A discussion on use of different timbers for building guitars and basses

lysander

I agree about neck stiffness.
I believe the body makes very little difference to the tone but the neck does a lot.
My Vigier Excalibur special, while a great guitar, does suffer a bit from a too stiff neck as a result of being a laminated maple / carbon / maple affair. It sounds, as WezV described it, a bit too direct.

I do love the look of necks laminated from contrasting wood, but do not have the ability to machine them ( no planer, thicknesser, bandsaw or table saw ) so will be sticking to maple for my builds I think. 

Kalimna

The first guitar i made (the one with Mark Bailey) has a centre strip of jarrah between the mahogany outer. Its not quite the definition of being laminated, but feels fairly stiff. Jarrah is quite a stiff timber, if i remember. And Australian, which means it laughs at tool edges

I suspect that i may trial some laminated necks for my next ukulele build as i feel they dont necessarily need trussrods, but more resistance to bending than straightforward timber provides. CF inserts is obviously one way to go there.

Would you consider QS ash to be suitably stable for use in a neck? I have a small quantity of both rippled and olive ash that would certainly work from the visual side.

Lots of interesting opinion/advice here being shared freely - what makes this a good forum

Adam

aord43

Interesting, I was going to use a cheap Ebay neck but maybe I will try to find something better when the time comes. (won't be for a while). 

Roland

My experience of cheap eBay necks is not inspiring. You'd think they would be cut on a jig, but all the frets above the twelfth were out of place. Not systematic deviation but haphazard placement.

lysander

Roland said:

My experience of cheap eBay necks is not inspiring. You'd think they would be cut on a jig, but all the frets above the twelfth were out of place. Not systematic deviation but haphazard placement.

The Encore telecaster I bought as a project was like that. It was a pain to fix. 

Rabs

I didn't want to get involved in that other tonewood thread but couldn't help it...  haha, people go a bit nuts with this sort of discussion.. So its good so see a sensible one on the subject.

I think that anyone who has worked with wood knows it makes a difference... Each bit of wood is unique...  BUT as we are talking about electric guitars, once you add the pickups, amp and distortion those differences become quite small. And which is why we have control settings on the guitar and amp and pedals..  So we can alter the sound to what we want to hear which I actually what I think is important.. If a player likes what they hear and it inspires them, then who actually cares why... Just enjoy it I say

As for building.. Well when I started I used to go to a local joinery company and they would let me have their offcuts...  So at first I just used what ever I could get my hands on to get experience..  I made a guitar from Beech (neck and body) and had some people say to me, ohh that's not going to work, why are you using Beech, its not a traditional wood.. But the guitar came out really well and sounds spanking (and the pickups arnt super expensive). Actually check this at 6:26 in

I have also built a guitar that had a two piece maple body and an oak neck with an ebony board.. BUT it has tele style hardware and pickups.. This one (go to 2:53 for a clear pickup test).

So I agree that sometimes you can just disregard "tonewood" and go for it and still end up with a good guitar..

To me this says that while there is something in the traditional woods used, theres also definitely something to be said for building with anything and seeing how it comes out it can be unpredictable sometime....  It will still in general sound like an electric guitar.... Its if it has pleasing characteristics in the sound which we all hear slightly differently.. So some people will like it, and some people wont and most people just wont care (which is what I think about public opinion in general ).

GSPBASSES

I would estimate that 90 percent of the necks I make are laminated, all the mahogany necks I make for Les Paul type guitars are always laminated. Most of the Fender style I make are still one-piece plus fingerboard, with one exception of one of my commercial customers, he always has three-piece necks, even for his fender style builds. The roasted maple necks I've been making are one-piece plus fingerboard. If I'm making maple necks, but with the lean back headstock these will also be laminated.

When I was making high-end bass guitars about 30 years ago all the necks were laminated, this was as much for the looks of different coloured woods, but also that the extra strength it gave.

