A couple of rosettes in Ancient Spruce

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BR Ukuleles

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I'm building a couple more commissioned instruments using some Ancient Sitka Spruce (carbon dated to 2850 before present). This time a tenor and soprano. The tenor body is going to be some figured Babinga, while the soprano will be Tiger Myrtle.

tenor_rosette.jpgtenor_rosette2.jpgsoprano_rosette.jpgtiger_myrtle_back-2.jpgbabinga_back-2.jpg
 
This ancient sitka spruce is beautiful, its colour is absolutely stunning.
And you've done a wonderful job with those rosettes, very sober, very elegant as usual ! :)
 
Hi Allen. They are both going to look stunning. What have you used in the rossette?
 
The soprano has some spalted Mango that was dropped off at the Cairns Woodworkers Guild and then tossed in the bin. I rescued a large block of it. I chose it because of the red hues in parts of it. Tiger Myrtle doesn't lend itself to a large color pallet, so picking trim is actually a bit restrictive.

The tenor has some York Gum burl that grows north of Perth. It also has a bit of Pau Abalone. The Babinga has a fair bit of brown to peach tone to it, so am trying to keep to those colors.
 
Thanks Allen. Look forward to seeing the end results. Have you ever used melaleuka timber for ukulele`s?
 
Thanks Liam. Would like to catch up with yourself and Allen some day. Let me know if you are ever down Ipswich way.
 
Wow. This is a stupid question I know, but how does one come by wood that old? And how did it keep from decaying?
 
Great color on the spruce. That's going to look awesome when finished up
 
The spruce what found when excavating for a factory in Craig Alaska. Just like sinker wood, when there is no air, there is no rot.

The pieces I have are quite light, very stiff both across and with the grain. It feels a bit like unglazed porcelain when you run it through your fingers. I'm treating it like a Red Spruce top for bracing considerations as it's the closest to that rather than plain sitka spruce.

I guess many of you didn't see the Baritone I've already built and I posted in the uke talk part of the forum.
 
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