Official Luthiers Forum!

here is what knowledge i have about the wood, it does have an effect on the tone of the instrument. i read a book on building electrics when i first started building and it had a short segment on wood types in the back which i have found to be pretty accurate. as a general rule woods like alder and maple (and i think ash though i have never used it) are going to have a really bright sound, like a tele or something. mahogany is a little darker sounding and will bring out the mids a good deal. walnut has a very dark low sound to it, but it works well as body wings for a neck through guitar (have used it for that on a couple). i personally like maple bodies a lot, though they are really heavy, they are really aggressive and punchy sounding.

as far as neck joints go i prefer a neck through, it can be a little more difficult, but i think that it results in a more stable and better sounding guitar with greater sustain and playability (this is because you don't get the bulky neck joint so the high frets are much easier to reach). i don't think there is much difference between a bolt on or a set neck as long as it is a good tight fit. if given the choice i would do a bolt on over a set neck cause if anything ever goes wrong then you can take it apart easily. with either of them the fit ought to be tight enough that when you put the neck in the pocket there should be enough friction to more or less hold up the guitar. there another style called a neck tennon, but i dont know much about it though, i have never made one.

i have never made a hollow body either, and I'm not really sure the benefits of semi hollow bodies or chambered hollow bodies appart from making it more light weight and possibly giving it a little more volume unplugged. i know the reason the went to complete solid bodies way back when was because of feedback issues with hollow bodies though.

hope this helps some. also, that is some sweet lookin wood, ought to make a couple nice guit-fiddles

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~shad peters

http://www.flickr.com/photos/petersinstruments/
http://petersinstruments.blogspot.com/
http://petersinstruments.com/

Well - if you're building a Variax transplant, I can say for sure - the wood will have NO impact on the tone! It is all digital modelling, so as long as the whole thing is stiff enough to stay in tune, you're good.

That said, I think a solidbody Variax with no pickups would show off that quilt like no other!
Heck, I'd even hide the knobs on the edge of the guitar just to show off that real estate.

But with regular pickups, wood does certainly affect the tone. But so do a lot of other things.

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The member formerly known as erikbojerik....

Everything on an electric guitar effects the tone much like an acoustic, just not as pronounced. Scale length is a big one that is sometimes overlooked. Another is pickup placement (i.e. 22 fret or 24 fret). As for the woods, they have already been talked to. Maple has often been paired with mahogany because they compliment each other in sound, the bright maple on top of darker mahogany is what people have grown accustom to hearing. As for neck joints the only one that makes a big difference in sound is the neck through. If you build a neck through, the body wood doesn't even really matter because they are just wings, the strings, bridge, pickups all sit in the neck. A set neck or bolt on (if done with inserts like an acoustic bolt on) will be of equal strength and can both be done while still giving almost as much access to the upper frets as a neck through. The gallery on my web page has some examples of these joints. The neck extends all the way under the pickup. What ever you do, those are some killer billets and they will make some nice looking guitars.
cheers,
John

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John Thiessen
http://www.iszacguitars.com