Early Fernandes body wood, hard maple or anigre/silver heart?

[Howdyouride?]

Hello. I have a question on early Fernandes guitar body wood. I mean Burny custom, Burny Olds series. Usually you can find story about Japanese bowling alleys went bankrupt, so then Fernandes and some other companies bought the wood from these bowling alleys and that this wood is called silverheart or anigre wood.
Here is a typical citation: "Most notably was Fernandes’ use of “silver heart” wood which is a very tough hardwood sourced from middle Africa. It was used as bowling alley flooring in Japan and early in the 70s there was a “bowling boom” followed by a “bowling crash”."

As I understand, this may be wrong, and the wood, used in early Fernades bodies was hard maple (this wood could also be used for bowling alleys). Hard maple is heavy, so Burny Olds Telecaster with the body made of 6 planks (two plies, each three pieces) of hard maple is heavy and weighs around 4.6 kg (example on the picture). Hard maple body strats also weigh more than 4 kg.


Hard maple was also used in the early H.S. Anderson models, like HS2 hardtail strat copy (also several planks of wood in two plies), the catalogue picture attached.


And anigre wood, used in higher Burny olds and Stone logo series (FST8 85 and higher models) weighs much lower and is much softer wood, than hard maple. In example, FST85 with Anigre body weighs around 3.5 kg.
Also the difference is that hard maple early bodies consisted of 4-6 maple planks, while anigre bodies had 1-3 pieces usually.

Concerning the bowling alleys wood, it is much more likely, that it was hard maple, as we can read this: "Bowling alleys typically use woods like maple and pine for their lanes. These woods are known for their durability and smooth grain patterns, which are essential for providing a consistent surface for bowling."

Also anigre wood is much more expensive than hard maple, just two examples below:
https://www.woodworkerssource.com/h...t-cut-paper-back-veneer-sheet-4-x-8-roll.html
https://www.woodworkerssource.com/anigre/anigre-figured-paper-back-veneer-sheet-4-x-8-roll.html

This also explains, why anigre was used later for higher Fernandes series (Burny olds, stone logo), while hard maple or sen was used for 'ordinary' series.
Here is an example how anigre / silver heart looks like:


Are my considerations right?

 

[Sigmania]

That is the same thing I had been thinking, but I am not a Fernandes collector and didn't pursue it.

This is the stuff that is definitely not maple and seems to be a tropical hardwood.



Call it Silver Heart or whatever, but it's definitely not maple and would be an odd choice for a bowling alley.

Every bowling alley I have been in and every basketball court and roller skating rink had floors made with maple.

So good points and well explained.

 

[Sigmania]

You added a picture at the same time I was posting. I agree.

 

[Sigmania]

The other odd thing is that flooring is typically around 3/4" thick and about 3" wide. That is obviously not big enough to make a guitar body unless it is pieced together like a Jinga game.

Something is off about this bowling alley story. It was probably not flooring if it is at all true.

 

[Howdyouride?]

Well, not a problem: " A bowling alley lane is typically around 2 inches thick" from here: https://www.quora.com/How-thick-is-a-bowling-alley-floor.
And here: Bowling alley wood is popular for unique hardwood flooring because the wood is incredibly thick and high quality. It’s designed to withstand thousands upon thousands of impacts from heavy bowling balls.
https://www.westcoastfloorco.com/home-designers-are-using-bowling-alley-hardwood-for-flooring-2/

But you may be right, as I see typical bowling floor is glued with many vertical pieces of wood. So a strange story.