Mahogany neck on mahogany? or maple?

[LEOKV2]

Hello

I want to understand how will these two combinations sound so I can finally choose what suits me the most. The guitar body is the same on both options, the only variation is the neck.

BODY: Mahogany with 1/8th flame maple top

Now, here's the 2 types of neck, both will be neck-through body...

1) 5 piece maple with walnut (or cocobolo) sides

2) 5 piece mahogany with walnut (or cocobolo) sides

I haven't specified the kind of dark wood for the neck yet since I need some help there, like, which one is better, walnut or cocobolo (some help there would be great). The effect of the neck will be to have dark outer stripes, then maple or mahogany, and a dark inner stripe, kinda like on BC Rich Supremes or so.

[Shwayman11]

i think itll really just have to do with feel- i dont believe neck wood has much of an impact on tone- at least nowhere near as much as fretboard wood

[rjohnstone]

Maple is a more dense wood then Mahogany and will be a bit brighter.
And yea... neck wood will affect your overall tone.

[secks]

i think itll really just have to do with feel- i dont believe neck wood has much of an impact on tone- at least nowhere near as much as fretboard wood

just the opposite though. even neck thickness has serious impact on tone

[VoiceX3]

I think both combinations will sound good but very different. Depending on what you're looking for sound wise Mahogany/Mahogany will be much warmer than Mahogany/Maple which will be brighter and have a little more bite yet not as bright as as Alder/Maple combination. This will effect your pickup choices as well, so what I suggest is to decide what you want tonewise then weigh your choices that way.

In the meantime, here's a link to tonewood descriptions on Warmouth's site. It may help you understand a little more about each wood's characteristics before you make your choice.

http://www.warmoth.com/guitar/options/options_bodywoods.cfm

[toejam]

i think itll really just have to do with feel- i dont believe neck wood has much of an impact on tone- at least nowhere near as much as fretboard wood

Neck wood would definitely have more impact on tone than fretboard wood.

[LEOKV2]

Cool, voicex3, that link was very helpful, specially when I went into the neckwoods part.

Now, on my last custom quote, I remember I chose the same 5 piece neck but I used figured maple and cocobolo for the woods, and it turned out to be pretty expensive.

Now I will go with mahogany for the neck, but, I'm still doubting about which dark wood should I choose for the dark stripes.

I have discarded cocobolo (I think), and I'm looking into Walnut or Wenge.

I need to know for any of you how know about this, which of the 2 is the most and the least expensive, so I can get an idea, and maybe, if one is more expensive than the other, how much MORE (so I can get kinda like an idea) and, compared to say, maple or mahogany, how much do walnut or wenge cost.

Thanks guys!!

[VoiceX3]

***remember*** Both of those woods are heavier than Mahogany and although it should be slight, they will affect the overall balance of the guitar. The Wenge will have less effect on your tonal qualities as Walnut is a brighter wood. I may be wrong, but I think in price difference the Wenge is going to be slightly more.....but it should be a minimal difference.

[m2pmd70]

I would go with wenge [(pronounced 'When-gay') LOL] because I think it'd look better. I wouldn't think the material of those two little stripes would make that much difference in your tone.

http://www.woodworking.org/WC/Woods/265.html

[LEOKV2]

Ok cool, but, how much is wenge compared to like, maple or mahogany? I ask this because maybe is some kind of super expensive wood, I'm not able to spend so much, so I just need to know.

[j2379]

ide go with option 1 maple with walnut, mahogany & walnut are similar in color & wont look as good as stripes. & yes most BCRich stripes (stringers) were walnut W/maple body & neck or maple stringers w/ koa. look into wenge oily woods dont glue up well with others, imnot sure if wenge is one of them.

BTW i just got a bolt on with a one peice rosewood neck/fretboard & yes neck wood makes a huge difference in tone. & the feel of raw rosewood is so nice.

[DonP]

+1 on neck wood making a huge difference. In the Les Paul camp, you have one piece mahogany, 3 pieces, and three piece maple. There is a huge difference in the three piece maple and one piece mahogany, considering all other things equal.

[LEOKV2]

My guess is that a figured maple neck would be much more expensive than a non-figured one, I ask this because I want to see the striped neck pattern on the top as well, having a flame maple top it would look cool if the neck is flamed too, but then again that must cost a lot. So, how will it look if it was regular maple? I mean, the "maple" stripes aren't as noticeable specially at the top, since we have pickups and the floyd rose trem, and at the back it will make the color difference I like. This is what I mean, basically this is how the guitar will look, I used the "custom shop" generator and added the neck stripes with "paint". Check it out, it will help understand what I'm asking above:



So, wenge it is I guess? I still don't know if either wenge or walnut are "special" woods and cost a bundle compared to mahogany or plain maple... help there plz?

[surfreak]

Considering that it is a neck-thru, the neck wood will be THE major factor in the overall tone.

It seems that the neck laminate you're going for is more suited to a bass guitar, I am not a fan of multiple laminates of different woods, simply because more stripes mean more glue, hence probably more stability but dampened resonance.

If I were you, especially if the mahogany body wings are quite dense (nowadays I find more and more mahogany is so soft, pale in color and light that it simply doesn't sound like mahogany anymore) I'd go with a single piece of plain quartersawn maple.

[Newc]

I'd stick with mahogany neck and mahogany body, but have the paintjob done so that the neck tenon is not painted, just cleared, and the body wings get the painted/figured top.

You could probably do maple stringers in it - one on either side of the tenon.

There was a JacksonStars or GroverJackson Kelly someone posted a pic of a while back that was like that - beautiful guitar, too bad it was a Kelly

Mahogany body wings on a maple through-neck will just add excess weight and do little to affect the tone. The maple neck and ebony board will dominate the tonal characteristic. The acoustic tone might be good, but that's an awful lot of money to throw away on a guitar that will not sound as good plugged in as it does acoustically. May as well get one of those Alvarez acoustic Vs.

And take my advice: don't blow your entire wad on one Custom Shop. Yeah it's nice for bragging rights and might be pretty to look at, but honestly it's like a tattoo - you better be madly in love with it and able to keep it till you die, because if you sell it you'll get nowhere near what you paid, and if you find another idea you'd like to try, you're gonna be disappointed financially.

As for the persistant question of the cost of wenge vs walnut - walnut is pretty common (it grows on trees!), but wenge is an imported wood, so you should be prepared to spend about $300 more for it than walnut. If it's less than that, hey it's a savings for you, but if you're not prepared to go at least $500 extra for wenge, scratch it off your list.