Bubinga

[Dave Bagwill]

I can purchase some bubinga qs b/s material for $45. I'd have to join and bend and like that, but since this is for a simple teardrop shaped instrument I would not expect much of a problem.
Is anyone able to speak to the tonal quality of bubinga? It's a fun word to say, btw :-)

[TonyinNYC]

Bubinga is supposed to be a fantastic wood for acoustic guitars. I bent a set for a friend recently. Really hard, like sanding concrete. Ate up the sand paper on my drum sander. Bent pretty easily at .075" though. The guitar isn't done though so I don't know how it turned out. But others have sung its praises for a while. Go for it!

[Dave Bagwill]

Is it porous?

[TonyinNYC]

Not the stuff I handled that I recall. Hard and smooth is what I remember.

[Ken Hundley]

I too have heard great things about it acoustically, and rants about it from a working perspective.

[TonyinNYC]

I can attest to the fact that it is HARD!!! I was lowering the drum head less than 1/8th turn and going through twice before lowering it again. With spruce or cedar, I lower by 1/4 turn on the handle and go through once until I am at my final thickness and then I run it through a few times to make sure the whole board was sanded perfectly evenly. Probably overly cautious on my part, but it makes me feel better!
If you plan to buy this stuff from anywhere, get the seller to sand it to your dimensions of you can and save yourself the time and effort. Unless you have a drum sander, you will spend a week sanding it by hand.

[Ron Belanger]

Bubinga is a fantastic tonewood and reasonably priced if you don't go for the highly figured sets. I have made 6 guitars with bubinga and have been very satisfied with all of them as are their owners. Here's a photo of the last one.