I've never seen a bass before with Teak in the ingredients. Which I find odd, because, to my understanding, it is an extremely hard and dense wood. Why isn't Teak used in luthiery?
i second this question, as i have an excellent supply of teak, but haven't built any instruments with it yet. knocking the wood seems to have a decent resonance... maybe the high cost is a deterrent? i'd really like to get opinions from those more edu-ma-cated on this. thanks!
My very first bass was all made out of teak. Body, neck and fretboard. Worked great IMO and I wouldn't mind to use more for bodies. Peace, JP
I have a nice piece of curly teak that I can't seem to sell to people. I think probably people are too used to seeing it on boats, and for the price you can generally get a piece of cocobolo with wilder figure. I'm using a piece of the flame teak on a prototype that should be done pretty soon. I'm looking forward to seeing it finished.
I saw on a site that was actually for flooring they had a rating system for the stability of wood. teak was given a rating of 1(options were 1-3) as the least stable. I don't know how accurate this was but I just thought I would throw it out there.
So maybe we (not implying that I am a luthier) can use Teak as a laminate wood. But it's awfully heavy, no? It might not be worth it. But it's certainly beautiful!
If you like it, use it. Try to get FSC certified teak if you can. It's a heavily taxed species. It's hard to glue and fairly heavy, but people use wenge and cocobolo, and those two are just as heavy if not more.
I had a custom guitar made with a teak body, ebony fret board, all brass hardware. Boy I never heard a guitar with so much sustain and clarity. But heavy I couldn't believe how much it weighed.
