The black lines are essentially damaged wood through fungus - why you would want that on a soundboard I have no idea..
Why would anybody want any wood on a soundboard? Because they either like the sound or they like the appearance (hopefully both at the same time). So the use of spalted wood may originally have been merely an experiment but the sound was something the maker liked. Or it looked very nice and people wanted to buy the instrument. Or both. In any event, by the time the wood is made into a soundboard the fungus has died (so has the wood!) so it's not as if someone with a spalted wood soundboard is potentially introducing harmful fungus into other woods in the house.
What I mean is, with solid wood, those black lines are damage in the wood. On a soundboard, tone comes from the wood being structurally sound and the wood fibres doing their job. I discussed spalting with a couple of well known luthiers and they agreed - terrible material for making soundboards. Laminate perhaps, but not as solid tonewood. It's like using a sheet of tonewood with a crack in it (is how one described it to me)
This I think gets into the whole "laminated vs. solid" discussion. I understand your point about spalted not being good as a solid tonewood. I didn't know it was ever used as a solid tonewood -- I've only seen it used in laminated ukes.
Anyone heard of rotten wood? Doesn't sound appealing, but paired with a Engelmann top? Maybe!
View attachment 100308
(Reviving this old thread...)
I see that the Asian (Chinese?) builder VTAB is now offering a concert ukulele made from "deadwood", either as all deadwood or with a solid spruce top. I assume from looking at the photos that deadwood is what we normally refer to as spalted wood. Since the all-deadwood instrument is cheaper than the one with the solid spruce top, I'm assuming the deadwood is a laminate, rather than solid. To my mind, using the term deadwood is a poor choice for a musical instrument where the last thing you want is something described as dead!
https://meivie.com/collections/2017...-deadwood-concert-ukulele?variant=36280658130
Not my cup of tea at all! :biglaugh:
I like to see fine grain wood pattern, & little to no bling.