Korina Wood

The name Korina doesn't exist in botany. Gibson invented it in 1958 to market an African wood almost nobody had heard of yet, Terminalia superba, known in West Africa as limba, on the bodies and necks of two guitars that would change the look of the electric instrument forever: the Flying V and the Explorer. Radical, futuristic shapes, almost incomprehensible for the time. The market rejected them, and Gibson pulled them after just a couple of years. Today those original korina instruments sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars and rank among the most sought-after pieces for collectors worldwide. The wood was right all along, it was just ahead of its time.

Terminalia superba grows in the tropical forests of West and Central Africa, where it can reach forty-five meters in height, with perfectly straight trunks for over twenty-five meters, a trait that makes it valuable for instrument making, where long, clean boards are gold. Its color ranges from pale yellow to warm gold, with grey or near-black streaks in the black korina variant that make every piece visually unique. The wood is light, just 560 kg/m³, less than half the weight of some exotic woods, with a dry, resonant, balanced acoustic response that luthiers often describe as similar to mahogany but more open and defined. A Janka rating of 670 lbf makes it soft by exotic-wood standards, pleasant to work, and generous with instruments.

Its porous nature is the one thing to keep in mind for laser work: fine-line engravings tend to get lost in the wood's open grain, while symbols and designs with bolder strokes and more breathing room come out clean, with that warm background color making every mark stand out.