Pros and cons of a pine strat body

Sarge

Looking into building a partsa strat and in a body search (!) pine keeps coming in on budget, what can you tell me about pine? share your experiences please chaps.

Adam_MD

My cv tele is pine and it sounds really good. It became a lot more resonant after I stripped off the thick factory finish.

I'd have no concerns making a partsacaster from pine now. I've been looking at the guitar build sugar pine bodies for a while.

Sarge

Thanks @Adam_MD
It's the guitarbuild sugarpine that looks most appealing so far. My preference would be ash or walnut but is pine going to be much softer? No doubt it will be an oil finish.

paulnb57

I suppose it may be a bit soft, but then it depends on how clumsy or bothered about dings you are....

ICBM

I'm not sure how well it will support the bridge pivot screws on a trem-bridge Strat. It's fine on a Tele or a hardtail Strat because the string tension is taken by the full thickness of the body.

Sarge

ICBM;986396" said:

I'm not sure how well it will support the bridge pivot screws on a trem-bridge Strat. It's fine on a Tele or a hardtail Strat because the string tension is taken by the full thickness of the body.

Oh good point, hadn't considered that.
Most likely it will be a 6 screw trem as availability is dictating so far, but a hardtail would be nice.

timhulio

I've got a Guitar Build sugar pine body on my Strat. I chose it because of the price and light weight, and because Creston Electric uses it so it must be okay! It's fine with a 6-screw trem, although it does ding quite easily (also my fault for not letting the nitro cure for too long before throwing the hardware on and playing it).

impmann

I'm not sure a Floyd or modern two post would be a good idea as if imagine the posts will become loose over time.
Pine is a fantastic wood for guitars, though. I've not heard a bad pine bodied guitar so far...

Sarge

Thanks for the comments, stuff to consider for sure.

Sambostar

To be honest I reckon it would more depend on what type of pine it is and where it has been grown, rather than pine vs. other woods.

It's kind of like labelling lightweight Swamp ash and baseball bat, Northern Ash as 'Ash'.  They are totally different in weight and density and hardness, but they are both technically from the Fraxinus (Ash) Genus.  Northern Ash and you have a 70's strat boat anchor, heavier than a Les Paul and with swamp ash often a guitar lighter than Basswood.

Most continental pines will be harder than Basswood (Lime) anyway.  How many companies use Basswood?  I'm not a pine fan, but basswood has the biggest tendency for rocking Floyd posts over time if you ask me, although again, it depends on the particular lump.

I think Jackson used Indian Pine for a lot of it's guitar bodies, or was that some sort of Cedar, I forget, I think it was some sort of long leaved, sand growing Pine but they called it 'Cedar' to sound exotic.

This is useful.

http://www.wood-database.com/wood-articles/pine-wood-an-overall-guide/

If it's UK grown, I'd forget Pine and maybe choose Douglas Fir, Larch, Cedar or Hemlock or something, even Leylandii or Cypress.  The closer the rings are, usually the harder it will be.

If it's imported again it's a new ball game.  Something like Longleaf Pine is a completely different animal to our redwood (Scot's Pine, not Metasequioa) and harder than many hardwoods.

It's all a bit confusing, but I would imagine if it says Pine, it's an imported purpose wood and not any old first fix shyte from a UK mill, just as if it says Ash, it is usually Swamp Ash or a lighter Ash, rather than British F. excelsior or American Northern Ash.

Also think about pitch pine (American Pinus rigida or often longleaf pine) compared to Scot's pine.  One is hard as nails and makes excellent boat masts, the other you can imprint with your fingernails.

Get the species, then look up it's typical density and compare that to hardwood species you know and use, that will give you some idea.

Apparently Sugar Pine is one of the softer US Pines.  So that will be designed for weight saving, like Basswood or Swamp Ash more than anything.

I've always fancied a balsawood guitar body for some reason.  Like a Balsawood Les Paul Custom with the name of the headstock, all nitro lacquered up.  I just think it would be priceless to see the look on someone's face when they picked it up, although no doubt the neck would probably snap before it got to that.

Sarge

Thanks @Sambostar!

ICBM

Sambostar said:

I've always fancied a balsawood guitar body for some reason.  Like a Balsawood Les Paul Custom with the name of the headstock, all nitro lacquered up.  I just think it would be priceless to see the look on someone's face when they picked it up, although no doubt the neck would probably snap before it got to that.

Interestingly Gibson did use balsa in the 90s - not sure if they still do - for the centre blocks on some guitars like the Chet Atkins. But they called it "Chromyte" (from the latin species name for the balsa tree), presumably because they thought Balsa would put people off.

(As I'm sure you know) it is in fact a hardwood, and although I doubt it would be strong enough to make a neck, its strength-to-weight ratio is actually higher than most normal hardwoods… which is exactly why it's used for model aeroplanes. You could probably make something like a Tele body out of it where the string tension is taken by the thickness of body rather than just by screws or bridge posts.

meltedbuzzbox

Is poplar not a cheap alternative as well?

WezV

There are also Yamaha's A.I.R bodies which are a balsa like wood capped with a 2mm hard wood* veneer front and back

On these guitars Yamaha solved the bridge mounting issue by bolting through from the back, rather than screwing into the front

* I say 'hard wood' rather than 'hardwood' because  of the points raised by ICBM

TheOtherDennis

ICBM said:

(As I'm sure you know) it is in fact a hardwood, and although I doubt it would be strong enough to make a neck, its strength-to-weight ratio is actually higher than most normal hardwoods… which is exactly why it's used for model aeroplanes. You could probably make something like a Tele body out of it where the string tension is taken by the thickness of body rather than just by screws or bridge posts.

I made a pine bodied Tele out of an old dining table top that I bought for a tenner for one of the Clarksonesque challenges a couple of years ago, and it's held up with no problems with a bridge that's screwed into it, not through-body stringing.

The problem I found with doing it myself, though, is that I lack the skills to have done it cleanly - pine is a bugger to work with as it splinters so easily. I wasted two lumps of wood before I was able to get one that didn't look completely awful.

meltedbuzzbox

you can improve cuts to pine with all kinds of speeds, type of blade, amount of oscillation on the jigsaw etc 

Sassafras

Wasn't the Gordon Smith Graf made from some species of balsa but with a hard maple veneer? Certainly felt like it when I tried one years ago.

Sambostar

I have a Jackson Steath that was probably the lightest select Basswood you could get.  It's Floyd post sockets look like a pornstars' arsehole.