Wood selection kiaat

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AdrianK

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I'm new to the world of soundboards and tonewoods and would like some advice regarding wood selection for the soundboard. I've noted that soft woods such as spruce and cedar are used quite often for soundboards and there isn't much mention of kiaat. What I could find out is that kiaat falls in the same category as bloodwood. Is it a good idea to use kiaat for a soundboard or should I rather go for the safe choice of cedar? And does anyone know what the sound characteristics is of kiaat?
 
http://soundandsilence.wordpress.com/2006/12/11/my-new-zouk/
that article is the only one I have found where is was used for anything but a rosette or a bridge.
Looks like they used it for sides and back. I am thinking it is more of a hard wood like ebony and would kill the sound.
Now that being said, and many luthiers cringe when they hear this, but people have used maple for tops, and it classically a sides and back wood.
that is my thoughts. I am hoping someone with more experience will chime in
 
The traditional woods for ukuleles were hardwoods - koa in Hawaii, mahogany in the mainland US. Softwood tops like cedar and spruce are more modern innovations.

I don't know this wood but it appears to be only a fraction denser than koa and is said to glue and finish well. See http://www.wood-database.com/lumber-identification/hardwoods/muninga/

If the board pings when tapped, it seems worth a try (unless someone has already tried it and found it has other defects).
 
It works for this instrument..so I don't see why not for a uke.
kiaat_zpsf07fdd9b.jpg
 
AdrianK said:
I'm new to the world of soundboards and tonewoods and would like some advice regarding wood selection for the soundboard. I've noted that soft woods such as spruce and cedar are used quite often for soundboards and there isn't much mention of kiaat. What I could find out is that kiaat falls in the same category as bloodwood. Is it a good idea to use kiaat for a soundboard or should I rather go for the safe choice of cedar? And does anyone know what the sound characteristics is of kiaat?
Click to expand...

This is probably the best and easiest to understand description of woods and their tone in relation to each other that I have seen.

http://www.myamoeukuleles.com/woodOverview.php
 
reply

Thanks for the link, helped me alot with understanding density, grain and types of wood. Was a great help! I'm still a bit cautious when it gets to choosing wood as this will be my first uke build. I like the sound of a solid mahogany top and will compare the tapping sound of the kiaat to the mahogany when choosing wood.
 
For your first build, don't bother using your best wood. Really. It'll take some experience before you build so well the wood species is actually a factor to the sound produced.

I'm not at all sure of the grammar in the above sentences. "Factor to" or "factor of"... I speak and write Swedish really good though.
 
Sven,

Your English is better than most American's I know (for whatever that is worth lol).
 
Sven is right (write),

Don't worry about the wood choice to much, although I would use one of the easier woods to bend- Oregon myrtle is the easiest i've used (at .080", or 2 mm for sides) and looks amazing to.

Order the free LMI and stew mac catalog's and bask in their gadgety glory, but hide your credit card before doing so unless you enjoy financial molestation.
 
Sven is wrong - it's "factor in".*

Oh, but he's right about the rest.



* We English** get jealous of European polyglots, particularly if they're all-round nice guys like Sven. So we lie in wait with loaded prepositions, ready to slug him round the head with them. Take that!

** US speakers tend not to bother so much. Slackers.
 
Beau and Sven are perfectly correct - in a technical sense. If you take emotion and artistic merit out of it, the smart thing to do on the first build is to use wood that is inexpensive, easily worked and readily available. Your goal is probably to become acquainted with the process and many types of wood will do that for you. BUT - if kiaat is what lights your fire aesthetically and it is at hand, there is no harm in using it. If using a beautiful wood makes the build more enjoyable, that's just fine. My first build was done with padauk, which seems to be related to kiaat, and it worked out fine as far as the construction was concerned, although that particular instrument is clearly the worst result that I've had sonically. That is exactly what one would expect - you learn the refinements as you go and the first effort isn't likely to sound all that great no matter what wood you use.

