Woodworking - Paulownia Wood 2022: Grain Problem 

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Woodworking Paulownia Wood 2020: Woodworking Grain Problem
Hello. I'm Stephen Ondich. You may remember me from such Internet classics as:
Paulownia Wood 2019: • Paulownia Wood 2023
Paulownia Wood 🌳 • Paulownia wood 🌳
and
Paulownia Wood vs Swamp Ash • Guitar - Paulownia Woo...
Empresswood has many desirable qualities for both wood carving and guitar wood luthiery. It is lightweight, has beautiful pronounced grain and grows sustain-ably at a rapid pace. This is why respected instrument companies like Fender Guitars (FDMC) and Mario Guitars use it for guitar body wood.
However, Paulownia has some challenging characteristics, as well. Kiri grain, while beautiful, is often irregular.
Thus, while a wild-grain stand-alone Paulownia board is desirable for custom woodworking projects, matching grain can be tough.
We milled approximately 50 Paulowia guitar blanks for luthiery applications. The blanks measured 1.80:" x 15" x 20". All were glued up in two equal staves at 7.5" widths.
Typically, we use a slip match process for producing body blanks made from two staves with similar color and grain pattern.
Woodworkers definitions of Slip Match, Book Match and Random Match can be found on the Oakwood Veneer site here: www.oakwoodven...
Most of the time slip matching two cuts of guitar tonewood for center-glued body blank works well. Presumably, two slip matched cuts from one piece wood look like each other.
However, Empresswood grain is unusually wild and erratic. Many boards have significant grain pattern shifts over the run of the board. This can cause grain tearing especially when woodturning because the blades constantly hit different grain directions. Classical guitar making luthiers have to match these wild grain patterns. Accordingly, traditional attempts to slip match guitar body blanks may yield inconsistent results.
The paulownia guitar body blank that I found during a random test search showed this issue. Basically, two staves that should have been a good match for each other but were not.
As a result, anyone doing Woodworking, Wood Carving, furniture making, classical guitar making, or modern luthiery should take special care when attempting to match Empresswood grain patterns together. With this particular wood, the best visual matches may be from different areas of the Paulownia tree rather than adjoining!
To see Paulownia trees growing in Europe, check out Cathaia International's page here:
www.cathaia.co...
Paulownia page:
www.commercial...
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