Acoustic Guitar Construction

plenty of cash but isn't often around in the UK seems to me. What you guys think? I'd obviously be saving it up till my skills were at least respectable! Is the sapwood a bad thing? Certainly looks cool

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Very-Old-Braz ... 1c33ae1efb

IMO -- way too much $$ for that much sap wood. $800 US dollars will/should buy a very nice set. BRW is not scarce or rare it is just traded at high prices -- be careful. Here's what John Grevens recently published

Brazilian rosewood: A great tonewood by any measure. Scarce, expensive, problematic in many ways for builders, but not nearly as scarce or expensive as the public is lead to believe. We all get our Brazllian from a very few reliable sources and we all pay about the same price for it. The basic grade of decent but not perfect Brazllian runs $350-500 a set. Some of these sets are quite lovely and very serviceable. These sets have less quarter sawn material, not so colorful, some knots or pin holes or other issues that make it less marketable. It can make a fine sounding guitar in capable hands, but may not be as stable over time and is simply not as desirable.
By comparison, fine rosewoods other than Brazilian can be had for $150-300 a set and do not have so many issues for the builder or owner to deal with. Better cosmetics for the price. The middle Brazilian gades consists of good color, possibly some spider figure, better quartering but usually not totally quartered, and fewer flaws. These sets can be had for $500-800 a set.
The highest grades of Brazilian come in two forms: dead quartered in a uniform brick red color and some spider figwe AND/OR wildly figured sets with stunning color changes (also known as "stump wood" for obvious reasons). The best of either of these styles will command $ 800 to
$2000 a set, but if you have good sources, $1200-1500 a set.

I know that it's the cream of the crop but, with the cost for sets of any thing I would build with and it's proclivity to crack I've found that I'd rather work with other woods.

This set of Brazilian cost me about $850. First I've work with so I have no other comparisons but it went quite nicely through bending and such. No problems.

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1084&p=10787#p10787

Check out these guys:
Madeirainc.com

They sell CITES certified BRW in europe and you have plenty of choices. Plus, for nearly the same money, they sell better looking wood. That ebay wood was cut 30 years ago according to the seller, and it has curl in the lower bout area which is indicative of stump wood. I have nicer sets I bought for $350. If it had paperwork, I would sell you a set. Actually...I probably wouldnt! lol I am a wood hoarder. Anyway, I don't care for that set. It's not the best quality out there.

i did find the madeira guys but if you look they're all sold out. THESE guys on the other hand seem to have some major wood, might go with the EIR cut in 1983, haven't asked about the braz prices but some unbelievable looking sets. They've also got some german spruce tops cut in the eighties which i guess are nicely matured

Eurospruce

mike-p wrote:i did find the madeira guys but if you look they're all sold out.

Madeira may not show any sets available on their website, but contacting them may help.
Aside from two sellers on ebay, Madeira is most likely the only company that is gonna be able to successfully get a set of Braz into the UK.
"Successfully" meaning hassle-free with CITES paperwork. (BTW, the two ebay sellers who can ship real Braz internationally are heavily "tied in" with Madeira.)

If you're just wanting to research valuable difficult-to-obtain exotics that lend themselves well to high-end guitars, here are a few options that I would happily use in place of Brazilian:
African blackwood
Madagascar rosewood
Honduras rosewood
Cocobolo

Of course, there are many others.