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I just bought a B&S set of bubinga with an orphan set of bubinga backs. The idea hit me to do an all bubinga box. People do it with mahogany, koa, maple, and other woods not in the usual soft wood top category. Has anyone tried bubinga?
Opinions?

Much too heavy.

Mohagany and koa can be relatively light weight for hard woods. Maple is already starting to get heavy and with bubinga, you're way up there. It would look really cool, but probably have little volume.

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Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)

I have plans to try it with Indian rosewood. The only bubinga back I've handled was pretty thumpy, not what I'd expect to sound good as a top. If yours rings nice and long, give it a go and let me know how it works out The vast majority of people I've asked or seen other people ask have said not to bother, but I haven't found anyone who has actually tried it on a steel string yet, and especially not with experimental bracings to lighten it up further.

Just running the numbers on wood-database.com, there's a good chance it will be too heavy with standard bracing. You can build a good guitar with a .125" thick spruce top (I've done it), and you can build a good guitar with a .095" thick spruce top (not there yet, but I have heard of it). By cube rule, the .095" top is about half as stiff as the .125". Thus, to make a rosewood top equally stiff to the .095" spruce, it would still be about 1.5x as heavy as the .125" spruce. With koa, the weight comes out near equal on that scenario. It does list bubinga as being a lot stiffer than Indian rosewood, so it might have more potential.

I've got a couple more things to fiddle with on my prototype box, and then I'll peel the top off and give the rosewood a try. I think I'll try standard X bracing on the first go, just so I know what it sounds like. Then more thinning and more braces.

Check out:

http://www.dejongeguitars.com/home5.html

Nice looking guitar but I don't know how it sounds.

Pat

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There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
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Bubinga is beautiful wood. Very heavy, very dense. Love working with it. if it dies not sound good, it will def look good. Get lots of advice first. Mhog is no where the density of this stuff. Gonna take a lot of force to drive the bridge and top.

First I would say give it a go. Why not be creative? Nothing ventured nothing gained. I don't know how dense Walnut is but Chris Ensor who builds guitars and often offers advice on this forum built an all walnut guitar that sounds awesome. Also my local guitar shop here in VA had Taylor build them an all Walnut guitar. Not only is it beautiful, it sounds great....and has a really nice dark tone.

Given that...why not try the all Bubinga. Keep us posted.

Marc

Thanks Marc!


I know for a fact that when Sergei builds his hardwood tops like this, that he does it as a nomex double top. I built my all solid walnut guitar under his supervision and he was very skeptical of a hardwood top. It was great that it turned out so nice and that he was impressed with the sound of a solid wood top.

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I wouldn't. So much of the discussion here, by those who have done the experiments firsthand (and understand the science - notice I'm not saying I do) point to stiffness to weight ratio as being very important in topwood. Bubinga might be very stiff, but the weight puts it way outside the range of traditional topwoods - Spruce, cedar, redwood, etc. Sure, people built tops of Koa and Mahogany, but those guitars tend to take a long time to "open up" - and even then, rarely have the volume of a spruce top - all other factors being (close to) equal.

Sure you can get creative and try something new, but I couldn't see spending the time on a build that was so far outside the realm of what hundreds of years have proven to work well.

Besides density, the main difference between hardwoods and conifers is longitudinal stiffness. Spruces and cypresses are extremely stiff lengthwise. Hardwoods much less so, especially when you compare with the relative weight and cross-grain stiffness. We can get away with mahogany and koa (and apparently walnut) because they're not quite as light as spruce, but relatively close, and besides yield a unique and appealing tone. Comparatively bubinga is much denser and would need to be thinned beyond structural failure to perform like a lighter wood.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

I think it would work if you altered the standard bracing.
Sometimes I like playing my mahog topper,
because it's quiet, focused and well balanced.

If it is a look you are after, it might be worth taking a low grade lutz top (appearance) and laminating with 1 mm bubinga. You can find amazing figured veneer out there. Has anybody ever done this?

Mike

Well, you could say you do understand the science, Corky. Your explanations are spot on.

_________________
Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)