The reason I switched to three-piece mahogany necks for Les Paul type builds was as much for the economics as the strength or any other reason. The economics were quite straightforward, I used to buy the neck blanks from David Dykes, these were approximately 75mm square. I would estimate that at least 50% of the block will be cut off and wasted, at the time these blocks cost £35 upwards. I can remember when I used to do repairs for a couple of the local music shops, occasionally a Les Paul would come in that had a 3 piece neck. This led me onto working out how I could make three-piece necks to save money and wood. After several discussions with David Dyke he showed me these exceedingly large blocks of mahogany that you really needed a forklift to lift them. He explained to me that the blocks were about 30 mm to thick for what the wood is was going to be used for (classical guitar necks). He would have 30mm cut off, this wood was of little use to him as not many guitar builders wanted slab sawn mahogany necks. However, to me, I could see the potential of using this wood for making laminated necks. I have written a post on this before but unfortunately since photo bucket stop third-party sharing all photographs in the post have now disappeared. I’ll put the photo up again now but write about them some other time.

Look at the last photo, what’s that all about then.

FelineGuitars

Meringue Guitar?

Looks like chambering a guitar for weight but filling the chambers with expanded foam to cut down resonances?

Danielsguitars

Looks like expanded foam to me too

How does it affect tone or whatever you want to call it against no foam

GSPBASSES

This was a bit of an experiment for one of my trade customers, his customer wanted a telecaster body that weighed about 3lb and no more out of Swamp Ash. That's where the problem is, it's almost impossible to find a Swamp Ash body blank that will give you a final weight of 3lb. The other problem being it could not be chambered in any way whatsoever. When I'm asked to make such things I always take the easy way out. I can't make solid body telecaster's come in at 3lb, so my answer is sorry can't be done unless you have a thin line or an F hole body or a chambered body.

The experiment was to make a fully chambered body and filled the chambers with builders polyurethane foam. The idea was to take as much wood out as possible then squirt foam into the chambers, then leave it go hard for a couple of days. Then cut it back flat with body and put a cap on,  from the same piece of wood, that body is made from. This was in hope that the body would turn out at 3lb, but if you tapped it would sound sold.

This was not done to deceive the customer as he would be told what had been done and shown photographs of how it was done. The making of it was quite easy, standard routed to do a chambered body, going a little bit deeper than normal to try loses as much weight as possible. Filling it with foam was no problem, just point the can of foam at the chamber and press the button. Once the foam had gone hard. It was cut off level with the top of the body and the cap glued on. The body was then routed in conventional Tele way. This is the interesting bit, we were both worried that when you tapped the body, it would sound dead, but it didn't, still had a ring to it, but not quite the same as solid Swamp Ash, but very close.

So now the big test, the guitar is assembled with all standard hardware, the pickups are were standard medium output with the standard three-way switch, size 10 strings fitted. When the guitar was played acoustically, it sounded very similar too any other guitar made a Swamp Ash, possibly a little bit quieter. When it was plugged in with all controls set to neutral with the gain control set low. Much to our surprise it didn't really sound any different to any other Tele made of Swamp Ash. But there is a difference, when playing rhythm the sound was pretty good, but when single note solos  played they did sound a little bit dead and not very much sustain. This all changed when the gain was turned up, plus a little bit of overdrive, it then sounded like any other Swamp Ash Tele playing rhythm or solo.

The guitar body did come in and a fraction under 3lb, without any finish on the body. The customer was told all about what we have done, he was quite happy and went ahead with the order.

  You can draw your own conclusions about this, I personally wouldn't do it again, not for any reason, but that builders foam is very messy, and the nozzles block up very easily.

One of the worries I had was that the foam would shrink, some years down the line, because of this concern I did make a second one that was about three years ago, maybe more. There is no sign of the foam shrinking yet. 

One  point, you will notice is that the foam was put in the back of the guitar then the cap was fitted. This is a result of another experiment that I carried out many years ago when making thin line and F hole Telecaster's. But I will deal with that in another post. 

Danielsguitars

GSPBASSES said:

This was a bit of an experiment for one of my trade customers, his customer wanted a telecaster body that weighed about 3lb and no more out of Swamp Ash. That's where the problem is, it's almost impossible to find a Swamp Ash body blank that will give you a final weight of 3lb. The other problem being it could not be chambered in any way whatsoever. When I'm asked to make such things I always take the easy way out. I can't make solid body telecaster's come in at 3lb, so my answer is sorry can't be done unless you have a thin line or an F hole body or a chambered body.

The experiment was to make a fully chambered body and filled the chambers with builders polyurethane foam. The idea was to take as much wood out as possible then squirt foam into the chambers, then leave it go hard for a couple of days. Then cut it back flat with body and put a cap on,  from the same piece of wood, that body is made from. This was in hope that the body would turn out at 3lb, but if you tapped it would sound sold.

