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Notwithstanding, well done @Tannin ... I'm sure you'll have many years of enjoyment from your bespoke design.
One day I might just flog a few guitars and order a custom-made guitar ... but not yet.
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The yew in the neck was an interesting big. As mentioned a page or two earlier I wanted some yew to go with the bog oak fretboard. When I mentioned yew for the neck Simon immediately said "yes" but that it would need to be laminated with something. I'm not entirely sure why that is (I didn't want to waste their entire day with a zillion different questions) but one factor is that it would be difficult to find a bit that was long and thick and straight enough and I also got the impression that it wasn't structurally suitable on its own.
Anyway, laminated with walnut (which they do like as a neck timber) it will be fine, and with the light-coloured pinstripes of pale timber separating the darker yew and walnut laminations, it will look great. (I left it up to them whether to use Sycamore or European Maple for the pinstripes, depending on what bits they have handy at the time.) It will be my one and only laminated neck, by the way.
Given the finalised spec for the neck, it was an obvious step to echo it with the back and side materials - walnut, with yew up the centre, and maple or Sycamore trim.
It wound up being quite a long way away from the guitar(s) I had in mind in the first place, but that's fine. I reckon it will be a beauty.
A laminated neck is generally regarded as a high-end feature. It costs more to manufacture, and is (in theory) more stable. And of course it looks great. There is no effect worth mentioning on the sound quality. At its simplest, you take one bit of timber and split it up the middle. Then you reverse one of the pieces and glue them back together. Because the two parts are reversed with respect to one another, and tendency to bow (say) to the left from one part is exactly opposed by the other part which (of course) wants to bow right. Result: a very stable neck.
(You do exactly the same thing for all sorts of woodworking tasks. I'm no luthier but I can build a house no worries, and it is a standard technique to laminate key corner studs. Suppose you are making a house frame out of 4 x 2 pine studs. Pine tends to be crappy stuff at the best of times, prone to warping, twisting and bowing, but it's good enough for a house frame. Now you get to a corner or a door post. It obviously needs to be stronger than the 4 x 2 wall studs. Do you use heavier timber instead? Say an 8 x 6? No! Not only is that expensive, it is also prone to warping and twisting unless it's a very good bit of timber. Much better - and standard practice for any builder - is to use three bits of 4 x 2, nailed together in such a way that the warps and twists are opposed and want to even themselves out. Cheaper, plenty strong enough, and lasts forever without warping. This is effectively a laminate.)
So laminated necks are a high-end feature. Some builders never use anything else. On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to make a high-quality neck which won't warp or twist out of a single piece of timber just so long as you select a good, straight bit and season it properly.
So in the end, it's just a matter of taste and the builder's preference.
The best laminated necks (not necessarily the best lasting and certainly not the best sounding, just the best looking) use something like 5 pieces. My Brook is an example: it will be walnut on either side with yew running up the middle, and on either side of the yew a pair of thin maple or Sycamore strips like a pinstripe. Presumably that will add a bit to the cost, but probably not a great deal and it will look beautiful, especially as it will match the back.
Laminated backs, on the other hand, tend to produce a fairly OK sound so long as the top is half decent and are quite consistent. Think of them as being like tinned soup: they are never, ever going to earn a Michelin Star from anyone but at least they'll all be pretty much the same as each other and you (the guitar manufacturer) can churn out thousands and thousands of them without worrying too much about matching your construction to your timber. None of them (probably) will be truly awful, and none of them will be particularly good. Tinned soup.
Laminated sides are different. The sides have no real impact on the sound of the guitar, they are really just a way to hold the top and the back apart. You could make them out of anything. Quite a few high-end boutique makers (the people making guitars in the £8000 price bracket) use laminated sides because they are easier to bend, have no impact on the sound quality, and can be made as thick as you like, which helps add weight to the body. (Tops should pretty much always be light and backs mostly should be reasonably light (depending on the design) but heavy sides are often a very good thing. Some builders add weights to sides (glued onto the inside) as part of the process of fine-tuning the tone of a fine instrument.)
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Oh, why didn't I buy it!
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Hmmm ... on second thoughts, maybe not.
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