Exactly a year ago I got my chambered Swamp Ash hardtail Strat body, along with a standard thin Maple/Rosewood VM neck. I've had 5 Warmoth necks both VMs and a Pro, and a Fender MIM neck on it in that time, and tuning stability has never been that great when gigging. Recently I decided to put my latest VM Maple/Pau Ferro neck on an old Fender MIM Std Strat body that I had lying around. Lo and behold, all of a sudden this Warmoth neck holds tune perfectly for almost a whole 3 hour gig. I'd had a slight problem with a loose truss rod in it, but it didn't seem to matter anymore where tuning is concerned. This leads me to believe it is the Swamp Ash body all along that was causing the tuning problems, in that it may not be as stable as a solid piece of Alder. Anyone else have a similar experience?
How stable is Swamp Ash?
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ihavenothingprofoundtosay
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It's more likely the bridge placement. The body, even a chambered body isn't going to move anywhere close to as much as the neck; it's got it's tension along a far smaller area than the neck. The point where the body experiences the tension of the strings is going to be at the bridge, and where the tremolo springs contact (if it has one). It might also have been the neck pocket and/or the neck not quite being screwed in properly.
Regardless, the body warping to the point of affecting tuning is far less likely than any other factor.
Regardless, the body warping to the point of affecting tuning is far less likely than any other factor.
line6man
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I've never heard of bodies being unstable, unless the wood was not dry. You're talking about a massively thick piece of wood, with tension torquing less than a foot of length. And any attempts to twist that wood at the area under the strings will be counteracted with the rigidity of several inches of wood all around.
SustainerPlayer
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This is a swamp-ash Warmoth hard tail start with wenge/wenge Warmoth pro neck strung up with 11's in DADGAD. It's super stable.
But to be fair - all my current 8 Warmoth builds are like that no matter what the body or neck wood is.
But to be fair - all my current 8 Warmoth builds are like that no matter what the body or neck wood is.
Ace Flibble
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If they had the drying stage down right they wouldn't insist on the neck having a hard finish or invalidating the warranty. They also wouldn't be able to crank necks out at the rate they clearly do.
That said, they do a decent enough job that once you pair it with that ridiculous double truss rod of theirs, that thing ain't gonna shift for years. It's a different route, but the end result is the same.
That said.
If a guitar does not appear to hold tune well, I would suggest user error before all else. I've had ''awful'' £80 Strat copies pass through my hands which, after being set up and restrung properly, wouldn't go out of tune for anything but the most absurd vibrato antics. Nine times out of ten—more like nineteen time sout of twenty, really—when somebody turns up with a guitar which they swear has a dodgy bridge/truss rod/nut/tuners, the probably actually turns out to be they were restringing the guitar like a blind chimp.
First up, I strongly recommend you give Ernie Ball titanium coated strings a shot. They don't need as much stretching out when they're new and they don't stretch out as much over their lifetime, either. It helps they also last a long time. I've yet to find a string which stays in tune better.
Second, clean your guitars and make sure any contact points of moving parts are free of flash, burrs, fibres or anything else. It's easy to overlook small specks when you're focused on putting a whole guitar together, but it's those small specks which can throw your 3rd string a quarter step sharp in an instant.
Third, make sure you're restringing the guitar correctly. That means stretching the strings, steaming them if possible, giving them time to relax out of the pack, knotting them at the posts correctly, giving them another stretch once they're on the guitar and putting them through their paces well before it's time to get on stage.
Also consider changing string gauge for different bridge and headstock styles. People often only think about string gauges when they talk about tunings and scale length, but the style of bridge you have and whether the headstock is tilted or not can have a dramatic effect on the feel of the strings when bending and the general tuning stability. It's why tune-o-matic and string-through is a pain in the arse and tune-o-matic and stopbar is pretty faultless and why we have things like string retainer bars for Floyd Rose locking nuts (yes, even though the string is ''locked'').
Broadly, the greater the angle of the strings breaking over the nut, the better the guitar will hold tune, and vice-versa for the bridge (up to a point; you don't want the strings just coming across the saddles completely horizontal). It may be that the Fender body you're using has a bridge with slightly lower profile saddles or some such, so the angle there is shallower and thus tuning is a little more stable.
