What are guitars made of?

Veraxitas Sales · Post by **Veraxitas Sales** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 2:28 pm

I have seen the word "Mahogany" "Flame Top" and others. I am confused as to whats "Good" and whats "Cheap" I am assuming that the type of wood a guitar is made of has a lot to do with the cost of the guitar.

I am also assuming that the type of wood has a lot to do with the sound it produces.

I have an Epiphone LP Standard and the tech that replaced my pickups told me that the so-called "Flame Top" on my cherry sunburst standard is really a "Picture" and not REAL wood grain.

I am looking to buy a new guitar, possibly a Gibson, but may only be able to afford another Epiphone. When looking for one, what should I look for as far as WOOD that body, neck and "TOP" is made off.

Is there a website that explains all this? I have looked but can't find one.

Thx

gregtarr · Post by **gregtarr** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 3:36 pm

You can just ask any girl. They all know.
Acoustic guitars are made of wood.
Electric guitars are made of plastic.
Oh, and then there are those other guitars with less strings.

Don't worry, there not just a few people on this forum who actually know what they are talking about. Basically there isn't a good type of wood and a bad type of wood. Just different types. (well, there is MDF, and pine, which I don't think make fantastic guitars). Basically the best indicator whether something is made of cheap wood or expensive wood is the overall price. And it's not so much the type of wood, but the actual individual cut. Like when you buy a $6000 LP, you are paying about $1000 for an expert to choose the best cuts.
Flame top just means that they have got a piece of figured maple (wood grown under pressure, giving it a wavy grain (right Ash??)), then it is cut through the middle, making it a mirror image, then lined up and stuck on the top of the body.
I believe that flame tops are simply there to look pretty, I don't think that it not being actual flamed maple makes it sound any worse.

ash · Post by **ash** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 4:36 pm

In addition to the difficulties in selecting a guitar by its wood type is the fact that many (most) guitar companies LIE THROUGH THEIR TEETH about what their guitars are made of. Mahogany is easily the worst abused name with rosewood being the second most lied about wood.

The easiest way to deal with it is to be sceptical of anything that doesn't provide any detail about the wood. If they say its northern Belize swetenia Mahogany, then it probably is. But if they just say mahogany, then it could be any old brown crap with an interlocked porous grain...

It really is a can of worms, but when you have a particular guitar in mind, someone here can help you work out what its made of.

In the end, the hardware and pickups are too important to ignore in favour of getting a nice log of wood. So you should pay more attention to how the guitar plays, sounds and looks than what the spec sheet says its made of, although the specifications do give you somewhere to start looking...

Many cheaper guitars do indeed have the grain printed onto plainer wood, or if you're lucky hav a thin veneer on fancy wood glued over plain wood.
Flamed maple doesn't sound any different to plain printed or veneered plain maple of the same kind as Greg noted. However many people are convinced that they can hear a difference between quilted and flamed and plain. I even overheard a Rockshop minion using this 'information' to sell a fancy guitar to an unsuspecting punter. The fact of this is that quilted can sound softer than flamed because quilted maple is always Western Bigleaf Maple and flamed is usually Eastern Hard Maple, and they do respond differently to each other.

Anyway... back to the point at hand. When you go to buy a better LP, as far as wood is concerend, and probably all other aspects except looks, always go for a simple/cheap/used/old Gibson over a new and fancy Epiphone. (Unless its the only ZW in town!

)

Veraxitas Sales · Post by **Veraxitas Sales** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 7:59 pm

Ash, Thank You so very much for the informative reply. That helps a lot.

Post by Bg » Sun Mar 06, 2005 9:17 pm

yeah but remember that Fender went through a stage where it was a selling point. 'fotoflame' was an optionon most of their models around the mid to late eighties. I have a couple for my sins

Post by **GrantB** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 8:38 am

Hi Veraxitas Sales.

Just a little of the theory behind why the mix of woods etc, particularly Les Pauls etc...

The main part of the body of an LP is almost always mahogany. A nice deep sounding rich wood. Not a lot of bite though. So, to balance things out, they decided all those years ago to put a maple "cap" on top, to add some brightness to the tone. The theory is that the two woods combined provde a well balanced tone.

I can only speak of my les pauls - one a standard which has the said two bits 'o' wood approach, the other is a single slab of mahogany. These do sound different unplugged (can't compare them plugged in - different p/ups) so there might just be something in it.

You are right about the price playing an important role in judging the overall quality of the guitar - usually. I have seem some Epiphone Les Pauls that have flame tops (who knows how thin though, as Ash suggests) that are definately not photo finishes.

Second hand Les Pauls are coming down in price, and new ones too. I saw a wicked black Les Paul in Napier 3 years back - very worn but full of tone and mojo, and they were asking $2K...not that far from a flame top epi at $1300! Good luck in your quest.

Rog · Post by **Rog** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 9:03 am

The wood doesn't matter as much as the paint.

A good coating of Resene Purple will fix many problems...

DC4 · Post by **DC4** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:59 am

Why stop at purple?
The "Splatterstrat" approach really gives killer tone.

Doesn't it?

Rog · Post by **Rog** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 11:39 am

LOL - my wife saw one in the RS and said - that'd be nice - why don't you buy one of them?

After I picked my jaw up from the floor, I politely declined...

B45-12 · Post by **B45-12** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 7:55 pm

Well you are all wrong - in my opinion the most important thing deciding a guitars tone is who endorses it!

Yep the person on the ad is the most important 'cause the molecules of their karma send synergic sympathy waves into the wood and pups of the guitar. Now you might say 'fair enough as wood is a living thing but metal???' Ah but have you never heard of 'quicksilver' and quick is the old English work for 'live' (as in the quick and the dead) or 'living' (biting one's nails down to the quick). Case proven I'd say!!

