On mine I doubt whether the wood is classic korina (way too dent-prone and soft for that), but it sounds great, all blurry and lively. My luthier once said it was some kind of limba, cheap, but with surprising acoustic qualities.
I know it has been up countless times; but I have always thought that korina is just a trade name to describe the finish, while limba is the name of the wood.
There seems to be lots of discussions on the net regarding 'fake vs. real' korina - especially on epi guitars/basses. Everything from them being chipboard with fake mahogany veneer to real limba as used by Gibson. The comment from those who appeared somewhat serious (experienced luthiers) went in the direction of saying it is the same limba as used by Gibson - but less attractive/smaller pieces glued together.
I read through lots of silly korina threads, doing some research before building my '58 Explorer bass tribute (an ongoing project) .
I bought a late 90's/early 2000's korina Explorer guitar cheap. Apparently limba veneer over other wood, the neck and body seemingly being made from the same kind of wood. After removing the neck, I found solid limba (apparently). I had to remove laquer from one of the pickup cavities - somehow the laquer on epis seems to hide the grain . To my eye, now, I can see that this is a 4 piece solid korina/limba body.
Now, the neck seemed to be made from the same stuff - but it had some kind of veneer on the headstock. Seemed strange - first I took the black plastic off the head, then there was a thin veneer underneath that looked like the body wood. They might have done that for structural purposes. Removing laquer from the neck, it's clearly another kind of wood. Dent prone as Uwe says, and Maple-ish looking.
