Posted on June 1, 2021May 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips Bubinga Bubinga by Roger Sperline Originally published as Guild of American Luthiers Data Sheet #268, 1984 and Lutherie Woods and Steel String Guitars, 1998 Bubinga is a hard, heavy wood which may be suitable for instrument backs and sides. It is as dense as Bolivian rosewood (Machaerium scleroxylon) and seems as hard. The piece I have has a beautiful mottle figure and a general tiger-eye sheen. I chose bubinga because it was available locally, relatively inexpensive, and very hard. I’d only made four classical guitars before trying it. All in all, I think I had good luck. Several woods are called bubinga, including Guibourtia demeusei, G. tessmannii, Didelotia africana, Copaifera spp., and Brachystegia spp. All are called African rosewood and are reddish-brown. I don’t know which one I have. Despite having many evenly-spaced coarse pores as red oak has, it has a specific gravity of 0.94. My piece was chosen from many, over half of which had evenly-spaced, generally straight growth rings. It is easy to obtain 8" widths for resawing into guitar backs. What makes a challenge is that the grain interlocks randomly, turning at times over 60° to the direction the tree grew, then turning back. In other words, though the growth rings are smooth and parallel, the runout changes severely from inch to inch. This gives a mottle pattern even in well-quartered slices, and causes some of the pores to penetrate a 3/32" plank. Shellac and varnish go right through some of them. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on April 11, 2021May 20, 2025 by Dale Phillips African Rosewood African Rosewood by John Jordan Originally published in American Lutherie #9, 1987 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume One, 2000 See also, South American Rosewood by John Jordan It’s been over a year since my last installment of this series, “South American Rosewood,” and now it’s time to cover African rosewood. At the 1986 GAL convention, I talked to several wood dealers to clarify and verify some of the information presented here. Also, I talked to many luthiers about what important information they felt was missing or incomplete in the first installment. Requests came for more specific lutherie information: How well does it bend? How good a tonewood is it? Does anyone sell back and side sets? In preparing this article, I’ve tried to find people who have built with a particular variety to see how they feel about the wood. Also, in instances where I know of someone that sells back and side sets for guitar, I’ve mentioned them. I was pleasantly surprised to find a few guitars at the convention made from less common varieties of rosewoods, so I go on with some encouragement. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on December 27, 2020May 22, 2025 by Dale Phillips Whence Tree Names Whence Tree Names by Nicholas Von Robison Originally published in American Lutherie #31, 1992 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie, Volume Three, 2004 What’s in a name?” cries Juliet; “that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Yet Shakespeare might admit that a rose is not less sweet because we know its name. The system of binomial nomenclature is one of the best inventions. It is effective; it is beautiful in its simplicity. A luthier in New York may talk of trees and wood to a luthier in Faroffistan with precision and mutual understanding. Centuries are tied together between us and the many careful observers hundreds of years ago who left good records in aristocratic Latin, when the common vernacular language was considered not to be a sufficient medium for such learning. To know the names of the forms of life is one of the keenest satisfactions; it brings us into relationship with our materials in another facet of our fascinating occupation. Every binomial has meaning; it is uniquely significant. Consider... Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on May 21, 2020May 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips South American Rosewood South American Rosewood by John Jordan Originally published in American Lutherie #4, 1985 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 See also, African Rosewood by John Jordan Rosewoods are among the most beautiful of all woods. Although they are native to tropical and semitropical climates around the world, we will deal in this article with those native to Central and South America. They are typically hard, very dense, and often resinous woods weighing 50–80 lb./cu. ft. One cubic foot (cu. ft.) is equal to 12 bd. ft. Because of their weight, they are expensive to ship; consequently the number of South American rosewoods available to the wood market in the U.S. will be greater than the number of African or Asian varieties due to our proximity to South and particularly Central America. To quickly dispel some misconceptions: rosewood trees do not produce rose-like flowers, nor are they close relatives of the Rosecae (flowering rose) family. The name rosewood is derived from the fact that the wood, especially when fresh cut, exudes a rose-like scent. Several varieties of rosewoods were being exported for furniture, fine cabinetry, musical instruments, fine carving, and turnery long before botanical identification was established in the tropics. A Swedish botanist named Nicholas Dalberg (1735–1820) was credited with discovering that these rosewoods were close botanical relatives, hence the genus is named Dalbergia. The genus Dalbergia has over 300 species. I have gathered information on over 100 species, 15 of which, including the most popular ones, are represented here. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on May 21, 2020May 21, 2025 by Dale Phillips Selecting Australian Timbers Selecting Australian Timbers by Lindsay Hewson Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Quarterly, Volume 7 #1, 1979 and Lutherie Woods and Steel String Guitars, 1997 All luthiers no matter what their nationality, have one quest that binds them together more strongly than does the maternal cord: the eternal search for the materials and timbers needed to continue their art. In Europe and America, timbers traditionally used in lutherie grow in some areas, and despite the dwindling supplies of really top-grade wood, such materials are still available from retail outlets. However, here in Australia, some additional obstacles exist. The geographic isolation of this country, combined with the relatively minute luthier population, does not present a sufficiently valid reason for the commercial importation of the traditional lutherie timbers. When someone does arrange to have some spruce or rosewoods imported in large enough quantities to be worthwhile, they are often bitterly disappointed to find that by the time the consignment arrives it has been very carefully ransacked, and the best pieces removed on the docks of the countries involved. Once again, being so far removed from the source of supply, little recall is possible without personally traveling overseas. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
