now I just have to pick which one I'm gonna use (I'm very indecisive, as you can see ).

Here are my top choices:

#11







#41






#7






#71






#9







Any thoughts, guys? I'm gonna try to give him an answer in the next few days. I know it's ultimately up to me, but some outside opinions can be helpful sometimes in making a decision like this.

Unfortunately, my favorite piece isn't available...

#Q8






OH, HOW IT KILLS ME THAT IT'S SOLD OUT!! 

As far as the Ziricote goes, I think I'll just stick with what I have. Unless anyone has any links to amazing fretboard sized ziricote suppliers!


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## AnarchyDivine88 (Sep 4, 2012)

Polythoral said:


> Note for people: Threads a month old, he probably decided on both things by now.



You would think, right? A normal person certainly would have


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## Polythoral (Sep 4, 2012)

Holy jeebus, the last one/#9 or whatnot looks insane. 

as for ziricote fingerboards, check www.gilmerwood.com

https://www.gilmerwood.com/view_image.php?img=uploaded/955636446.jpg
https://www.gilmerwood.com/view_image.php?img=uploaded/147121152.jpg
(won't let me direct link them)


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## Winspear (Sep 4, 2012)

I like #11 most. Generally I don't like such crazy figuring when it's bookmatched - I think it looks weird to have the same patterns each side etc. But I dig it on that one piece, quite a lot. Also 71 for the same reason but I don't like the colour


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## Fiction (Sep 4, 2012)

#7, Reminds me a demon-husky.

Bitches love demon huskies.


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## JaeSwift (Sep 4, 2012)

Fiction said:


> #7, Reminds me a demon-husky.
> 
> Bitches love demon huskies.



It's like a barren landscape crossed with an angry demon husky rapist.


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## JayFraser (Sep 4, 2012)

I would personally go #11 or #9. 
They just look goddamn awesome to me.


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## OfArtAndArsenal (Sep 4, 2012)

I like #7, and have you considered pale-moon ebony in place of ziricote?


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## UnderTheSign (Sep 4, 2012)

#41 for sure. Not too crazy but some real nice colour variations and figure.


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## ForThisGift (Sep 4, 2012)

I personally like #71 the best. I like the color tone of it, and that it has a bit less contrast than the others.


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## ugly_guitar_guy (Sep 5, 2012)

Yeah, I vote #71. That's a sweet burl top that will look gorgeous when finished!


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