Alembic Guitars Club
Alembic products => Owning an Alembic => Serial Number / History Requests => Topic started by: Thomasio on June 29, 2022, 10:34:33 AM
-
Any information is greatly appreciated!
Looks to be quarter sawn zebra wood.
Thanks!
-
I disassembled and cleaned up the brass. While I was at it, I rotated the bridge 180 degrees :)
-
I have had people say this could be quarter sawn zebra, others who think walnut, others who think cocobolo.
Does anyone know what the top wood is on this Alembic?
-
I'm voting for Bocate.
-
Bocate was my first guess, too.
-
I found this about Bocote wood:
"Bocote
Bocote is considered as an exotic wood due to its sound an appearance. Acoustically, it stands out for a powerful and warm sound, but it’s also recognized for having a special beauty.
It also presents a high density and stability, a good sustain and a great ability to reflect the instrument sound. This last feature makes it perfect for acoustic guitar sides.
Maderas Barber offers the best quality for Bocote acoustic guitar sides, a not so much known wood that wins everybody’s heart once they have worked with it.
BOTANICAL NAME: Cordia eleagnoides.
DESCRIPTION: 950-1200kg/m3 density Reddish orange-coloured brown. It’s a medium hard wood with an even texture. Uniform lines too, broken by little knots similar to eyes figures. It has a yellowish brown colour with dramatic dark brown, almost black, grains that tend to get darker with time. The grain pattern can be very impressive, also very appreciated for its contrasts. It’s heavy and tough.
SUGGESTIONS: Easy to work with, good response to gluing. It also has a good polishing, getting good finishing results. It’s highly resistant to insects.
DRYING: Slow and delicate, specially in branched or counter-mesh pieces.
USES: Besides being used for fingerboards of different instruments, it’s also used for the sounding board, the headplate and the acoustic and classic guitar bodies."
-
Additionally:
"Bocote Cordia Gerascanthus H=3.7, =3.1, B=4.1, S=3.7, =3.2, T=4
Bocote comes from the same family as Ziricote (Cordia) and is found in the same region (Central America to Northern Amazon). Less brittle than Ziricote, it is a popular wood with wood turners, works well and has had success as a guitar tonewood, though few builders have created stock models from it yet. It features a tobacco/reddish brown color with distinct, parallel black lines (it does not show the spider-webbing figure that the best Ziracote does). Unlike Ziracote, it darkens with age.). It has fine potential use in both steel string and classical guitars because of its attractive, dark color and rosewood-like tap tone. It has a spicy smell.
Deep sounding basses and an overall BIG sound, with a broad palette of mids. Tonewise, it compares with Rosewood, warm, powerful, with good volume and sustain. Very similar to African Blackwood too. Terrific tap tone and a very wide palette of mid ranges that make it one of the best tonewoods. The looks are also quite spectacular with all shades of yellow, orange and dark brown... Construction wise, it is far more stable than Brazilian rosewood because unlike the Brazilian species, it never fissures. This wood is officially classified as either extinct, endangered, rare or vulnerable within its natural habitat in Costa Rica. It offers some beautiful background colors of dark brown, red with multicolored strips that vary from yellow to orange and green to dark brown."
-
Here's the details I found in the instrument file:
serial number: 95K9164
model name: Essence
model number: KLB4
top: Bocate
accent: Purpleheart pinstripe
body: Maple
neck: 3-piece Maple with 2 Walnut pinstripes
fingerboard: Ebony
inlays: none
pickups: Alembic MXY4
controls: "Essence" volume, pan, filter, mono output
originally made for: Aeolian Harp
birthday: June 14, 1995
The original owner was from California.