New Wood: Pistachio

I've always been curious about pistachio wood but never found a piece I liked at affordable prices. I bought some the other day to try out. Now I like wild wood, but this is pretty wild even for me. Green. Pink. Red. Brown! Figure! Clown puke uke? Some impressions.

- A very hard, dense wood which surprised me. Heavy. Feels brittle. Chip out problems? Janka hardness is supposed to be 2,000. My plates are much harder.

- Tough on tools. (!!!). Dulls edges fast. Plates came as almost 20 mil thickness (0.2 inch or 5 mm). Lot of work there.

- Seems to to sand and glue nicely. Not oily. Very dry.

- No odor. Smells like wood. Sawdust fine and nasty. No allergic reactions so far.

Conclusion: This stuff is going to be a challenge. Bending could be an adventure. An expensive adventure.

Picture below of jointed back plates. Still trying to get my mind around to green and pink. Musically it feels really good.

Pistachio! Are you nuts?

( couldn't resist that, I will go now)

Whatever you do make sure you don't add a steering wheel inlay...... It'll drive you nuts
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Sorry.

Good luck with the build. Keep us posted

Gorgeous though, looking forward to seeing it finished.

There's some crazy lookin' graft pieces of pistachio around.

Looks and sounds - interesting. You certainly have a spirit of adventure!

Bob

Very pretty. I'll be interested to hear progress and results.

I like the green and pink.

I know a few things about pistachio:
1. I really like the look of it, especially some of the grafted sets from Oregon Wild Wood

2. Aaron Keim is going to be using it for the new Beansprout banjo ukes (but probably not for the pot as it is very dense/heavy) and has done one or two Mya Moes with it

3. I tried to get two well known luthiers to use it for two different custom projects and they both declined. I didn't push it too hard and I'm not dissatisfied with the choices they made, but they were not interested at all in the experiment. I'm not sure what that says, but it says something

I have used it so far for fingerboards, headplates, binding, banjo rim segments and uke backs and sides. It varies in color, which is fun. It also varies a bit in stiffness from root to fruit wood and heart to sap wood. It is somewhere between rock maple and nice rosewood in weight and stiffness. I have doubled down on it for my future builds as a domestic and sustainable source for dense tonewood and fingerboards. See what I am up to with it here: thebeansprout.com

I get it from woodfromthewest.com
Aaron