Is this Bubinga?

[ShatnersBassoon]

I have just got something rather lovely looking from a woodworking friend, free!  It looks more than ideal for a body. However he has no idea as to what wood it is. Its a beautifully rich reddish colour that was difficult to pick up on the camera. To me, it looks like Bubinga. What do you think? 

[ShatnersBassoon]

I seem to have lost the ability to edit the post. Anyway, it’s pretty heavy too!

[ScottR]

It looks very much like bubinga to me too. On the other hand there are plenty of woods out there that look similar to bubinga in certain cases. One thing about bubinga is that it is maybe the most difficult wood to sand that I've run across. That would not be a conclusive test, but it would be a clue if that is the case with those pieces. In the meantime, here is a bunch of info and examples to compare it with.

http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/bubinga.htm

That site will also have examples of pretty much everything else it could be.

SR

[ShatnersBassoon]

7 minutes ago, ScottR said:

It looks very much like bubinga to me too. On the other hand there are plenty of woods out there that look similar to bubinga in certain cases. One thing about bubinga is that it is maybe the most difficult wood to sand that I've run across. That would not be a conclusive test, but it would be a clue if that is the case with those pieces. In the meantime, here is a bunch of info and examples to compare it with.

http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/personal/woodpics/bubinga.htm

That site will also have examples of pretty much everything else it could be.

SR

Thanks, the close up on the first photo certainly has similarities with my pieces. I will update on the sanding aspect. Either way, I love the look of it! It was a darkish brown before it was planed. 

Edited October 4, 2018 by ShatnersBassoon

[ScottR]

Bubinga is very hard too. I'm betting your pieces are as well?

SR

[ShatnersBassoon]

37 minutes ago, ScottR said:

Bubinga is very hard too. I'm betting your pieces are as well?

SR

Yes, very heavy too. I was given this because a friend of mine has a planer and he put in some wood I have bought recently and it got torn up in to pieces. It was a piece of 'Golden Phoebe' that I got from China. I was going to use it as a cap/droptop for a Tele Thinline build. It was very dry and brittle...accidents happen. He just offered me some wood in exchange

Edited October 4, 2018 by ShatnersBassoon

[ShatnersBassoon]

I would love to be able to keep the rich reddish hue, however I believe that the colour darkens with age? I suppose if I lacquer it that will help? Maybe? 

[ScottR]

My experience with bubinga is that it does not, at least not to any great degree. I've got a piece on the shelf that has been there 10 years and has barely any change at all--it may have dulled a little but not much. The piece I made with it has an oil under lacquer finish and that has not changed at all.

SR

[ShatnersBassoon]

I have just smoothed over the join after glueing the two blanks together. Interestingly it took very little time to sand plush, literally about 10 minutes...with very little dust. Time will tell how the rest of the wood fares during the build. 

[Andyjr1515]

Looks like bubinga to me too.  Lovely wood but a pig to work with.  And yes - very heavy.

I'm with @ScottR - in my experience it doesn't fade or darken over time.  My fretless is solid bubinga, made about 4 years ago and, as I look at it on the wall hanger right now, it still looks just like this:

[ShatnersBassoon]

Lovely work! I would love to try a fretless. Did you oil and/or wax it? I have a number of ideas for finishing the wood and oil is one of them.  

[Andyjr1515]

52 minutes ago, ShatnersBassoon said:

Lovely work! I would love to try a fretless. Did you oil and/or wax it? I have a number of ideas for finishing the wood and oil is one of them.  

It's just tru-oil slurry and buffed.  No grain fill other than the slurry and no wax.  It's silky smooth to the touch but still feels like wood

[ShatnersBassoon]

Cool, I may do it the same way then! It’s good to know that you don’t necessarily need grain fill! 

[ShatnersBassoon]

Cool, I may do it the same way then! It’s good to know that you don’t necessarily need grain fill! 

[Andyjr1515]

10 minutes ago, ShatnersBassoon said:

Cool, I may do it the same way then! It’s good to know that you don’t necessarily need grain fill! 

Give me a nod when you get to that stage and I'll run you through with it.  Basically, you create a slurry of bubinga dust by sanding with wet n dry sanded wet with the truoil itself. This fills the pores with bubinga coloured oil.

[ShatnersBassoon]

2 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Give me a nod when you get to that stage and I'll run you through with it.  Basically, you create a slurry of bubinga dust by sanding with wet n dry sanded wet with the truoil itself. This fills the pores with bubinga coloured oil.

Thanks man, I was going to ask if that’s how you did it, ive seen a few videos where people have used that technique 

[ShatnersBassoon]

So I have cut out the wood on a bandsaw (Tele design) and the weight is...12.2 lbs. ofcourse this is before any routing, but still...

I have been thinking of various ways of reducing the weight, including making it a fairly pronounced carved top (keeping the centre section where all the hardware is flat). Also a belly cut.   I was thinking of a Thinline initially but it’s a pity to hide that lovely wood. Not out of the question though. 

