European Maple neck

[Jeremiah]

I was looking at the site of another company that makes bodies and necks a bit similar to Warmoth (yes I know, heresy... ) and noticed they offered European Maple as a neck wood.

Anyone know anything about it, and how it compares to the standard hard maple in strength/stability and tone?

 

[Cagey]

From what I can find, it's a bit softer than hard maple, but that's kinda like saying steel is a bit softer than iron. It's still very hard. It's supposed to take stain better than hard maple, so if you wanted to do that you could. Hard maple doesn't stain worth a damn, so you have to use transparent colors if you want a colored finish where you can still see the grain. Oddly enough, European maple grows mainly in the Northwest US and western Canada.

 

[SkuttleFunk]

I believe you're referring to Acer pseudoplatanus, a European native. From wiki "It is planted for timber production; the wood is white with a silky lustre, and hard-wearing, used for musical instrument making, furniture, wood flooring and parquetry. Occasional trees produce wood with a wavy grain, greatly increasing the value for decorative veneers. The wood is a medium weight for a hardwood, weighing 630 kg per cubic metre.[6] It is a traditional wood for use in making the backs, necks and scrolls of violins."

and not referring to Acer platanoides, another European native which is used primarily for furniture and wood turning


neither of these trees are the Pacific NorthWest native Acer macrophyllum commonly referred to as Western Maple and Bigleaf Maple. Acer macrophyllum is the Maple famous for those flamed and quilted tops seens on so many Warmoth bodies (and elsewhere), but not commonly used as a neck or fretboard material


I personally have a limited stock of flamed Acer pseudoplatanus in my wood stash that will someday make it into a series of bass necks once its come of age

all the best,

R