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I recently ordered some mesquite grilling planks and was rather surprised at what was sent to me. Very dense, heavy, thick, and quite nice figure. I realize that a back might end up being 3 pieces. But I have to imagine it would work out quite well. Anybody have experience? I bet the sound hole "nose" ain't too bad either! Is this stuff mineral laced? Tough on blades?

Note: based on hardness data I found, this most def is screwbean mesquite, not honey locust. It's just too hard to be remotely honey locust

Blood wood 2900 (Janka)
Osage Orange 2500
Screwbean Mesquite 2335
Honey Locust Mesquite 1580

The mesquite grilling boards remind me of the Osage and Bloodwood in the shop

Mike

I have seen a few guitars built with mesquite and it seems to work well. However, it is hard to find boards wide enough for a guitar because the trees are normally kind of squat and small.

I cut Mesquite logs and use it on electric builds.
Makes a great fretboard. I don't know about tone wood.
In this log, the center crack was entirely filled with sand.
It is hard but machines well.
Most of the logs I get are around 12" diameter, bit I have seen larger.
A wet log is incredibly heavy.
Dan

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Phoenix AZ: 40' tall mesquite went down during a summer storm 4 houses down from me - it had a 2' wide trunk, straight up and down w/no branches, beautiful. they had it hauled off before I could get any of it. I do have a few pieces curing for fretboards.
Mesquite is everywhere here in Phoenix, and many of them have two-foot-plus trunks.

I've been working on this one for a while, the back, sides, and neck are all mesquite. The boards I had were wide enough for a 2 piece back, I just prefer a 3 piece back. I got the boards from an online dealer, they were sold as stair treads.
It's unfinished in this photo, I'm just starting the varnish on the body.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Very nice! How does one source mesquite?

I ordered it online, I can't remember exactly where, I'll see if I can find the receipt.
What I ordered was stair treads, I got two 4/4x8"x4' for about $80 IIRC.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Here's a small set a friend of mine culled from a bunch of very wide flooring boards. It has some real nice quilting and beeswing figure and a decent, though slightly thuddy tap that reminds me of denser mahogany.


Ken Jones
Mountain Song Guitars

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Mountain Song Guitars www.mountainsongguitars.com

Good find, Ken!
Never seen any like that.
I gotta find me some figured logs.
Dan

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I got it from this place, I think I placed the order by phone.
http://www.mesquitefloors.com/stair-components
MT12x44
Of the two that I got, one was clear of defects, but the other had a couple of bad spots, one was a void all the way through right at the center of the board. I used that for the neck, but it's really a little heavy for a neck. Would make and excellent fretboard.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Here's a link to a full mesquite parlor that I built for the 2012 Challenge. I sourced the mesquite from a local lumbermill's dumpster. Very easy to work, bend, etc--I'll build with it again. I did everything on the guitar out of mesquite (neck, fretboard, lining, heel & neck blocks, bridge, rosette, etc) except for the soundboard and braces.

viewtopic.php?f=10133&t=37205






--jaybird

That was a nice guitar, Jay!

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Carl Barney had some gorgeous Mesquite a few years ago, and it was tempting...

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."