This was not done to deceive the customer as he would be told what had been done and shown photographs of how it was done. The making of it was quite easy, standard routed to do a chambered body, going a little bit deeper than normal to try loses as much weight as possible. Filling it with foam was no problem, just point the can of foam at the chamber and press the button. Once the foam had gone hard. It was cut off level with the top of the body and the cap glued on. The body was then routed in conventional Tele way. This is the interesting bit, we were both worried that when you tapped the body, it would sound dead, but it didn't, still had a ring to it, but not quite the same as solid Swamp Ash, but very close.

So now the big test, the guitar is assembled with all standard hardware, the pickups are were standard medium output with the standard three-way switch, size 10 strings fitted. When the guitar was played acoustically, it sounded very similar too any other guitar made a Swamp Ash, possibly a little bit quieter. When it was plugged in with all controls set to neutral with the gain control set low. Much to our surprise it didn't really sound any different to any other Tele made of Swamp Ash. But there is a difference, when playing rhythm the sound was pretty good, but when single note solos  played they did sound a little bit dead and not very much sustain. This all changed when the gain was turned up, plus a little bit of overdrive, it then sounded like any other Swamp Ash Tele playing rhythm or solo.

The guitar body did come in and a fraction under 3lb, without any finish on the body. The customer was told all about what we have done, he was quite happy and went ahead with the order.

  You can draw your own conclusions about this, I personally wouldn't do it again, not for any reason, but that builders foam is very messy, and the nozzles block up very easily.

One of the worries I had was that the foam would shrink, some years down the line, because of this concern I did make a second one that was about three years ago, maybe more. There is no sign of the foam shrinking yet. 

One  point, you will notice is that the foam was put in the back of the guitar then the cap was fitted. This is a result of another experiment that I carried out many years ago when making thin line and F hole Telecaster's. But I will deal with that in another post. 

what would be interesting Graham is to fill it with a lighter wood if possible, I've got pine that feels light but not sure if that would be right, suggestions please 

That's one I'd be tempted to try anyway

What was the final weight of that guitar  

Rabs

Interesting ideas...

You could fill the holes with hide glue..  Surely that would make any guitar sound amazing  :P

Kalimna

What about using a much lighter wood, say balsa or paulownia, as the middle of an ash sandwich? 

Rabs

Kalimna said:

What about using a much lighter wood, say balsa or paulownia, as the middle of an ash sandwich? 

Actually I did one the other way around... I just happened to have these planks which wernt really big enough for anything useful so I made an oak frame and put some softish meranti either side of it. So its kind of chambered but the oak obviously is solid.....

Havent finished it beyond the body yet.. Another one of my many projects to do 

So yes..  An oak frame

https://i.imgur.com/FORuw5a.jpg

Just the right size for the template and the frame is wide enough to take the horns.

https://i.imgur.com/SJMs6hr.jpg

Sandwiched with the meranti

https://i.imgur.com/PYkjiZf.jpg

Which I think came out pretty cool and is very light.. Possibly planning on a nice veneer for the top or make it a solid colour cos meranti is pretty plain. If or when I get the time (groan )

https://i.imgur.com/moRpvrP.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/NFej276.jpg

Must get around to finishing this. 

GSPBASSES

Kalimna said:

What about using a much lighter wood, say balsa or paulownia, as the middle of an ash sandwich? 

I did initially suggest to use a very light wood in the chambers, but the idea was dropped very quickly , as the cost of this would have been to high. New jigs would have have to be made for the chambers and corresponding jigs made for the inserts, this would have been quite expensive and time-consuming. 

 The guitar weight was around 5.75lb.

Kalimna

Yes, I could see how jigging up for chambers would be prohibitive of time and money. But what about a plain sandwich? Kindof like a very thick plywood laminate? Admittedly you would then have the problem of the alternating wood grain around the edge.
And may I ask why no chambers could be part of the design?

Adam

GSPBASSES

And may I ask why no chambers could be part of the design?

Adam

Not sure what you mine by that, normally the guitar does not have chambers anyway.

Kalimna

Sorry, I perhaps could have been clearer -  in your earlier post discussing this body you say "The other problem being it could not be chambered in any way whatsoever", I was just wondering why that was the case. If I have missed something obvious, apologies.

Adam

GSPBASSES

I see what you mean now, the customer stated he didn't want the body chambered. The customer believe that by having  chambers it would change the sound.

Kalimna

Gotcha.