Difference between curly koa and solid koa?

Kanin

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What is the difference between the two?

What is curly?

Which one sounds better?
 
What is the difference between the two?

What is curly?

Which one sounds better?

One has a perm:)
Curly describes figuring in the wood. Some curl is very dramatic and the more curl the harder it is for a luthier to work with which adds to the price as well as the price for the rarer wood. Sound wise some say no difference some say the straighter stuff sounds better and some say the opposite. It is very beautiful.
 
Depends what you're looking for, asthetics or sound quality....I myself believe the straighter grain doesn't degrade the sound as much....MM Stan...
 
Owners of curly koa will tout all it's wonderful virtues, as will those with "solid". :rolleyes:

Mine is "solid", so it's clearly the better wood and 'ukulele. :p
 
Owners of curly koa will tout all it's wonderful virtues, as will those with "solid". :rolleyes:

Mine is "solid", so it's clearly the better wood and 'ukulele. :p

About sums it up :)

I will say that recently I have played both a curly-koa and straight-grained Kamaka concert uke. Both with stock strings. The curly koa didn't wow me, the straight grained one did.
 
I have a straight Koa and one with a good amount of curl in it. However, one is a 4 string (straight Koa) the other a 6 string (with the curl) ... so both sound different, not due to the grain but due to the type and number of strings. However, I love the look of the curly Koa wood.
 
If it is a high end uke (K brand or what not) the curly koa should be solid koa. Many of your imports that are around that $300 range have curly laminates. I have a curly koa kamaka and a few straight but figured grained koalohas and I love my koalohas more than my kamaka. I really don't think that the looks of a curly koa uke can be topped. As far as sound, I don't think there is that much of a difference either. I think the sound comes from other factors.
 
Some ukulele makers list curly koa as the wood because it is a laminate. Mitchell ukulele's do this. There is a very thin layer of curly koa on a cheaper wood for looks only.


Haolejohn beat me with the same info
 
Is anyone confused or is it just me? OK, thanks, it's just me.
Curly koa is solid koa and neither should be confused for laminated koa which is simply plywood on a diet.
If the question is about the tonal differences between straight grained and curly grained koa, as mentioned before, builders' opinions differ.
My own opinion is that straight grained wood (of any species) should in theory make a better instrument. When choosing tonewood one of the qualities to look for is stiffness (along with strength and weight.) A board with curly grain will be less stiff than one with straight grain. A knowledgeable builder will be able to compensate for the lack of strength to some degree by adjusting the size of the bracing and thickness of the sound board.
 
Well just take a look a Jakes latest videos on you tube.It looks pretty curly to me.

I've never heard that 'uke played w/o amplification. It sounds great with amplification...

I believe the subtle difference between curly and straight-grain Koa can only be appreciated live and "unplugged".
 
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...I love the look of the curly Koa wood.

Amen. If you see it up close it's absolutely incredible. The has a depth like I've never seen before. It's almost 3D.

I have both a solid koa ukulele and a curly koa ukulele. They sounds very different, but I don't attribute it to the wood. More to other factors. (I'm copying from Eller on that.)
 
Chuck is a master luthier. His opinion should carry a lot of weight. I have heard from more than one source that curly koa is softer grain than straight-grained koa and it absorbs more vibration, producing lower volume. Ask a luthier... and Chuck just happens to be a luthier and one of the best.
 
A board with curly grain will be less stiff than one with straight grain.

I dunno....

I've milled a lot of both curly and straight grained woods (including koa), and I just don't think you can make that absolute correlation....

There's floppy staight-grained trees, and stiff curly-grained trees....

I'd judge a set of wood by how it flexes and feels, and not by how it looks.... ;)
 
I will clarify that. In my experience, a board with curly grain will tend to be less stiff than one with straight grain.
It's not uncommon in a large board to have a wide variation of curl. I deflection test all of my wood and keep careful records when I build. In many of the koa I work with there will be boards that will be very curly in one area and have almost no curl in another. After resawing I will cut out my tops and backs from the very curly area and leave the other for sides because less figured grain is so much easier to bend, especially when bending cutaways. A while back I decided to check the deflection from two different areas of the same board, each plank of the same dimensions. When sanded at the same thickness and tested for deflection, the curly area bent more easily. Perhaps my own intuition is also leading me to believe that a board with a lot of cross grain will be weaker. By no means scientific, just my practical experience. I respect your experience as well.
And I certainly agree, when choosing good tone wood, physical traits should always be considered before visual ones.
 
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so, are curly koa and flamed koa different figure types?
 
Here's an example of what I was talking about. I only brought this up because I had the same question when I was looking to upgrade and it took me a while to figure out that if an instrument didn't say solid wood it was almost invariably a laminate. Thankfully I didn't make any purchases under that misconception.

http://www.amazon.com/Lanikai-CK-C-Concert-Curly-Ukulele/dp/B001E1M8ZO
 
Well just take a look a Jakes latest videos on you tube. It looks pretty curly to me.

Here's a nice looking curly Jake at the Kamaka factory:

P1060590.jpg



so, are curly koa and flamed koa different figure types?

Semantics, and they vary considerably from person-to-person, and from species-to-species....

In koa, the same figure can be given different names, sometime depending on grain orientation...
On the quarter the figure can be straight pencil-width flames marching across the pattern, often called "fiddleback" or "flamed"...
The same tree cut on the slab can produce figuring that looks wavy or "curly"...

But these terms--especially in the world of maple--can be used interchangeably, and it can get confusing.... ;)

And then--just to make it all that much more confusing--there's quilted koa and koa that displays a kind of birdseye figuring:

back.jpg
 
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