Flamed White Limba

[zyonsdream]

I Got into my stock pile today and pulled out a 5' board of rough cut white limba. I assumed it came from the same stock as the guitar I just built but when I threw it through the planer out came a highly flamed piece of white limba (my first) I've never seen highly flamed white limba before so I did a search online and came up nil (except for Dreskill guitars and the picture shown did not show any flame.)

So I'm wondering have any of you come across highly flamed white limba before. The pictures don't do justice but based off my knowledge on grading flamed maple, I'd be willing to throw an AAAA rating on the flame.

[erikbojerik]

I'm not one for assigning A's, but that's a nice piece. I've got some 10" wide black limba with a little more subdued flame, quartersawn so it will become backs & sides.

It happens.

[fryovanni]

Grading for different types of wood varies, because figure or degree of figure varies a lot. In a wood that exhibits high figure such as maple, and using what I consider a pretty common grading standard(although grading is pretty hard to pin down) a 5A standard. AAA exhibits broken figure on at least one side, AAAA figure may exhibit more consistent figure on one side/ possibly milder or more broken on the other face, and AAAAA exhibits full figure throughout the board(both sides). Some dealers like to add exhibition, Master, Instrument or some other tag to the boards that have increadably strong or consistent full figure throughout the board. Keeping in mind you also have vendors that grade hit and miss figure boards several grades too high to jack the prices up.

If your curl is full and even on both sides (throughout the board), you could certainly grade it as 5A. Given curly figure is less common than woods like Maple it may not be out of line to consider it to be of the highest grade (assuming it is full and even figured throughout).

The finest figured woods really don't need to be graded (good pictures speak for themselves). Grading is more useful when you are selling larger volumes of lumber sight unseen(selling say 100 board ft. of 4A Curly Maple for instance).

Peace,Rich

[Rick500]

Very nice.

The black limba neck I'm working on right now is flamed like that.

[zyonsdream]

The flame is consistent through the whole board and on both sides so it would surely be graded high. I don't work with limba that much and this is the first time I've worked with white limba so I was basically just wondering it alot of it was flamed. Thanks for the input.

Too bad this is going to be the back of a guitar!

[jmrentis]

Oooo, whats the top gonna be??? That limba will make a killer back. It is tough to cover some of that wood, but the guitar will look amazing with a nice top as well. Now if you put a top and back on, I would hire a pilot and come steal that piece in the night! A nice figured walnut top would look killer with that piece! So would almost anything though, thats just a super piece. Nice grab and best of luck.J

[zyonsdream]

This top makes it easy to put the limba on the back. It's a killer piece of redwood!

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j287/ZDG...%20Viper/a1.jpg

[Jon]

Amazing Redwood you have there. Where did you get it?

[carousel182]

WOW nice redwood.. you got that on ebay right? i think i saw that when i was looking for acoustic top wood

[zyonsdream]

Yah, My client got a nice marbled spalted top and asked me if I'd build a viper for him. No problem! It was immediately dubbed the Mud Viper

Then he found a nice piece of Redwood being sold by Tea321 on Ebay and he lost it in the last few seconds. In came that piece he won (just shy of $300.00, more with shipping) and it's going to replace the maple top so now the build has been dubbed the Fire Viper!

I doubt I can get 4 pieces out of it but I have slim hopes. With the drastic bevels of the Viper I need to have at least .300 top. It will be cutting it close but I think I'll be able to do it as long as the board is pretty straight.