Many bass builders are very particular about the wood used for the body. Some choose specific woods for considerations such as weight, certain tonal qualities, how easy or not it is to carve, color, grain style, and so on.
Wood hardness is determined using something called the Janka Hardness Scale. This scale (and the chart displayed below) is from Tiny Timbers web page on the subject, so if you want to know the absolute numbers that go along with certain woods, you can check that out.
This chart is a quick, easy reference to which woods are harder and which are softer. While not a complete list, it gives you a very good idea what would be easier to work with compared to others.
How does this chart benefit you?
When you have a basic idea of the hardness of woods, this opens up a selection of different species you might have not thought about building with. For example, California Redwood is soft stuff. Maybe that would not be your first choice for a body wood, but for decorative pieces on the headstock, that may work very nicely for your project (perhaps some salvaged old growth redwood?)
Do you think the chart is accurate?
Post a comment or two with what you think of the chart below. Do you think it is good for a general reference?
Where is Alder? Did I over look it on here?
590
No listing for basswood, swamp ash or alder. Probably the three most popular woods for bass bodies.
hardness not really an important quality of a body wood. janka only really important for fingerboards.
So… the harder it is, the brighter it is? Or deader? Does weight and density more or less correspond to hardness?
Poplar, Macassar ebony, Pau ferro, Indian rosewood?
I’m surprised and slightly skeptical that heart pine is harder than walnut or cherry
Totally agree with you. Pine is very very Light.
this number if for heart pine. you never know with janka numbers from the web, but heart pine is different from what you get in stores as “pine”.
Yellow Pine Heartwood is used as ship’s shaft bearings due to its hardness, toughness, and resistance to decay- don’t want to replace that often…
It can be. Check out wood database.com.
Indian rosewood, pau ferro, alder?
Alder is a 590
Hardness and Fiber Density are 2 totally different subjects… The Janka Hardness Test measures the side hardness measure of the force required to embed a .444 inch steel ball to half its diameter into the wood. Kevlar isn’t Hard but it will stop a Bullet………
I never have agreed with the Janka test… Go with what you hear in the wood… Listen to tap tones for the body woods and understand what makes the best fingerboard woods for your style of playing…
so you’d use sitka spruce for a fingerboard? janka is the best measure of durability in a fingboard that we have.
Pau Ferro = Morado
Janka Hardness Test measures the side hardness measure of the force required to embed a .444 inch steel ball to half its diameter into the wood. Hardness and Fiber Density are 2 different things. Kevlar is light in weight but will stop a bullet because of how the fibers are made not because they are heavy… I never have agreed with the Janka test… Go with what you hear in the wood… Listen to tap tones for the body woods and understand what makes the best fingerboard woods for your style of playing…
Koa?
Thanks for this article.
It’s a starting point in choosing a wood.
I think if anybody checks out http://www.wood-database.com/
they’ll find several other key elements in making a choice for any wood, for example:
density, specific gravity, average dried weight, shrinkage, sustainability and many more.
It will help you determine the the difference between an African Ebony, an East Indian Ebony, and a Ceylon Ebony.
As well as the 11 other kinds of ebony there are specs for.
It can help you decide if the piece of wood you’re looking at will perform the way you’d like, both as a tone wood and how it is to handle and work.
As an example, I recently built a bass making the choice for Satine, AKA Bloodwood, as a fingerboard because it had similar in characteristics in all respects to African Ebony, my favored fingerboard, except it’s Red, with strong yellowish/brown grain that is somewhat 3D in depth.
Cool.
Got my specs @ the Wood Database.
Can you post a link to a pic of that fretboard?
I’ve been looking for an hardness chart like this for a long time. thank you. now do you have a cross reference for resonance?
Basswood has a Janka hardness rating of 410, which is near the soft end of the hardness scale. By comparison, Brazilian ebony is an extremely hard wood, rated at 3692 on the Janka scale.
Ash is a lot harder than alder – 1320 compared to 590 for alder on the Janka Hardness Scale.