A geetah in a pear tree?

[Dekka]

I was listening to ABC radio today and farmers from Victoria were talking about bulldozing a large proprtion of their Pear trees owing to cheap imports of pears flooding the country.
While I feel for their plight, I did wonder if they were aware of the value of the wood; particularly to instrument makers. With that in mind I was wondering if anyone on the forum has built with pear wood or had any experience with it?

[mqbernardo]

pear wood is a wonderful, fine textured wood. i´ve never built with it but i carved a lute bridge out of it. I can´t see why it couldn´t be used for guitars (some tonewood dealers offer it).

that said, if the trees are from orchards they´re probably from short growing, highly productive cultivars which are highly pruned and usually turn into small, twisted trees that don´t yield muchwood, and that wood tends to be knotty with loads of reaction wood.


cheers,
Miguel.

[Dekka]

Oh well...just a thought.

[DarwinStrings]

I have used apple which is supposed to be similar, not for instruments but tool handle repair and replacement. It is lovely stuff and would save grain fill time no worries. I reckon if I was in the area I would be taking the time to have a sniff around the orchard, you never know what it might turn up. Wiki lists it as favoured for woodwinds. Know any Vic woodwind makers?

Jim

[Dekka]

I'm sure I've seen a very old guitar or possibly a Lute made from pear somewhere.

[Dekka]

Ah, here we are...

pear guitar.1.jpg (8.45 KiB) Viewed 22636 times

And this one...

pearguitar.2.jpg (5.57 KiB) Viewed 22636 times

But seriously...

pearguitar.3.jpg (11.62 KiB) Viewed 22636 times

Mmm, pear...

pearguitar.4.jpg (7.3 KiB) Viewed 22636 times

[mqbernardo]

Oh well...just a thought.

by all means, go and search for them. pear is wonderful wood and worth the effort. just saying it could be harder to find suitable trees than one could´ve first thought.

[woodrat]

Hi Dekka,,,I did a google image search for pear guitars...came up with the pic you have at no.3...very beautiful wood. If I had not known it was Pear I would have guessed it was figured Cherry...It is very similar in looks and colour.. If they were dozing pear trees down somewhere near me and I heard about it I would be down there like a show to get a trunk or two... Nice stuff!

John

Found this pic of a Pear Lowden too...Beautiful wood...

[Dekka]

It IS beautiful......You do realise, John, that for every action there is an equal an opposite reaction...So that means that somewhere in the world there is at least one person collecting guitars like this and sawing them up to make tables.

[kiwigeo]

Pear is a first class wood for lute bridges.

[DarwinStrings]

Hmmmm...Hey Derick, you wouldn't happen to be importing tons of cheap pears into Australia would you?

Jim

[Dave]

I have some Pear which is 9"-10" and its similar to the other fruit woods!

Heres a classical built by Adrian Lucas (he did all the illustrations in the Roy Courtnall Making Master Guitars book)



He really likes Pear so It should be good to build with

Dave

[Dave]

Sorry its the Lowden guitar

I tried to edit my post but it wouldn't let me

here is what Adrian Lucas had to say about Pear though

UK based luthier Adrian Lucas says “I have built a couple of guitars with pear wood. Like all fruitwoods it is tight grained and therefore works very evenly and doesn’t require pore filling. In Europe it is often sold as steamed pear. I think the steaming process is done to stabilise it but it has the side effect of turning it from a straw colour to a beautiful apricot colour. It bends easily.”

Dave

[mqbernardo]

i did a search and Timberline (UK dealer) sell AAA pear sets for 52 pounds (around 86 AUD?). just for a reference.


cheers,
Miguel.

[Dekka]

AAA for $86.oo? Cheaper than I expected.
I asked GOOGLE to show me "nice pear" and got more than I bargained for. .....still, I did stop thinking about guitars for ten minutes.

[mqbernardo]

that´s what i thought - cheaper than expected, but i believe it´s the plainer looking/not much figure kind of sets. they upcharge for nice figure, although i don´t remember by how much.


cheers,
Miguel.

[kiwigeo]

Nice pair

charms.jpg (64.16 KiB) Viewed 22497 times

[Kamusur]

Very similar look and feel to Melons wood Martin.

Steve

[DarwinStrings]

Nice pair

Extremely dense, highly figured pair.

Jim

[Dekka]

Sorry, no good...... Lacquer won't stick to silicone.

[auscab]

A great clamp for gluing veneers to head piece ?

[DarwinStrings]

Extremely dense, highly figured pair.

Jim

I may be wrong, she may have a Phd in sociology.

[kiwigeo]

Sorry, no good...... Lacquer won't stick to silicone.

ROFL...nice come back