Smooth: canary or goncalo?

[Bruno]

Premise: I read the old 3d *raw neck* that I opened. But honestly at some point I'm lost ...

A dear friend of mine, just competent and even less patience, asked me this morning: "Hey Bruno, you who are now expert Warmoth orders (for doing a single order, I'd be an expert ? omg) I want a raw neck, extremely smooth and silky. Goncalo or canary?"

I have only a pauferro warmoth neck (sweet), but what can I say?
He speaks English less than me [...] so it's too hard.
From what I remember that you told me, Goncalo is smoother, or at least the Canary is more porous to the touch.
But I don't know... I've not tried

Embarrassing situation: because my friend helped me several times and now I can not adequately repay

 

[Cagey]

Goncalo is more dense than Canary. Canary is nice, but it has a visibly open grain.

 

[Bruno]

I am dismayed, because I really would like to help him but i've not experience for that.
Only certainty that I have is that  Canary and/or Goncalo are not as pauferro.
He don't want wait (so not order, only available items) in fact he indicate me to order today or tomorrow max...

 

[SustainerPlayer]

If he goes for "smooth and silky" Pau Ferro is much more of that than Goncalo Alvez and Canary.

Given the choice between Goncalo and Canary I'll say Canary with a slight margin.

 

[m4rk0]

in my experience, Goncalo is almost as smooth as Pau ferro..  Canary feels a bit more woody, but not as open grained as Wenge.. more like regular (indian) rosewood.
Also very smooth is Bloodwood!

 

[Bruno]

so...+1 goncalo

 

[m4rk0]

Yes, absolutely, also it has more of a unique tone (pau ferro and canary sound almost identical to maple)  Goncalo is a bit warmer, but not as muddy as Mahogany

 

[tfarny]

I would pick it more for the tone than for the feel - Canary feels great, very smooth, smoother than roswood but not as ridiculous as Wenge, the king of awesome woods. No experience with goncalo.

 

[Stew]

My Canary neck gets smoother by the day but it's not as slick as the Padouk neck on my new Tele. Both are super nice to play. I don't have Goncalo but from what I've read it should be slicker than Canary.

I'm with tfarny though. Isn't your friend interested in what it's going to sound like? From my limited experience & understanding, I think just about any exotic neck will play great but I specifically chose the necks I have because of what they sound like.

 

[DangerousR6]

My Canary neck gets smoother by the day but it's not as slick as the Padouk neck on my new Tele. Both are super nice to play. I don't have Goncalo but from what I've read it should be slicker than Canary.

I'm with tfarny though. Isn't your friend interested in what it's going to sound like? From my limited experience & understanding, I think just about any exotic neck will play great but I specifically chose the necks I have because of what they sound like.

My canary neck is the same, the more it's played the slicker it gets. It does feel a bit woody when new, but i attacked mine with some #0000 steel wool, and it's as slick as owl shyt... :icon_biggrin:

 

[hannaugh]

I would describe canary like silk and pau ferro like glass.  Canary has a soft smoothness to it, and pau ferro has a hard glassy smoothness, if that makes sense.  Both have a very nice feel to them.  I've never tried goncalo though.   

 

[Schlieren]

I have a neck made of padouk with a goncalo fretboard; the padouk is "smoother" to the hand than the goncalo, because the goncalo has a much more closed grain.

I do not have experience with canary, but if it has an open grain, as Cagey wrote, then it also will probably be "smoother" to the hand.

If your friend's definition of "smooth" is more visual (eyes) than tactile (fingers), go with goncalo.

If your friend's definition of "smooth" is more tactile (fingers) than visual (eyes), go with canary.

 

[Bruno]

He's simply a crazy man
(my friend, of course)
Canary or goncalo, more smooth, more hard etc. and now?
He finally decided: he will order a black Korina neck with pauferro fingerboard.
I told him that it must be finished (hard finish), otherwise *zero warranty*. Nothing to do, he says that Korina is ok, it's the best wood for him.
In short, I wasted my time and I have wasted (more important) your time.
I'm sorry...

 

[Cagey]

No need to apologize. Man asked you a question, you consulted your resources to find an answer. It's ok. If you can't ask your friends questions and get honest answers, what good are they?

 

[Bruno]

Thanks, you're very kind.
But I ask and ask again. I can hardly provide any useful response to the other (my know-how is more modest in my English ).
And that's why sometimes I feel embarrassed...
:sad:

 

[Cagey]

I wish I could give you a better answer, but I'm afraid I don't have a Goncalo neck here to compare with. I do have some others, though. For instance, here's a shot of a Canary neck...

It's pretty smooth. A very good wood for a neck. But, you can see there's some open grain there.


and here's one of Bubinga...

Not quite as coarse as Canary (as if you could call that "coarse"), but similar.


and here's one of Pau Ferro

Clearly, the Pau Ferro is a much tighter grain. There's not a lot of difference in feel or appearance, other than color, between the Canary and the Bubinga. Although, in real life, the Bubinga feels better. Highly recommended. But, not as highly as the Pau Ferro. That stuff is cheesecake. I'd recommend that wood to my mother.

I have Maple, Koa, and Walnut necks here as well, but they're all finished so you can't really tell what the wood looks like. I recently shipped a raw Wenge neck, which is on the wild side of grainy. Wish I had better pictures of that, but I wrecked my backup through stupidity and lost a lot of shots of that little lovely. Anyway, the grain on that looks like the Grand Canyon of wood surfaces. Doesn't compare to these at all.

 

[Bruno]

Great pics!
I also have a pauferro neck and I agree and confirm everything you say.
**My** own curiosity, to be honest, it's for Goncalo and/or for maple neck with very light satin finish - maybe... water based finish, for ecology -
Fretboard on pauferro or ebony, of course  :icon_thumright:

 

[DustyCat]

Heh...I have a Canary neck w/GA fingerboard but have not had a chance to to try it out. Originally it did not come with a finish option but I begged and bugged 'em for the Nitro Satin Finish Dusting to protect my baby.

:laughing11: That's probably not much help to you and your flakey friend who opted for korina  :laughing11:, and my opinion would not hold much water considering my inexperience but for what it's worth, by far and large, it (Canary/GC) already feels more comfortable than my Warmoth Maple/Rosewood? With gloss finish.
Maybe it's the gloss finish that feels so artificial/plasticl. :dontknow:

I should have taken the repp's advice and went raw/oiled but I wanted to protect my investment from doing the "pretzel act."

-DC