The Steel Guitar Forum

Well i finally did it; I ordered a 8 string SX lap steel . My question so far is; it is advertised as made with " swamp ash" . Do the Chinese have access to swamp ash; surely the
SX company doesn't ship swamp ash to China so the guitars are made there with that kind of wood. Or do they? Does anyone have any thoughts about that? At any rate it's too late now; mine will be here Tuesday. Derrell Reagan

To the extent that it means anything at all, "swamp ash", while not really a species, is the lower, lighter, resonant portion of an American ash tree grown in typically in the South in warmer and wetter conditions, deemed very suitable for electric guitars. Generally it (the good stuff, not ash in general) is less available than it was decades ago, and the quality and suitability is still going to vary a lot from tree to tree. But for the purposes of inexpensive musical instruments its probably just marketing speak.

I don't know the answer to your question, but I generally assume Chinese manufactured instruments use wood mostly sourced from that continent, and they do have things like maple, sapele (mahogany) and probably ash growing there. The SX stock photos show a multi-piece composite body (at least 3 pieces I'm guessing) of what appears to be or passes for figured ash wood. So it looks about right. Yours may or may not be as figured. The wood may be the equivalent or same as what they make baseball bats out of, maybe a little heavier and denser than the "swamp ash" of lore.

I really wouldn't worry too much about it.

I don't know either. Here's a close up of an ash SX 6. I don't really know how to differentiate among the variations.

Maybe someone else can tell by looking.

Exactly how much the wood type affects the tone I couldn't say. This one has a really nice sound with the P90 style pickup. It's pretty hot and sounds great through my little amp, plays nicely...me happy. I think you will be too.

Will We Kiss Our Ash Goodbye?

https://www.americanforests.org/magazin ... h-goodbye/

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008 ... ees-beetle

I've heard of EAB. Ecological destruction - more consequences of globalization. Although it seems to me this species will self-destruct when there are no more ash trees for it. But at what price.

Anyway, after thinking about it, I suppose it is possible, although I don't know how likely, that Rondo sourced some American ash and shipped it to Chiner for these guitars. I'm aware of a few higher-end Asian manufactured instruments where something similar may have happened. And with lopsided trade most of the container ships heading back to China are probably largely empty and will sell that cargo space for pennies on the dollar. Don't construe this as political, I'm just thinking out loud about the logistics.

Good info, Charles. And then the rants of blame flamers pointing fingers propigates as fast as borer offspring.. posted in the comments. What kind of trees will this earth host a few trade wars ..5-6 generations ahead? Scrub Chapparal and tumbleweed? Serious depletion of natural woods won't end with just ash.
We humans will bore-thru what remains with insatiable appetites.

The Rondo site states the SX material is "american swamp ash", FWIW.

When I was a teenager back in Western Pennsylvania we had a Japanese Maple Tree in the Front Yard. If we had cut down that tree and milled out some Lumber, we would have had us some Japanese Maple Wood a long way from Japan. My Point? There is no reason the Chinese can´t grow and harvest any kind of trees that their climate and soil can support.

FWIW, I have an MIM Tele with an Ash Body and Maple Neck. It never occurred to me to wonder where the Mexicans got the wood.

Michael Maddex wrote: FWIW, I have an MIM Tele with an Ash Body and Maple Neck. It never occurred to me to wonder where the Mexicans got the wood.

Hey I have one of those sitting here. 2 piece ash body in butterscotch blonde but you can hardly tell it isn't one piece. Is it "swamp ash"? Heck, I don't know, but it sure looks good and sounds good.

Jerry Overstreet wrote:The Rondo site states the SX material is "american swamp ash", FWIW.

My 8 string says "American Swamp Ash" on the back of the neck. It sounds pretty good fro an under 200 buck rig, legs and case included.

"american swamp ash", Could be wood from a number of types of trees in the US, Canada or Cuba, all of which are considered part of north "america".

"swamp ash" is not a specific wood from one type of tree. It's a very loose descriptive term.

It's not difficult to buy and ship "swamp ash" needed to make a couple thousand lap steels.

Let’s keep in mind it does not say ‘select Ash’ so it’s mostly made up from the upper part of the tree which is less desirable as the select tone wood which is typically the lower end of the tree, the trunk. They sound great though, and their pick ups are smoking hot on the telecasters, no need to be upgrading them you will most likely be downgrading.

Also, some of the finest wood comes out of the Asian rainforest, very moist and tender, Many American companies build guitars with Asian wood However that might not be advertised, ash grown in Tokyo is as good as ash grown in Tennessee, a tree does not care, It’s all psychological and make no mistake marketing gurus know it.

I have the 8 string natural finish and you can''t beat it for under $200.00 You couldn't hardly make your own for that. No offence intended to anyone just because you pay 500. or more it will make you sound any better than the SX lap steel. The workmanship on mine looks great!

Considering the duplicity of the Chinese Manufacturer's they may have bought some swamp ash, but used other woods they can get locally, to make the rest. Considering the sales price, the markup structure, I would doubt it.

Three years ago I attended the NAMM show, saw the prices of various types of guitar woods, I could not fathom the high prices the wood sellers were selling it for. From what I saw at the NAMM show, over 2/3rd's of the sales price, in that Chinese Steel would be for the wood.

My family company does select logging here on the Island. We don't have any Ash here, but we have lots of Alder, and Western Maple. In the course of harvest, we sell some Alder to the local Hardwood Mill, average price $700.00 and up per thousand, in the log. Maple prices are too low to economically log, even though we do have some figured. We did talk to some wood vendors at NAMM, but did not follow it up.

I milled up about a 6 foot by 4 foot lot of Alder and air dried it, about 9 years ago. I still have it, it rings like a bell. We often get short curved pieces, up to eight feet, off the butts, that the Mill won't take, am planning to mill some of that this fall after I get the roof off the container extended.

Yes, I guess I can say, we have some Swamp Alder, as some of the trees grow in seasonal wetlands, does seem to have wider growth rings.
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Hey, for around $180 they produce a decent playable 8 string.
They can make it out of old popsicle sticks for all I care.

My 1st lap steel cost me $75.
Have no idea what kind of wood it is made of but it's blue.
I hear blue wood has great tone.

I've heard Blue wood sounds great too. I just repainted an old Blue Stringmaster neck to Red Wood, hope I have not ruined the tone. In some Fir and Hemlock, theres sometimes is a natural stain on the wood, it's called Blue Stain, although I don't think these kind of woods are used in Steel Guitars. Blue Stain doen't affect the wood strength at all, but back in the day, before the 1950's, the mills would call it a defect and paid the log owner much less, or just plain culled the log, where the owner got nothing.

I do have an original Box Car Dual Pro that's painted Red, sounds great, so I am hoping the new red paint sounds just as good.