Does anyone have any olive wood/staves that would be suitable for making an instrument with?  I'm planning on making a banjo this summer, but need some decent wood with which to do so.  

I'd prefer to trade for some slings, if you're willing; I have many.  If you're interested, pm me and I'll send some pics.  I could even make a sling to your specs if desired (although there are limits.  I don't have a loom, so I can't make a tut sling, for instance.  And I'm limited to the cordage I have, although I do have some very nice jute...).

Thanks for checking this out.  

I'm open to suggestions as well.  I'd prefer olive, but if you have another type of wood you believe would look nice in an instrument, let me know, either in replies or pms.  Thanks.

Osage?

Bill Skinner wrote on Apr 5^th, 2013 at 10:00pm:

Osage?

Dense, hard to carve, among other things.

and olive isn't ?
lot of compression wood in olive. it's one reason you get that crazy grain.

I'd love to get hold of some to turn. But it's bloody expensive over here.

What part are we talking about?   The neck, the "pot"?    

People have made musical instrument necks out of a wide variety of woods... They need to be amenable to carving, stiff, and resistant to flexing from string pressure.   Common woods are mahogany, maple, and so forth.
In my cigar-box guitar making, I usually use oak because it's readily obtainable, stiff as hell, and reasonably easy to carve.  Any big-box hardware store has plenty.
For extra stiffness, I often laminate pieces... 2 pieces of 1" maple with a 1/4" piece of oak sandwiched between, then carve the whole neck from that.
I've never had any problem with string pressure warpage... but then banjos don't have a lot of string pressure anyway.

If you're talking about the "pot"... that's a whole different animal with traditional construction... Almost all are currently made of laminates.. steamed and scarf-jointed.

If olive has lots of compression wood, would it make a good bow?

Yes, olive will make a good bow, just like most other fruitwoods. So, for a banjo neck, how about plum, apple or pear?

Hmm.... I didn't know Olive would be quite that difficult.  I suppose plumwood would work nicely; the look is great.  

And this is for the pot, not the neck.  I'm probably going to acquire some oak for the neck.  Thanks.

I would love to get some quilted or striped maple, but it's pretty hard for me to come by.  And to be honest, I'd prefer to use said woods in a guitar or a mandolin, where I can show off the beauty of the wood more fully.  I may make a mandolin, in fact, if the banjo goes well; my instrument making experience is severely limited.  But I suppose everyone has to start somewhere...

bear in mind that olive is not like any other fruit wood. Slower growing, denser with a completely all over the place grain.
Don't see how that would make a good bow.
Don't you need straight, consistent grain for a bow ?  

Or am I missing something obvious ?

Curious Aardvark wrote on Apr 8^th, 2013 at 12:08pm:

bear in mind that olive is not like any other fruit wood. Slower growing, denser with a completely all over the place grain. Don't see how that would make a good bow. Don't you need straight, consistent grain for a bow ?   Or am I missing something obvious ?

Eeehhhhh... Character is what its called when you have wood with all-over-da-place grain.
Character bows shoot good, but look very wierd.

Most character bows go blouie on the tillering tree and are used for kindling.  Ask me how I know that one.

Bill Skinner wrote on Apr 8^th, 2013 at 10:24pm:

Most character bows go blouie on the tillering tree and are used for kindling.  Ask me how I know that one.

that's what I was thinking.

The issue with 'character' is that the woods grain is all over the place, you bend the wood, some of the grain will go with you, some will resist. The grain that goes with you will generally split and break.

It's the resistance of the longitudinal grain that gives a bow it's springiness. When the grain is both transverse and longitudinal it can't be as strong.

At least that's what makes sense to me.

You left out knots.  

Some people can make awesome bows from really lousy pieces of wood, pretty near everydamnone will break sooner or later.  They are great to learn on, if you get a bow from those pieces of wood or even if you don't, you learn a lot about bow making.  I have done it, everybody who makes bows should make at least one bow that they didn't think they could.  That being said, I would much rather work on a clean stave than a knotty, twisted one.  I'm to the point that I don't bring the knotty, twisted staves home, or if I do, I use them for fence posts.  If I work for 40+ hours on a stave, I want a bow when I'm finished.  

squirrelslinger wrote on Apr 5^th, 2013 at 10:41pm:

Bill Skinner wrote on Apr 5th, 2013 at 10:00pm: Osage? Dense, hard to carve, among other things.

   Actually, for making musical instruments the more dense and hard to carve the better.  The more dense the wood the better the resonance.  I read an article a few years ago in either National Geographic or Smithsonian.  It was about people making a fortune going out on the Great Lakes and pulling up old original growth logs that were cut by the first loggers.  A certain percentage of the logs in any operation end up at the bottom.  Because the Great Lakes are so deep and cold the logs that sunk four hundred years ago are still in great shape.  What makes these logs unique is that the original growth trees were many hundreds of feet tall.  Not much sunlight got through the canopy in ancient times so those huge trees grew very, very slowly.  That means very small growth rings and a very tight grain.  Musical instrument makers, particularly violin makers, are paying a fortune for this wood.  It makes musical instruments that sound sweeter than anything made with today's wood.  So anyway, yes, hard, dense wood is what you want.  That was Rat Man's fun fact for the day.  

i also would like some olive wood 6inch by 6inch 3/4 thick or osage the same dimension

I have Russian Olives (Eleagnus angustifolia) on my place. I have no idea if the wood is good for anything or not. They're actually considered a noxious weed here.