Sycamore Plantanus occidentalis
Quartered sycamore displays a prominent lace. The heartwood usually displays straight, even textured fine grain which is pale reddish brown. When quarter sawn, possesses a distinctive fleck figure. It has good workability but may bind on saws and may display high shrinkage with warping tendency. Air drying takes long….and it is very stable in service once dry. There is much volumetric shrinkage and quartersawn is the most stable. As a tonewood, it is moderately easy to work with and produces a striking guitar.
The sapwood of Sycamore is white to light yellow, while the heartwood is light to dark brown. It is classified as moderate in weight, hardness, stiffness, shock resistance, strength in bending, endwise compression and nail holding ability. It has a close texture, glues well and resists splitting due to interlocked grain. It holds its shape well after steaming and machines well, but requires high speed cutter heads to prevent chipping. It shrinks moderately in drying and is inclined to warp when flat sawn. It is odorless, stain free and tasteless. It has a close texture, glues well and resists splitting due to interlocked grain. It holds its shape well after steaming and machines well, but requires high speed cutter heads to prevent chipping.
Rick Davis of Running Dog guitars says: ”In density, stiffness and hardness, is closer to mahogany than to the maples. It can be as soft as cardboard, floppy and generally a terrible wood for anything other than pulp. Some trees seem to produce harder, denser wood and that’s the stuff for guitars. It may be somewhat tighter-grained, but grain alone isn’t indicative of the better wood. I can only say that I weigh each board (by hefting it, not quantitatively), knock on it, push a fingernail into the surface — generally get a feeling for the individual piece before purchasing it for guitars.”
“Quartersawing is essential for the sycamore look: the rays and fleck only show up when the wood’s pretty well quartered. Some is reddish in color and, in limited experience, seems to be very dense and stiff. But the light colored wood can be equally stiff, too. Or not. Individual pieces have to be evaluated. It’s pretty easy to work. Sands and scrapes cleanly, bends well, is easy on edge tools. It is porous though so use excess glue and expect to add an extra coat or two of lacquer. I found that rewashing it was OK but it’s fibrous and tends to clog the lower guides.”
This wood is somewhere between mahogany and maple- good clean overtones like maple but with that punch and elasticity of mahogany.
Rick Davis again: “Tonally I liken it to good mahogany: it’s more clean, trebly, and melodic than dark and complex. Projection is OK. The softer sycamore does not produce much volume and gets muddy; I avoid it. As with mahogany, I like to use it with Engelmann or European spruce rather than the denser spruces. I don’t think sycamore’s lightness of tone would couple well with, i.e., red spruce’s bassiness or with cedar’s or redwood’s darkness”.
Janka rating is 770, no CITES listing. Specific gravity is 0.46
But... I like it and love to use it.
