All time favorite woods for trumpets.......

[Tarheel]

Crow,
That block of Koa burl is the hardest and heaviest piece of Koa I've ever seen. I've had several Hawaiians tell me the really good Koa never leaves the islands.  Back in the early 2000s, I purchased quite a bit of Koa from one individual, and finally he told me he was going to send me a block of the good stuff....this is the block he sent.  Frankly, I had been very happy with the Koa I had been getting from him, but after I got this block, I understood the difference.  And if you pick up this block of Koa, you will immediately know there is a difference. I wasn't able to get anymore....

[turkey stew]

Marvin, That is a sweet piece of Koa. I purchased a couple of squares for trumpets that were 5A curly. They were heavy and cost $$$$$$$$$$. I have`nt seen any like it in years. Koa does make a mighty fine horn!

[GregGwaltney]

Speaking about Koa got me to pull this piece out of storage. This is actually Australian Blackwood(cousin to Koa), generally a bit denser and a super tone wood. I bought this stuff from a logger in Australia ~15 years ago for acoustic guitar building. Never really used it, but I know it will make excellent trumpets. This piece is in the rough so hard to see the curl, but it is throughout the wood and beautiful. Anyway, just thought I would share another cool/unique wood for trumpets.

[turkey stew]

Sharp slab wood Greg! I'm sure you will turn some fine horns from the aussie blackwood. My first trumpet from you is made from it. Sweet sounding horn!

[GregGwaltney]

Sharp slab wood Greg! I'm sure you will turn some fine horns from the aussie blackwood. My first trumpet from you is made from it. Sweet sounding horn!

I thought I made one with it, forgot it went to you, that was a LONG time ago....lol

[turkey stew]

 One of your design trumpets. It is a good playing horn!

[GregGwaltney]

One of your design trumpets. It is a good playing horn!

I was looking back through my log book, almost 4 years ago, glad she is still a player for you.

[crow]

Crow,
That block of Koa burl is the hardest and heaviest piece of Koa I've ever seen. I've had several Hawaiians tell me the really good Koa never leaves the islands.  Back in the early 2000s, I purchased quite a bit of Koa from one individual, and finally he told me he was going to send me a block of the good stuff....this is the block he sent.  Frankly, I had been very happy with the Koa I had been getting from him, but after I got this block, I understood the difference.  And if you pick up this block of Koa, you will immediately know there is a difference. I wasn't able to get anymore....

, well it was worth the wait

[Greg Massey]

Blackwood , Ironwood, bocote, Cocobolo and Osage are some of my favorites ... but agree it all has to do with the tone i'm looking for regardless the woods, but i do agree woods do make the tones ....

[Meleagris gallopavo]

Reading back through I've noticed that ebonies only showed up as favorites a couple of times.  Although I've seen several trumpets made from burls they seem to be absent among the favorites.  Hence I'd like to understand why that is. 


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[mmclain]

Many Burls woods aren't very strong due to lack of orientation of the grain and can be tuff to turn without a fair bit of tear out if you don't know how to sharpen tooling. A dull tool paired with a poor method of turning is the best way to ruin a nice piece of wood. 
   

[GregGwaltney]

There are some excellent Ebonies (Macassar, B&W, Madagascar, etc)....and as Matt mentioned, the burls can be problematic, but fantastic if managed properly.

[Tarheel]

I really enjoy nice burl wood for trumpets....but burl wood can be cost prohibitive. There are quite a few other woods that fall into the same category of cost prohibitive, too.  Personally, I am uncomfortable turning customer wood, so I try to avoid that.  For me, if I'm going to have a problem, it's going to happen when I'm turning customer wood.  Numerous times a beautiful block of burl or an expensive fancy wood grain has turned into a plain blank of nothing special.  Quite a few times I've had a wood blank do the reverse and surprise me, but not as often as I would like....LOL! 

[Meleagris gallopavo]

I was wondering more about the sound quality of ebonies and burls.  I'm a nut about aesthetics, but it all comes back to performance.  I keep going round and round in my mind about the importance of the type of wood for trumpet sound quality.  I've heard on here that two trumpets made from different woods by the same maker will sound very similar.  My "opinion", which ain't much, is that is the case.  Anyway, got off topic.  My choices in woods are often driven by how rare and unique the wood is, which doesn't always align with tonality for a trumpet. 


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[GregGwaltney]

I was wondering more about the sound quality of ebonies and burls.  I'm a nut about aesthetics, but it all comes back to performance.  I keep going round and round in my mind about the importance of the type of wood for trumpet sound quality.  I've heard on here that two trumpets made from different woods by the same maker will sound very similar.  My "opinion", which ain't much, is that is the case.  Anyway, got off topic.  My choices in woods are often driven by how rare and unique the wood is, which doesn't always align with tonality for a trumpet. 


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I think it is a curse, but I can hear differences between various woods. Some Ebonies have great tonal properties, some seem more "dead" to me. Burls within the "good sounding" woods sound just as good to me, they are just a pain to turn/keep in one piece.