Leaderboard

Help choose neck wood - Goncalo vs. Mahogany

ODwan

Newbie
Messages
1
Hi all,
I hope you can help me make up my mind!
I have got a Warmoth Strat with swamp ash body and QS maple neck with Kingwood FB. This is a very bright and snappy sounding guitar, which is cool for clean sounds but lacks punch and crunch with OD. I want this guitar to be more middy sounding, singing opposed to snapping as it is now. In my experience the neck is the major tone shaper in a guitar, so I like to change the neck to a darker sounding wood. I just can't decide if I better go with mahogany or goncalo (which is cool cuz you can leave it raw. I had the maple neck just oiled and waxed and love the feel). I want to go with an ebony FB, though.
As here are some pretty experienced guys on this board I thought I just asked some good advice.
What are your thoughts on that?
Thanks in advance,
Timo
 
I have two goncalo necks, both have lacquer finishes... so I dunno about the feel.  I can tell you as a fretboard wood, its a little coarse, but workable.  As far as tone goes, its my belief that its less snappy than mahogany.  Maybe "more middy" is a better way to put it.  They thicken up the tone more than mahogany does - at least thats what I'm hearing.

On much reflection, I'm thinking goncalo is a very good wood for single coil telecasters.  Or maybe HB tele's in a solid body.  Things get a little thick when doing HB, thinline and goncalo.  Each tends to mellow the tone, and all three... make it a little too mellow.  Again, thats my point of view, and some folks might find it just to their liking.
 
I think the tones would be similar...esp if you use a similar type of fingerboard...rosewood ebony.  GCA can also be let raw...

I love the looks of GCA and you can have a solid GCA neck and fingerboard...check it out.  AWESOME!!!

Warmoth has some killer GCA necks in the show case...  http://www.warmoth.com/Pages/ClassicShowcase.aspx?Body=1&Path=Neck&nWood=24

I like this one.


 
Goncalo doesn't do it for me - dmraco that neck you posted is why I could never get goncalo. Looks like that Michael Jackson skin disease where you go part-albino, sorry i forgot the name...on the other hand, it looks like a marble pound cake, which I do love. 
 
No Brainer :)

Tim, I don't particularly like the extremely streaky goncalo, but a little looks real nice.. not too mention how smooooth they feel!!! like nothing else!

oh and they get a real nice dark brown/red-ish  real fast.. check out the difference in the pics, that is about a year apart...

after
September62009021.jpg


before:
July212008024.jpg

July212008011.jpg
 
tfarny said:
Goncalo doesn't do it for me - dmraco that neck you posted is why I could never get goncalo. Looks like that Michael Jackson skin disease where you go part-albino, sorry i forgot the name...on the other hand, it looks like a marble pound cake, which I do love. 

crackup.gif
  +1 
icon_mrgreen.gif
 
Back
Top