African Blackwood Alexander

I could describe this as an Eric Bibb model, as it has the longer string length of 25 ½ inches- 648mm.  Its design though, started from an Alexander .

My current “wood of the century” - African Blackwood, is actually a Rosewood, Dalbergia Melanoxylon, favoured for bagpipes, clarinets, and when it can be found in big enough sizes, the very best guitars.  The top is Sitka Spruce, quite unusual for me, but this piece is extremely unusual in itself. The grain structure is a mixture of “quilt” and “bearclaw”, which twist the grain lines so tightly together that the wood is amazingly stiff, allowing me to work it rather thinner than I usually would, producing a lively response with no loss of anything at all. It has everything it needs in quite reasonable size bucketfulls

The bindings are Snakewood, and the neck is Claro Walnut with Rosewood lines surrounding a centre section of Bubinga. A 45.5 mm Ebony fingerboard and Gotoh 510 tuners.