Black Limba And Oil Finish Question

[Guest Mavet]

hello

I'm going to build a guitar for a friend using Black Limba (aka black korina) for the body.

the wood feels kind of soft to me, and I want to finish it with tru oil or danish oil but i fear it won't hold enough protection from dents.

has anyone had any experience with that particular wood and finish combination?

thanks.

[erikbojerik]

I tried Tru Oil on black limba a few months ago, working on scrap. I did not like it for a number of reasons:

(1) the oil darkened the limba more than I wanted, muting the contrasting colors

(2) limba has some good sized pores that need filling before applying an oil finish (assuming you don't want the pores showing)

(3) it did not provide much protection against dents

[CrazyManAndy]

Tru-oil builds and it works as a grain filler.

Check out this thread (start at tomlang's post to begin at the meat of the thread):

http://www.kitguitarsforum.com/forum/threa...?id=357_0_7_0_C

CMA

[erikbojerik]

That post describes wet sanding with TO, which is a perfectly good way to fill in the pores on a homogenous wood (like walnut). You would never want to do this in a mixture of laminated light & dark woods, as you would get a dark-colored grain fill on the lighter woods that would make them look dirty.

Black limba, with the alternating light & dark areas, is kind of in-between. It could be done, but for me an additional problem (besides the pore filling) was that TO does add a slight amber hue. This looks absolutely lovely on figured maple, but on black limba it subdued the light-dark contrast that i was trying to highlight on the instrument that I was building.

Best advice is always to try it on scrap....who knows, you may actually like it.

[Daniel Sorbera]

The acoustic I'm working on right now (almost done) has black limba back/sides and I did some tests with french polishing and it turned out really well. The shellac looks great over the limba.

[CrazyManAndy]

That post describes wet sanding with TO, which is a perfectly good way to fill in the pores on a homogenous wood (like walnut). You would never want to do this in a mixture of laminated light & dark woods, as you would get a dark-colored grain fill on the lighter woods that would make them look dirty.

Black limba, with the alternating light & dark areas, is kind of in-between. It could be done, but for me an additional problem (besides the pore filling) was that TO does add a slight amber hue. This looks absolutely lovely on figured maple, but on black limba it subdued the light-dark contrast that i was trying to highlight on the instrument that I was building.

Best advice is always to try it on scrap....who knows, you may actually like it.

Interesting. +1 on testing it out on scrap. Seems to be the one universal rule in finishing.

CMA

[Guest Mavet]

The acoustic I'm working on right now (almost done) has black limba back/sides and I did some tests with french polishing and it turned out really well. The shellac looks great over the limba.

Might try that out, thanks.