Official Luthiers Forum!

My dad and I are currently working with someone to plan a guitar for him. He is partial to African woods for sentimental reasons.

Here is some background, he is looking for a guitar that will have great bottom end, top wood and bracing aside do you have any other suggestions for wood? He really likes African Blackwood, but I was curious if you guys had built with other African woods that fit this profile.

Any comments on the woods contribution to tone and it's workability would be greatly appreciated.

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--Kyle Burner--

The buyer is not a huge fan of ebony I am thinking mad rose looks like it could be a good choice. Kinda makes me wish I would have jumped on that nice auction set a while back

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--Kyle Burner--

How about figured Bubinga, bound with African Blackwood? I personally am wary of flatsawn Bubinga for an acoustic guitar, especially one with a wide lower bout, so I'd probably opt for some figure in a quartersawn set (wavy, some waterfall figured material is quartersawn, or maybe block mottle figure.) Shhhhhh! Don't tell anyone, but medium figured Bubinga can still be found for a very reasonable price.

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

if you're curious about african woods, try making contact with jay duncan.
from what i understand, he's a former larrivee employee who is now helping africans learn to build, and using some relatively unknown african woods to do it.
http://www.duncanafrica.com/Guitars.html
if you click on the 2010 price list on the page that is linked, you'll see the names of a few of these species.
like most people in the guitar community, my hunch is that he'd be pretty helpful by email or phone. and as far as sentimental connection to africa goes, this guy seems pretty well connected.