Now if you have a spotty black person on the ad you are probably going to wake up with an enormous errection, loose shoes and a hideous craving for crack cocaine since that's their karma; a white punk will probably give you a nasty heroin habit and a whinging thin whiney girlfriend while an Ovation ad will have you hanging around Vivian street saying 'Hello sailor - how about a good time - I'm not free tonight - but very cheap' in no time.

So you want something safe and perhaps a bit on the cheeky/boring side - like say EC or Joe Satriani.

Once you've got your guitar it's a well known fact you can improve its tone no end by piddling on it nightly (same for the amp but unplug it first eh!!). This is because the human urine has nitrates in it and nitrates are what is used to preserve wood in third world countries instead of arsenic salts. In fact if you go to any 3rd world district in the US you will see no end of black guys trying to preserve brick walls this way.

Of course human seminal fluid is great for polishing frets - japanese sword polishers have used it for centuries and that is why they allways look like they've just had an orgasm - 'all part of the job' as they say.

Finaly you need a good thick lubricating goo for the headstock keys - so just eat pleanty of sticky rice about 24 hours before you need the lubricant and an added bonus of such lubrication is that no-one, but no-one is going to steal your guitar once they've read this helpful advice.

So there you go folks - tone problem is really 'piss in the hand' as they say.

TMG 03 · Post by **TMG 03** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 9:44 pm

THere is wood and there is wood. Most of it is industrial grown stuff for the purpose of mass produced anything. A while ago everything was made with a type called Nato. But you never see that term use anymore.

And what ever happened to Popular ? Fender pretty much depleted the world of that stuff to make cheap strats.

ash · Post by **ash** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:31 pm

Poplar isn't very popular, mostly because its sounds as cheap as it is... unlike alder or basswood which doesn't sound as cheap as it is.

As for the fate of Nato/Nyato.... see above under:
"LIE THROUGH THEIR TEETH" and " any old brown crap with an interlocked porous grain"

Nato is still widely used, but as it is often hacked from South American rain forests and looks a bit like mahogany, they usually call it South American mahogany instead of a silly, confusing (truthful) name like Nato.

cndoman · Post by **cndoman** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 1:05 am

It's all true . the biggest problem with "tone" woods is that the factory reps lie their arses off to the distributors. The majority of people in the business of selling guitars ( and I used to be one) wouldn't know a plank of rosewood from mahogany if you shoved it up their arse. There was a scandal on the old (now closed) epi forum some time back when some asian band smashed their epi custom on stage. The resulting photos clearly showed the top to be made of some type of pressed wood , or cardboard. This of course caused a howl in America you could hear in Auckland, as thousands of teenage boys screamed their bloody heads off. It was quite funny really. If I can find the whole thing-- with pictures -- I'll post it over.

Yoda · Post by **Yoda** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 6:09 am

The majority of people in the business of selling guitars (and I used to be one) wouldn't know a plank of rosewood from mahogany if you shoved it up their arse

Hmmm... I had no idea this was how you're supposed to determine wood types.

Is there no truth in the statement that wood selection might be a tad over rated? Were there not bands in the 70's using guitars made from clear plastic? Does not Fender's Custom Shop have a Harley Davidson commemorative guitar made from Aluminium? Does not the Rain Song Guitar Company make some truly astonishing sounding (albiet a tad ugly) acoustic guitars made entirely from Carbon Fibre/graphite composite?

I'm not saying there are no differences whatsoever but it just seems to me that these types discussions can sometimes get blown out of proportion. Isn't it true that the sonic differences between a Strat made from Alder and one made from Ash can only be detected by someone with a discriminating ear? Isn't it just as true that someone seated in the audience could never hear the difference regardless of his discriminating ear? I mean when I listen to music I can usually tell if a Telecaster is being used. It has quite a distictive sound. To me, that is. Yet my guitar playing friends often tease me that I'm full of shit when I say, "Jimmy Page was using a Telecaster when he recorded Black Dog and I can tell by the sound. I can hear the Tele even through the mountain of dirt and FX in the main riffs of the song but it becomes painfully obvious on the outro solo when he cleans it up." They just smile at me and go, "Yah, sure, whatever Matt. He's a Les Paul player. Why would he use a Telecaster?"

Seems to me the pickups are the vast majority of the overall sound. After that I think it would be in the players hands and then somewhere further down on the list would be wood selection. (Amp and FX being equal) Case in point: The Tele and Strat have almost identical overall dimensions. The case for a Tele fits a Strat just as well. In fact Fender makes the same case for both guitars. They can both be made from the same woods, same strings, same tuning pegs, same frets, hell you could even give them the same bridge and you're still going to be able to say that the Tele sounds like a Tele and the Srat sounds like a Strat. Yet you hear guys all the time saying they can hear the difference between a quilted maple top that's 1/8" thick and one that's 3/16". Even better than that, I once heard a guy say he can hear the difference between a flamed maple top and a quilted maple top. That was about a year ago or so on the PRS discussion page. I think he said flame was brighter.

This sort of thing just leaves me shaking my head in wonderment.

Rog · Post by **Rog** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 6:52 am

So right, mate!

I've actually been fooled listening to a band when a cool guitar lead was played and I saw the guitarist still playing rhythm - turns out it was the keyboardist playing the lead.

I simply have no idea what woods any of my instruments are made from and I care to find out even less. They're wood, plastic, paint and wires - they sound and feel fine to me - end of story, basically.