Chestnut as a tone wood?

[Dave Bagwill]

I've got access to some very nice California chestnut, but have not found much for/against it as a tonewood, on the interweb. Any experience with it on the forum?

[Kevin in California]

It's from Californy, it must be good.

Kevin (from Californy)

[TonyinNYC]

Any well seasoned hard wood will make a fine guitar. Would you ever consider oak as a tonewood? Most people would not, but yet it makes excellent guitars. It is the sound board that makes up most of the sound produced by the guitar.
Have you not read about Antonio Torres Jurado? Better known as Antonio de Torres? The dude made a guitar with a back and sides of papier mache just to prove that point.
Now that I think about it, pretty much any wood will make a decent guitar if you build the sound board properly.
Do you have any pictures of the aforementioned chestnut?

[Dave Bagwill]

The problem with this chestnut is not the seasoning but the twisting - you can end up with what is called 'short fibers' that would not run the length of your project.
That being said, I was planning on posting a pic as soon as I get one.
On the hardness scale, chestnut is down there close to Poplar, which is pretty soft. So we'll see.

[Bob Matthews]

I personally wouldn't use chestnut for a guitar, but my experience with it here is with home grown UK timber, ymmv.

The chestnut I have used seemed to be only half as hard as English oak and had a lot of twist to it, and if I remember correctly, it was also much lighter (less dense) than oak.

All the chestnut trees I see growing here - both Spanish (sweet chestnut) and horse chestnut (conker trees) - have tremendous twist running up the trunk, probably one of the most prominent twists in all our native trees, and as we all know, twist equates to run out which is a bad thing in guitar construction.

Bob

[Dave Bagwill]

I think it's the same with the chestnut here in the colonies, Bob!
Man, I had one of those 'conkers' in the back yard and they are demonic. I dispossessed it, finally, to the woodpile. :-) One too many conks to the noggin.

[Herman]

Never payed any attention to it, but since you brought it up I looked at the many chestnut trees around here. And to be short: They all look like corkscrews here too. No news from the old world, though.