What wood with bubinga?

[Eric Murphy]

From a design point of view, what wood matches well with bubinga? I'm making the mission desk lamp from Wood magazine. I've built three mostly out of bubinga but I made the frame for the lamp shade and the little square feet out of padauk. For a fourth, I thought I might mix it up a bit. I'd like to have the lamp post and the frame for the lamp shade be bubinga and everything else be a different wood. I've thought about cocobolo or one of the rosewoods, I just don't have any laying around to see how it looks. Just wanted to get some input on what everyone thought would look good with bubinga.

[Mike Wenzloff]

Hi Eric,

Wenge looks nice with Bubinga. Woods tended towards yellow look good too, at least as accents. I've even paired curly Jatoba with it and even though the color range is similar, it too looked nice as the Jatoba richen much deeper than the Bubinga. Imbuia is another dark wood which when placed well looks good. Ebony at the darkest end looks wonderful, at least as accents.

Many burls: East African Camphor, Maple, Cherry etc, look nice as accents as the swirling grain of burl wood goes well with the strong graining of Bubinga. A tight burl could make for nice feet.

Mainly it is the competition of similar grain I would watch out for and decide how much you want the other details to draw attention to them whether through color or grain.

Take care, Mike

[Eric Murphy]

Right after I posted my original message, I realized I had some QS sycamore left over from a mantel clock project. I think I have enough for the pieces of the lamp. How do you think QS sycamore would look paired with the bubinga? On the first three that I've built, I used water based poly on the bubinga and padauk because I didn't want to change the color as an oil finish would tend to do. I think if I go with the QS sycamore, I'll still use WB poly on the bubinga but go with an oil finish on the sycamore so it gets that yellow tint.

[Mike Wenzloff]

Hi Eric,

I think the grain of the Sycamore would be enough different to complement rather than compete. Like Maple, it naturally tends towards the yellows and browns range.

Here's a simple Padauk and Syscamore wall cabinet. While the Padauk is much deeper red than the Bubinga color range, I think it gives a slight idea of the pair.

http://www.wenzloffandsons.com/images/detail1.jpg

Take care, Mike

[Jim Becker]

Bubinga tends to be figured in many uses, so a lighter, plain/nondescript) species or something ebonized would be a nice combination, IMHO. You want to insure there isn't a lot of grain clash.

[Dave Avery]

Eric,

I used mahogany for the table in the attached link. Dave.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=5974

[Corey Hallagan]

I think the combination of Dave's mahogany and figured bubby look great! Nice work Dave.

Corey