Winter Build Off 2025: Sapele Split, Part Deux

[Evan38109]

Or, Second Time's the Charm.

This is my partial build entry for the Winter Build Off 2025. If it looks familiar, well, this is my second go at it. My SBO '24 was derailed with busyness at work and other events. As you can see I didn't get very far, so let's try this again.

I'm building the body from Sapele glued up in two pairs (A.K.A. four pieces). The neck is a hard maple from Musikraft. Pickups are a couple of Nordstrands: a BigSplitMan in the MusicMan position and a Big Split in the 50's P-bass position for three Big Split coils (oops). Rounding out the hardware is a set of Ratio tuners from here on the TB classifieds and a Gotoh 303BO-4 bridge.

I'd like to laminate a slim accent layer in there to emphasize the two halves. I grabbed some thin B-stock Indian rosewood but I'm thinking I might try to find something else. The color doesn't really fit and the surface finish is rough enough to be a pain to flatten. Maybe I can find some maple to match the neck? I dunno, suggestions welcome.

Otherwise, I think I'm keeping the design simple and focusing on getting it finished. Basic direction is a slimmed up FSO, perhaps more closely related to a G&L SB-1.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

If the body’s dark I’d suggest a light colored veneer like maple or holly to really show it’s something different in there.

Either way, looks like a neat build.

 

[T_Bone_TL]

IMHO, rarely worth the fancy (even the B-stock fancy) veneer when making pretty much a line - so affordable white (-ish) wood or affordable dyed black wood, or possibly affordable dyed some other color wood, but white-ish and dyed black are usually the safer bet there.

If you're cutting into it far enough at an appropriate spot where you'll expose more of the face of the veneer, fancy might be worth it. As just the edge of a veneer sheet, will anyone other than you ever know it's rosewood if you don't tell them?

 

[Evan38109]

Thanks for the advice, folks.

I headed to the lumber yard today looking for some thin maple. Sadly, they were out of stock on 1/4", and didn't have any 4/4 wide enough even if I wanted to plane it down.

@T_Bone_TL, yeah, I agree with you, and reached for them mainly because they were just sitting here. I picked up a few assorted sets of 4-5 square feet for something like $10 a pop during a sale. I was experimenting with inlays and such on trinkets like coasters and boxes. Practice projects.

Looking back through the stack when I got home tonight, I pulled out a couple that I remember as being some form of mahogany. They're lighter and I kinda dig how the color tone is in the same family. The bottom might be a bit too yellow, but the top looks maybe right-ish.