Official Luthiers Forum!

Good morning,

Have any of you built with Imbuia? I have two beautiful sets from Steve at Colonial Tonewoods and I am thinking about using one for a build.

Also, what would your opinion be on a soundboard pairing? (WRC, Lutz, Englemann, etc..)

Thanks,

Ray

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Guitar Building = Continuous Improvement Process

Hi Ray

I used Imboya on my second guitar. It worked out great. It's one of my favourite woods so far.

I paired it with an Alaskan Yellow Cedar top. I think it sounds good. Nice and warm with good bottom end.

Neil

I built a couple with imbuia (or however you want to spell it) , the stuff i have has a "wet cardboard" kind of sound when you tap it, but the guitars ended up sounding pretty nice. One was a pretty traditional 12 fret triple O with a sitka top, and the other was a big sucker and looked like this it has a red spruce top with radial bracing .

They are totally different guitars, but they had a common "warm" and "round" sound, with a semi compressed sounding initial attack. I wouldn't use the stuff i have if i was going for a loud barky bluegrass guitar, or a bright "tanky" vintagey guitar. The red spruce guitar in particular has a cool almost plugged in archtop kind of smoothness, and sounded nice and fat way up the neck, i usually shoot for a more ragged and aggressive attack but i like what those guitars are doing.

I don't know how much of the tone of those guitars to attribute to the imbuia, and i don't know how similar or different it is to your wood, but i liked it ok, it's not my favorite wood but i think it can make a nice sounding guitar. I would try to pair it with a top that leaned towards the "bright", "chunky" and "fast" end of things if i built another one.

The board i have is pretty flamey and i found it to be a real mutha to bend, it is the only stuff to give me bending fits in recent memory, it really liked to kink at the short grain portions of the flames. Straight grained pieces would probably bend much easier. Tiny pores means no pore filling, bonus! One of the coolest things about it is the smell, my shop smelled like spicy indian food for a month.

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

My Imbuia (SP?) reeked of hashish..... Every time I passed the door to the shop I had a craving for Oreo cookies.... I finally had to move it into the garage it stunk so very much... Thanks Coach Tony Karol!!!

One more thing to keep in stock around the shop... "let's see, i need some 600 grit paper, bandsaw blades, a fresh bag of oreos, shellac flakes..."

Good thing you got it out of smelling range before catastrophic weight gain set in!

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

I Love Imbuia !
Holds a bend like no other wood.
Smells better than the H--- I had !
The sets I've used were very stiff.
Not as heavy as rosewood but the guitars sounded great.
I used Lutz for the tops .

Jordan -did you paint that top black to memic Hesh??

Nice guitars guys !

Get some Imbuia today !
The Zootman may have some sets !!

Mike

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Mike Collins

I wish, if you see me with a black topped guitar, the likely explanation is "coverup", lucky for me i like the way black tops look, because i have made quite a few of them!

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Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

Mmmmmm ... Imbuiablondehash ...... time to order ...

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Thanks gentlemen for the responses. Very nice looking instruments as well!

I have two sets of 5 year old AAA Lutz from Shane seasoning in my shop that might just be the thing to compliment my Imbuia.

As for the smell...It's like closing your eyes and being back in university...Mmmmmm to be 19 again!

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Guitar Building = Continuous Improvement Process