Mahogany and Walnut in 6/4 or 8/4 thicknesses in Taichung

I’m in Taichung and looking for a lumber supplier who has mahognay and/or walnut in 6/4 or 8/4 thicknesses (1 1/2 to 2 inches). It can be rough cut. I’ve bought maple and ash from a lumber yard near the university where I work, but they don’t have some of the other woods I would like to get.

I’ve heard of a company called Tai Waye Industrial Company (English uncertain) on Yung Shing Street in Taichung City but have never been there. Currently, their website is not working. (taywae.com.tw) Perhaps they are out of business. This is the information I have for them.

臺偉股份有限公司
No.7, Lane 176, Yung Shing Street, Taichung City, Taiwan
台中市永興街176巷6號

Is anyone familiar with the above company? Does anyone know of other lumber suppliers who might have mahogany and/or walnut?

Thank you.

Perry

Here’s a website with some wood and a lot of other woodworking stuff in Taichung, Maybe they can help. Seems they have most of it listed in English now as well.
dastool.com.tw/

Hmmm…

Maple, ash, mahogany, walnut. 1 1/2-2" thick.

You making guitars or something?

Thanks for the replies. I’ve bought mostly finishing supplies and a spokeshave from DasTool. Seems to be an efficient company. By the way, the address I gave for Tai Waye Industrial Company may be the owner’s house. I did find out that they are still in business. Not sure if they are a lumber yard or just an agent.

irishstu, yes guitars. I’m tired of using hard maple for the bodies, and the ash I bought was probably northern not swamp. Maple necks I like but bodies tend to be too heavy and the sound too bright, unless the body is thin or weight relieved.

Here’s one that I recently finished. The body is ash. Weighed about 4 kilograms until I enlarged the rout under the pickguard.

This one used ash, walnut, amargo, and maple. I brought the amargo from the States.

This photo shows the different woods better.

Nice-looking work. :thumbsup: Impressive. Love the p-90-loaded one. Unusual shape.

Lovely looking guitars. Funnily enough I made that same mistake with northern ash/swamp ash. Ended up with a strat that weighed 10 pounds … until I routed out all I could under the scratchplate. Not as nice looking as your stuff, but it’s in my blog if you’re interested.

Thank you, The guitar’s shape is based on the Robin Raider, which is somewhat based on the popular Mosrite model. Here’s the first one I made. This one has a thin maple body with an amargo neck/rosewood fingerbaord.

Thanks, irishstu. I’ll check out your blog. Have you had any luck finding swamp ash in Taiwan?

I haven’t, no, but then again I haven’t really been looking. I made that Strat while I was living in the Basque Country. I don’t really have the time to do anything like that in Taiwan now.

Cool. Must be nice to have your own workshop here. :bravo:

Thanks. Yes, it is good to have a workshop, but it hasn’t been easy developing one. Although many of the woodworking tools that are sold around the world are made in Taiwan, there are few companies in Taiwan that sell their products domestically. Some of the machines I have I was able to purchase because I knew someone who knew someone who knew someone. It’s taken many years to collect the machines I have now.

There’s also just the difficulty of finding things that are fairly common in the States, but we all know about that problem. Now my search is for mahogaby and good walnut. The last batch of walnut I purchased was not very good.

By the way, I will post whatever sources for wood I am able to find. Perhaps it may help someone else who is also looking.

I found this supplier through a forum in the US

仁友企業股份有限公司
電話: 05-2890692
60844嘉義縣水上鄉忠和村紅毛寮10號

They supply guitar woods to manufacturers in Taiwan, mostly for cheap plywood guitars (they make the plywood) but they also sell decent to good quality solid boards and most importantly, they have good african mahogany. I know its not Taichung but its not too far… I made acoustics from scratch… didn’t have the shop to do anything so I did everything in a small taufan, not fun.

This is what I made:





I bought these woods from LMI which includes a 7% VAT and 100 dollars for shipping. The advantage of buying from suppliers like the above mentioned becomes clear when you not only save over 100 dollars on shipping, but the unit price for the stuff is low (especially if you buy in quantity). They sell a set of rosewood (plantation grown, not old growth… but its hard to tell the difference) for 600, top set for 200, and mahogany plank was something like 100 for like 2 board feet of it. They do not like mailing stuff so go there if you can. They also have other stuff like curly maple (and you can pick scraps for free for things like bindings and trims) and spruce rejects (like a big plank with a crack through it) that can be cut down for braces. You can even do some general processing like planing there because they have monster machines for that purpose.

Beautiful guitar, man. I’m seriously impressed.

Very nice! :notworthy:

Incidentally, here’s the one I made with northern ash (the trem got totally changed at one stage hence the dodgy routing/lifting lacquer):