Shedua
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A cousin of the more popular and well-known African tonewood, Bubinga, Ovangkol/Shedua is a softer wood (of similar weight and density) with handsome, yet greatly varying aesthetics. Its heartwood color can range anywhere from a light to medium yellow, to a light orange- or reddish-brown, usually highlighted by darker brown or black striping. Its unmistakable sapwood is pale yellow in color.
Its grains can be straight, wavy or interlocked, with generally a medium texture and nice natural luster (due in part to a somewhat high silica content). It is a tough, durable wood, usually possessing fairly cooperative working properties — although its silica content can gum up blades and cutting tools, and there can be tearout issues with boards with interlocking grain patterns. Shedua turns, glues and finishes quite well.
Not listed in the CITES Appendices; categorized on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as a species of “least concern.”
Why We Love This Wood
Although it bares very little aesthetic resemblance to Bubinga, Shedua (also a member of the Guibourtia genus) can be an impressive, visually stunning exotic wood. Tiger-stripe, fiddleback and mottled figuring can be found, on occasion. Examples can vary dramatically in appearance, one from another -- so much so that they could easily be thought to be of different, unrelated species.
The wood has become quite popular as a body wood with many electric guitar luthiers who are familiar with it. Some of the more dense pieces are sometimes used as fretboards, also.
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