Edited October 22, 2018 by ShatnersBassoon

[Andyjr1515]

2 hours ago, ShatnersBassoon said:

So I have cut out the wood on a bandsaw (Tele design) and the weight is...12.2 lbs. ofcourse this is before any routing, but still...

I have been thinking of various ways of reducing the weight, including making it a fairly pronounced carved top (keeping the centre section where all the hardware is flat). Also a belly cut.   I was thinking of a Thinline initially but it’s a pity to hide that lovely wood. Not out of the question though. 

It looks BEAUTIFUL.  But, hmmmm, 12.2lbs...   If you bear in mind that my last 6-string electric (admittedly a designed lightweight) was 5 1/4lbs playing weight!

Well, in my view, it would be a tragedy to lose that top so - if this was me - I would look at a number of options, such as:

• How thick is it?  Does it have to be that thick?   You need enough meat to allow a secure neck pocket and enough depth to accommodate the pickups and electrics.  So my first question would be - how thin COULD it be? 
• Do I really want to emulate the tele slab top and back - or, as well as having it thinner - curve the top and the back?

• Or, you could heavily chamber from the back and cover the chambers as if they were additional control chamber covers.  Ditto thinline - you could cut the thinline chamber from the back and pop a false control chamber cover over it.
• If ALL of that failed - but bear in mind I'm a bit of a crazy person - I would look to see if someone could slice it on a 'proper' bandsaw into three tops and pop a swamp ash back on one, then keep the other two as spares or to sell as tonewood tops 

Whatever, routing or not, 12lbs, in my view, is far too heavy as a starting weight...

[ShatnersBassoon]

Thanks for the detailed reply! It’s actually 50mm at the moment. I figure that once all the sanding etc is done it should be down to about 48 mm, which I believe is at the upper end of Telecaster thickness. It certainly doesn’t have to be a slavish Tele design though!

Hollowing out the back does appeal to me to an extent, that way it can as you say be a Thinline of sorts. Could even do an f hole. The only thing I need to find out there is how to do an accurate recess for the ‘control plates’, my previous attempt at that left a lot to be desired. I would want to use nice wood for the covers I think, cheap plastic would certainly detract from the look. 

Edited October 22, 2018 by ShatnersBassoon

[Andyjr1515]

1 hour ago, ShatnersBassoon said:

Thanks for the detailed reply! It’s actually 50mm at the moment. I figure that once all the sanding etc is done it should be down to about 48 mm, which I believe is at the upper end of Telecaster thickness. It certainly doesn’t have to be a slavish Tele design though!

Hollowing out the back does appeal to me to an extent, that way it can as you say be a Thinline of sorts. Could even do an f hole. The only thing I need to find out there is how to do an accurate recess for the ‘control plates’, my previous attempt at that left a lot to be desired. I would want to use nice wood for the covers I think, cheap plastic would certainly detract from the look. 

When I get back to the desktop (probably late on tomorrow) I'll post what I use for hatch recesses.  It's the only routing job I'm perfectly comfortable with!

Work out the deepest components of the build.  You should be able to take 10mm off down to 40mm at the very least, I would have thought...

[ShatnersBassoon]

Cheers man! Yes I did some research a while back on Tele thickness and I think the thinnest I saw was 38. The deepest route on the guitar will be 30mm (for the control cavity). 

[Andyjr1515]

On 10/22/2018 at 5:47 PM, Andyjr1515 said:

When I get back to the desktop (probably late on tomorrow) I'll post what I use for hatch recesses.  It's the only routing job I'm perfectly comfortable with!

Work out the deepest components of the build.  You should be able to take 10mm off down to 40mm at the very least, I would have thought...

Not forgotten - just got a bit snowed under today. I'll post the pics tomorrow

[ShatnersBassoon]

No problem I appreciate all of the advice! 

[Andyjr1515]

Hi again

There are all sorts of clever methods for cutting hatch recesses that you will see the amazing folks on the forum use - especially those where the chambers incorporate the fixing lugs.  My problem is that they generally involve templates and every time I seem to use a router and a template I seem to end up with a disaster.  So I personally go for a simple but safer method of just using a rebate router bit:

Basically you lower the cutting edge from the base of the router to determine the recess depth and choose the size of guide bearing to determine the width.

Then - as long as the top 10mm of the chamber you've cut is smooth and the shape you want - the rebate will faithfully follow that line:

 

Because the bearing effectively keeps the router captive inside the chamber, as long as the router base isn't lifted off the edge of the chamber, it can't really go anywhere.

For this example above, I used a larger bearing to produce a narrower rebate, but they can be as wide or narrow as you like.

Hope that helps

Andy

[ShatnersBassoon]

It does help  Thanks for taking the time there, much appreciated! Funnily enough I made a bit of a mess of a template recently and had to patch it all up. As an aside I have been using very cheap router bits, I have noticed that many think this is not the way to go and that the cheap ones are generally junk. Is this because the cut is not as smooth? Or do they break?