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I'm getting ready to start work on a Walnut medium Jumbo, WRC topped, using a nice, lightly curly set for back/sides, both featuring a nice amount of lighter sapwood (and the back's got some black stuff as well, which I'll probably cut away). [url=http://www.xs4all.nl/~mvalente/guitarpics2/wood/Walnut2_02.jpg]Here's a shot of it in the dry[url], for those interested.

Now for the question of stability: I've seen enough outrageously sapwooded guitars (oh so pretty, that) that I know it's more than stable enough for use in backs and sides. But I've got this very nice chunk of Walnut that I want to turn into a laminated neck that's got a nice little 'rim' of sapwood in it as well. I was thinking of gluing the laminate up with maple centre, two thinner wenge strips (the nice things you find in lumberyard scrap piles for almost no money is great sometimes), then the walnut with the sapwood facing centre.

The issue: is sapwood, or the sapwood/heartwood transition are, something you want to be avoiding in a neck? Is it softer/less stable in any way? And is laminating stock up by simply sawing and flipping each piece 90 degrees fine (it's wide, fairly perfectly flatsawn piece; sawing and flipping would present well quartered faces to the fingerboard surface) or should I flip one of the laminates?

Mattia, the stock you show in the picture looks pretty solid. Shrinkage in a multiply neck between various layers is a concern. Not knowing the moisture content or history of this wood there is little to base an opinion on.

I did some multilam mahogany and maple necks a year ago, and I'm glad it had lots of time to stabilize before use. The center maple strip of 1/8 inch material shrank in relation to the mahogany after being bandsawed.

Now it should be fine and as the necks are shaped the join will be flush. Kevin Ryan makes up his neck blanks way in advance. That is really smart.

I'm more concerned about the neck stock, which I don't have photographs of that would be at all helpful.

The Walnut's currently a block about 6" x 1.75" x neck length, it's rough-sawn, and at the very least 3 years old; the guys at the yard had it in the 'small parts' pile, and didn't know exactly which batch of Walnut this one came from. They knew it was at LEAST 3 years old, dry, but couldn't say anything more about it. They'd already processed the rest of the log into tables/countertops, and hadn't had any complaints about it.

I'm going to be building up neck blank stop for the next couple of years (hey, I only plan on building 3 or so per annum..) to make sure they acclimatize properly, and stay stable with this in mind. I think I'll rough-saw the blank into the pieces I need for a neck, let them 'rest' and see if there's any movement (leave it for a month or two) before I process it any further (ie. laminate 'er up!)

But what I'm still unsure of is the whole sapwood thing in a neck: is it OK to leave it in there, facing the center laminates, or am I just asking for trouble? Is there a difference in terms of stability and strength that makes this a stupid thing to contemplate for a neck?

More or less, the laminate will look like this (photoshopped, and using a different piece of walnut I got from the same source, and using a piece of nice flamed Maple BobC's supplying me with):

Mattia Valente38400.3728703704