GUITAR WOODS: BUBINGA

Guitar woods bubinga Bubinga (Guibourtia Demeusei) originates in Central Africa (Guinea, Gabon, Cameroon, Congo). It's an extremely hard wood featuring a bright brown colour often figured with a nice "quilt" flame.

The tree grows up to 40mt height with an average 1mt diameter. Weight is pretty high, around 833kg/mt3.

Working figured bubinga requires special attention due to the irregular grain. Bubinga is mainly used for neck through basses top plates in a 12/14mm thickness where it contributes to enhance the definition of the low end.

When planing to thickness a blank of flame bubinga wood, instead of planing in the grain direction, try to plane at 45°.

Galeazzo Frudua

As a luthier and guitar making and repair teacher, since 1988 he has built making more than 350 boutique guitars and basses priced from 2,900 to 5,600 Euros and repaired and customized thousands of stringed instruments. His instruments and amplifiers are used by flagship artists, such as Chick Corea, Peter Gabriel, Ennio Morricone, Carl Verheyen. He owns two YouTube channels—where he teaches music—that count up to 40 millions views and almost 200.000 subscribers.