Have fun and post some pictures!
 
Yup that was very well put. I wrote what I did because the questions were about the sonic qualities, and a first build won't exhaust the whole potential, sonically.

But if you want looks, choose whatever you like.
 
I'd like to point out that Regal made spruce topped ukes in the 1920s and '30s; it's hardly a modern innovation. I just reset the neck on one...a real cheapie, and it sounds freakin' great.

The engineering qualities that make spruce, western red cedar, and redwood so attractive are the combination of excellent stiffness to weight ratio, low density, and fairly high resonant Q (literally the opposite of damping factor). It's the total recipe that makes for "tone wood", and the rules do seem to be different for ukes. We use woods for tops that I'd hardly consider for guitar tops, yet they sound wonderful. Bear in mind that the heavier the top, the slower the response will be unless it's thinned way down...and that may not necessarily be good for strength.
 
saltytri said:
Beau and Sven are perfectly correct - in a technical sense. If you take emotion and artistic merit out of it, the smart thing to do on the first build is to use wood that is inexpensive, easily worked and readily available. Your goal is probably to become acquainted with the process and many types of wood will do that for you. BUT - if kiaat is what lights your fire aesthetically and it is at hand, there is no harm in using it. If using a beautiful wood makes the build more enjoyable, that's just fine. My first build was done with padauk, which seems to be related to kiaat, and it worked out fine as far as the construction was concerned, although that particular instrument is clearly the worst result that I've had sonically. That is exactly what one would expect - you learn the refinements as you go and the first effort isn't likely to sound all that great no matter what wood you use.

Have fun and post some pictures!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. It might be a better desition then to go for the more workable woods. To be honest, the kiaat (especially the brown and blonde) lookwise, does it for me, but sound is more important. Then again, what you said regarding my first built is most probably true, it's more a learning project than building a fine uke, although I'll do my best. I'll post some pics when I get there, but its going to take some time, I'm buying the tools as I go along.
 
Beau Hannam Ukuleles said:
Sven is right (write),

Don't worry about the wood choice to much, although I would use one of the easier woods to bend- Oregon myrtle is the easiest i've used (at .080", or 2 mm for sides) and looks amazing to.

Order the free LMI and stew mac catalog's and bask in their gadgety glory, but hide your credit card before doing so unless you enjoy financial molestation.
Click to expand...

haha! I have ordered the Stewmac catalogue, don't know if it's a good idea, its already hard enough not to buy tools. Ill also order one from LMI! thanks!
 
Just to follow up on my original thread. I bought the wood for my first Uke build, I went out to buy mahogany and spruce for the top, back and sides and rosewood for the fingerboard but ended up with what was available at this stage. I bought a piece of European beech wood for the top, South American mahogany (or Mahonie as said in Afrikaans) and got a beautiful piece of Kiaat offcut for free. The kiaat will be used for the bridge and fingerboard and maybe edging. The kiaat is quite hard and picks up on both the Beech wood blonde tone and the reddish brown tone of the mahogany. Ill post the pic of the wood if anyone is interested in how the kiaat looks if you haven't really seen it before.
 
I just read a nice new history of the uke. Not much lutherie stuff, but still a good read. Portuguese cabinet makers (probably), from Madiera built the first ukes using the machete as a model. Rather, the uke is a machete. They were probably used to using spruce for tops. In Hawaii American West Coast wood was 1/3 the cost of native wood due to a nasty trade treaty and poor harvesting techniques in Hawaii. The first uke builders no doubt had access to Sitka spruce if they wanted it. So the very first ukes may have been topped with spruce. The move to all-koa instruments was made as a nationalistic display to support the Hawaiian monarchy, even though the wood cost more. The book makes no mention of what body wood was used at first. Koa was certainly available, but tradition is such a nasty sister to culture they may have insisted on European woods. This needs more research, which for all I know has already been done. Anyone know?
 
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