Cocobolo

Family: Fabaceae - Order: Fabales - Class: Magnoliopsida

Scientific name: Dalbergia retusa

Trade name: Cocobolo, Cocobola, Cocabola

Also known as Cocobolo Prieto, Funeram, Granadillo, Jacarandáholz, Nambar and Nicaraguan Rosewood

Origin: Central America

Instrumental uses:
Guitar back and sides, fingerboards, bridges, head plates, bindings, peg heads, turnery and woodwind parts.

Tonal properties:

Cocobolo is a dense and stiff wood, and a true rosewood with abrighter tone than some rosewoods. On the other hand, the low end, even with nice deep basses, is not the best atribute of this wood:  With good presence and extraordinary sound projection, Cocobolo has a medium to long decay and very good note definition. With the correct ageing, this very oily wood can achieve a great and refined sound.

Is good mostly for fingerstyle guitarists. Can be used also as fingerboards with extraordinary results with a great sustained sound transmission.

Is easy to work and finishes incredibly well. With age gets darker with a very refined color.

 The grain is straight to interlocked and very dense and consistent. It is a tropical hard wood but is very stiff, very consistent, with an average dried weight nearly of 69  lbs/ft3 or 1,095  kg/m3. 

It is a fair-sized tree, reaching 20–25 m in height. It is native from Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Mexico. Mexico is probably the area contributing most of the wood in the trade. Because of Cocobolo’s properties and beauty, it has been heavily exploited and is now rare outside national parks, reserves, and plantations.

The Sapwood is very pale yellow The heartwood can have a very wide color spectrum from purple, brown, yellowish-red, orange and black. Really a very colorful wood.

CITES status is protected under the Appendix II. Is reported on the IUCN Red List as Vulnerable.