Ovangkol and Sitka Tenor - Photo Set

I had never heard of Ovangkol until a fellow was clearing out some guitar size sets of various species and this was in the mix. Apparently from West Africa this set has some spectacular color and figure. It bent very easy, but does have gigantic pore that need a lot of attention if you plan on filling them.

Australian Blackwood bindings and Ringed Gidgee fret board. Finished in high gloss lacquer.

That's beautiful Allen.
I've used Ovangkol on a couple of tenor ukes and have a guitar set bent and ready to go when the fancy takes me. I love it - a couple of my sets have fantastic flame figure which has a deep 3D effect. Oddly, my own experience is somewhat different to yours in that I found the wood quite hard work to hand bend, but only in the sense that it really would rather stay straight thanks very much! It doesn't have any tendency to bend unevenly, split, crack or splinter. I now thin sides down 0.1 mm more than I would for other woods, and this seems to help. The wood is well worth the effort anyway. I didn't find the pores too much of an issue - no worse than rosewood and easily addressed using your epoxy fill method (I'm eternally grateful for your video on that subject).

I cannot bend the stuff - if it's the same : Amazaque?

Allen said:

Ringed Gidgee fret board

Click to expand...

I had to look that up, and boy am I glad I did! It's a stunning wood! Does it ever grow large enough for anything bigger than fretboards and knife handles?

I had to look that up, and boy am I glad I did! It's a stunning wood! Does it ever grow large enough for anything bigger than fretboards and knife handles?

Click to expand...

Yes, it does, though much more difficult to source. However it's extremely heavy so probably not the best for back and sides, and you'd never use it for a soundboard.

Pete Howlett said:

I cannot bend the stuff - if it's the same : Amazaque?

Click to expand...

It was purchased originally from LMI, and had their label on it. I'm only going on that.

AKA Amazaque, and it can work as a soundboard ...



It's a sweet sounding uke.

To be fair, I was going to pair it with a spruce top - but the person it was for decided she didn't want spruce and twisted my arm to use Ovangkol for the top as well.

Allen said:

Yes, it does, though much more difficult to source. However it's extremely heavy so probably not the best for back and sides, and you'd never use it for a soundboard.

Click to expand...

It's always nice to discover new timber species. Australia sure has plenty of interesting wood to choose from! Here in Japan, most of the luthiers seem to be unwilling to experiment much with local stuff.