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thanks for looking, this is a vintage (1945) selmer/maccaferri inspired guitar by the great bernabe busato. it has one of the funkiest wood figure i´ve ever seen. any tips on what it is?

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Are the back and sides laminated or solid, Miguel?

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

My guess is Tamo veneer.

I have seen Douglas Fir with a similar grain pattern.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

surprisingly, it´s made of solid wood, Alex.
My guess would have been tamo as well... but it has less "randomness" than the tamo i´ve seen so far, this one almost seems man-made - with such a logically laid-out, organized pattern. didn´t think about doug fir, Brian do you have any pics of this kind of doug fir by any chance?

thanks all,
Miguel.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

I concur with Brian. I've seen douglas fir like this and almost went on went on Djangobooks forum to identify it yesterday, then thought better of it because I figured nobody there would believe the diagnosis. You can see how the earlywood takes the stain to see that it's a softwood and there's a lack of chatoyance. I had a piece that I saved that was a match to this. Oregonwild has sets not quite as wild as this.

http://www.oregonwildwood.com/mm5/merch ... itar-woods
http://www.oregonwildwood.com/category/ ... woods.html



cheers, Steve

edit:

Ha! I looked up Tamo online. It looks like it could be Tamo as well. So cool. Looks like it'd be easier to identify with the instrument in hand.

That looks like a one piece back, implying a pretty large tree to start with. Doug Fir gets that big, I don't know about tamo. I've never seen anything like it.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Roger: yes, strangely it´s solid wood and a one piece back - not that common at all on this type of guitars.

Filippo: indeed it does, nice eye.

Steve: Thanks for the links.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

How do you know its solid? I wasn't aware of any non-laminated later Busatos and for a piece of wood that wild and that wide, I'd have a hard time believing it wasn't laminated veneer..

Question: Does the back have the very extreme arching in it?

Thanks, Peter

Peter, i don´t know as i´ve never handled it. I thought it should be laminated too, but asked at djangobooks and Michael said it was solid wood. You can check his video there.

edit: and what about the wood?

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Michael says the back is without bracing and that it has the classic Busato bent back - which is an extremely arched back.. Busatos I have seen like this were laminated. I think Michael made a simple mistake saying it's solid and not laminated (I could be wrong.. he's seen far more of them than me)..

That's my educated guess is that it's laminated. None of this diminishes the guitar. Hell, it's a Grand Model Busato! and Michael knows Busato's.. I have played his personal one and it's amazing!

As far as the laminated/solid argument. I could certainly be wrong but I don't think you'd ever get that sort of weird figure out of a piece of wood that wide and have it be so consistent across and along it's length, considering that Busatos weren't made with the most pristine materials (understatement) but that doesn't diminish how awesome they are. Seeing what the really good Busatos were made from, makes it hard to imagine they found some holy-grail piece of amazing wood and "carved" a back from it.. I just don't see it happening.. To get figure like that, back then, seeing what other materials they were using (all laminated as I know- in my limited Busato understanding) makes the wood on that guitar highly likely some sort of veneer.. What kind of veneer? I have no idea..

Michael will tell you or Bob Holo (who is a Busato owner and guru and excellent guitar builder in that style) that the guitars were really incredible (not all of them of course) but they weren't made with materials that we would consider top notch now a days.. Their design was really cool though and they make a LOT of noise..

Peter

i buy the laminated argument Peter, that´s what i thought in the 1st place. Maybe it was Michael´s typo, i could ask him again...

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

I really don't think it matters one way or the other. Some Busato's were really good. If Michael says it's this way or that way (sound and playability-wise). I'd believe him. I personally think he just goofed up with the description of the back/side construction.. But he's a very good guy and very honest.. he would Never misrepresent intentionally.. Besides, from what I understand, there isn't a lot of consistency between Busatos, so if it really is solid or laminated, I say.. who cares.. What Michael says about the sound, what the recordings say about the sound and what Michael says about the playability and condition are what matters.. There are only so many of those things floating around!

But, I would stick with my initial assumption that wood is some weird veneer from a whatever-who-knows-tree and the back and sides are laminated..

Peter

fair enough, and i´m with you : Michael is top-notch and a great guy. to be sincere i thought about buying this guitar, but i need the money to buy a new car for the family, and i don´t think my wife would understand somethig along these lines : " Well, i know it doesn´t take the kids to school but it´s a real vintage busato... and look at this wood, isn´t it wonderful?"

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Here are a couple of pictures of the grain pattern in curly douglas fir. These ones are sealed before staining, I'd guess. Putting a dark stain on douglas fir will really darken the earlywood, making it a lot more like the Busato.


these pictures come from:
http://www.oregonwildwood.com/custom-so ... woods.html

Look how similar the grain pattern is, especially the first photo.

I think I'll post this same post to the other thread on this guitar, too.