Expert: paul wilczynski - 8/16/2008

Question
Hi . When we use Sycamore as back & sides wood , how will be the voice ? I prefer Rosewood for bright and clear tone , but I don't know what's the difference between Rosewood & Sycamore !

Answer
I can't comment on the difference between these unless I know which species of rosewood we're discussing, and especially which species of sycamore.

Woods which are commonly called "sycamore" vary all over the planet in terms of their resonant and damping qualities (the two most important sonic factors in determining suitability of a wood for guitar construction).

There is so much variety in sycamore.

I suspect (if you're writing from the USA) that you're talking about American sycamore (platanus occidentalis), one of the most common landscaping trees in the USA, specified by architects as "plane trees", but you'll have to verify this and let me know before we can go any further with this.

European Sycamore is similar to some maple species, some European sycamores (acer pseudoplatanus) are called "false maple".

In America, we have a species of sycamore (platanus racemosa) called "lacewood", (In Australia, platanus acerifolia is called lacewood!) which has a lovely figure and can be a pain to bend sides from, and so on.

If you could give me a Latin binomial, so we could nail down species and genus, it might be easier to comment.

This is a problem with local common names--a common name does not give us enough information to tell us specifically what kind of wood we're holding in our hands and contemplating using to build an instrument.

--Paul