Show your Smith bass!

[Tim Bishop]

Originally Posted by Frederick Schurger

....I am curious as to what the woods are in it....

Based on above pic: Looks like the core body wood is black walnut with maple laminates. The center block is maple. The top wood I am guessing is Shedua or a species of walnut? With the serial number you provided, Ken would be your best resourse in identifying the woods with certainty.

[Ken Smith]

The 'S' in the end is for Shedua so that is the Top. I can't see what the side laminations look like in that pic but if 5pc, the thin light wood would be Maple laminate or veneer as we used then. The Core looks dark but so does the picture. I would guess that the core is Mahogany, African species.

The '97' in the end is the year made. There should be a completion date on the label inside the back plate.

We made several body wing sets back then used on Bolt-on's and Neck thrus in 4, 5 and 6 string model basses. The theme was basically 'The African model' using all african woods for the Top, back, core and most of the feature woods bordering the wings and center, mainly in contrasting colors using Bubinga, Shedua and Zebrawood. That's what comes to mind. I have bought a small load of African Mahogany to try out as an alternative to the traditional tropical mahogany. The load yielded about 40-50 core sets so I just made these up with African Top woods and dubbed it 'African model' body wings.