If you have any familiarity with the history of Gaskell Guitars you know that from the very beginning I have condemned Gibson and...

Originally written 2009. Updated 2023. NOTE: There are many other well-known tone woods used in the making of acoustic guitars. This...

As part of my experimenting with factory-made guitars in 2023, I spent a great deal of time researching whether there might be a need in...

I was a bit slow in renewing my domain ownership for www.gaskellguitars.com.au this year and hackers jumped on it before I got to renew....

I have a Tonerider Rocksong pickup in one of my personal Gaskell Explorers. The thing is a beast. I love it. But that is not the reason I...

Well, you can't say I didn't try.  But the bottom line is that in the ruins of this post-Covid world, doing one-off guitar builds using...

All Gaskell Custom Shop guitars are 100% made in Australia using the highest quality tonewoods, hardware and electronics sourced from all...

It's been a good year for Gaskell Guitars, hardly sustainable (hence why I have a "job" too) but still worth it, even if just...

One thing that all the major guitar brands utterly fail on when it comes to making left hand guitars (if they even do) is fitting them...

Trichilia is a Mahogany family genus with 70 species, four of which are native to Africa and the remainder native to West Indies and ranges from Mexico through Central America to Brazil and Bolivia in South America. There are 43 species alone in Brazil. Two of the four African species have timber uses and one species of the American species is recognized for its timber uses. 

Turraeanthus africanus is a single Mahogany family genus/species native to Africa. It is most known as AVIDORE but also goes by the English names AFRICAN WHITE MAHOGANY and rarely as AFRICAN SATINWOOD. It is the lightest-coloured Mahogany family timber being a cream or pale yellow and can have figure.

Carapa is a Mahogany family genus with two species native to Central and South America and one species native to Africa. Timber from this species is otherwise sold as "Crabwood", "Andiroba", "Demerara mahogany", or "Bastard mahogany."

Melia is a Mahogany family tree with three species, one of which yields high-quality timber but has no commercial or export interest. This species yields timber that is reddish-brown with a straight but coarse grain. ​

Chukrasia tabularis, is a single genus/species in the Mahogany family found in Southern China, and throughout South East Asia and India. It is most commonly traded as EAST INDIAN MAHOGANY, INDIA MAHOGANY, or INDIAN REDWOOD. Other trade names include BURMESE ALMONWOOD, CHICKRASSY, CHITTAGONG WOOD, BASTARD CEDAR, and WHITE CEDAR. Botanically it is very close to Cedrela and Toona. Small exports of veneer originate from Myanmar and India.

Guarea is a Mahogany family genus with 71 species native to Africa and Central and Latin America. Two species in Africa have timber uses and two species in Latin America have timber uses.

Cedrela is a Mahogany family genus with 13 accepted species native to the Carribbean and the Americas. Botanically Cedrela is the equivalent of Australasian Toona except that it is native to the neo-tropics. Collectively it is usually traded as "Cedro" or "Spanish Cedar." There are four main commercial species.

Entandrophragma is a genus in the Mahogany family with 11 species, native to tropical Africa. Five of the eleven species have timber uses and are traded individually under different trade names.

Toona is a Mahogany family tree native throughout eastern Europe, northern Asia, South East Asia, and Australia. Botanically it is the equivalent of Cedrela which is otherwise native to Central and South America. There are four Toona species (some sources say five), each with their own trade names. Timber from the Asian species are often just called TOON or SURIAN no matter the species. The Australian species is almost always called RED CEDAR.

Khaya is a Mahogany family genus that naturally occurs in tropical and sub-tropical Madagascar, the Comoros and continental Africa. It has five species, four of which are endemic to Africa and the other endemic to Madagascar. All species are collectively traded under the name AFRICAN MAHOGANY. In trade circles, Khaya is the most accepted Mahogany family timber other than Swietenia to be called "mahogany" without qualification.

Even today a lot of people still do not know what mahogany wood is. It's a popular tone wood used for the manufacturing of electric...