Official Luthiers Forum!

I brought a couple of my guitars in to a shop today and they were well
received, but several of the guitar shop salespersons noted that my guitars
were heavy!!! Granted I used cocobolo on one of them, but they asked what
I thicknessed my backs and sides to. I typically go to about 0.085 to 0.09"
What do all of you do? Do you change thickness based on the type of
wood???

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Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

Andy, .085 to .095 sounds about right to me! I try to stay around .090 and I'm sure it will end up a bit thinner after you're done sanding and scraping!!

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

I tend to go thinner with cocobolo, more like .080" or so. It lightens it up a bit and helps the wood sound even better. Sides are a bit thin too.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Andy, you are spot on. Especially for early guitars. When you've gotten the confidence that you can do successful bends every time you'll be able to go a tad thinner. I bend most woods right at .085 and then will go a bit thinner when truing up the sides. My backs are usually about .095.

Mabe they are used to mahogany . Some of the other woods can be much heavier. Cocobolo is quite dense . I recently played an old L-00 it was like a feather compared to mine.

Al