My advice to anyone with tuning issues is to look at the nut break angle and bridge and if the strings come across the nut fairly flat and the bridge quite steeply (common Fender style), try using strings half a gauge thicker (e.g. .105 instead of .10). They won't feel or sound too different, but they can be more stable. For a steeper break over the nut and a shallower break at the saddles (common Gibson set up), try using strings half a gauge lighter.
That said, they do a decent enough job that once you pair it with that ridiculous double truss rod of theirs, that thing ain't gonna shift for years. It's a different route, but the end result is the same.
That said.
If a guitar does not appear to hold tune well, I would suggest user error before all else. I've had ''awful'' £80 Strat copies pass through my hands which, after being set up and restrung properly, wouldn't go out of tune for anything but the most absurd vibrato antics. Nine times out of ten—more like nineteen time sout of twenty, really—when somebody turns up with a guitar which they swear has a dodgy bridge/truss rod/nut/tuners, the probably actually turns out to be they were restringing the guitar like a blind chimp.
First up, I strongly recommend you give Ernie Ball titanium coated strings a shot. They don't need as much stretching out when they're new and they don't stretch out as much over their lifetime, either. It helps they also last a long time. I've yet to find a string which stays in tune better.
Second, clean your guitars and make sure any contact points of moving parts are free of flash, burrs, fibres or anything else. It's easy to overlook small specks when you're focused on putting a whole guitar together, but it's those small specks which can throw your 3rd string a quarter step sharp in an instant.
Third, make sure you're restringing the guitar correctly. That means stretching the strings, steaming them if possible, giving them time to relax out of the pack, knotting them at the posts correctly, giving them another stretch once they're on the guitar and putting them through their paces well before it's time to get on stage.
Also consider changing string gauge for different bridge and headstock styles. People often only think about string gauges when they talk about tunings and scale length, but the style of bridge you have and whether the headstock is tilted or not can have a dramatic effect on the feel of the strings when bending and the general tuning stability. It's why tune-o-matic and string-through is a pain in the arse and tune-o-matic and stopbar is pretty faultless and why we have things like string retainer bars for Floyd Rose locking nuts (yes, even though the string is ''locked'').
Broadly, the greater the angle of the strings breaking over the nut, the better the guitar will hold tune, and vice-versa for the bridge (up to a point; you don't want the strings just coming across the saddles completely horizontal). It may be that the Fender body you're using has a bridge with slightly lower profile saddles or some such, so the angle there is shallower and thus tuning is a little more stable.
My advice to anyone with tuning issues is to look at the nut break angle and bridge and if the strings come across the nut fairly flat and the bridge quite steeply (common Fender style), try using strings half a gauge thicker (e.g. .105 instead of .10). They won't feel or sound too different, but they can be more stable. For a steeper break over the nut and a shallower break at the saddles (common Gibson set up), try using strings half a gauge lighter.
Cagey
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Ace Flibble said:
No, they still do the drying/ageing thing right, but some woods are forever variable depending on temperature/humidity. For example, some years back I built some bar stools and guitar stands out of Maple and Red Oak that had been sitting in my climate-controlled shop for years and still saw it move when when they went to a different environment. I never put a finish on them because I figured the finish would get wrecked quickly from wear and look worse than whatever stain/wear they'd get from being raw. But, unless you seal Maple off from the environment, it's liable to go gonzo on you. The stuff is just squirrelly. Warmoth claims Mahogany and Koa will do the same thing, so they want to see hard finishes on those as well.
line6man
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Ace Flibble said:
:icon_scratch: How do you figure this? Some woods just aren't stable as necks unless you finish them properly. No drying process is going to change that. That would be like whining that if your steel were forged properly, you wouldn't need to paint it to prevent rust.
Ace Flibble
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No, because steel isn't wood.
You lot checked out baked/roasted maple? It's a really simple concept; heat the buggery out of maple and it will eventually be almost totally void of moisture. At this point not only does it becomes much lighter but it also becomes much, much more stable. In fact it becomes more stable—without a hard finish—than ebony.
Of course, you don't need to go so far as to chuck your neck in an oven. You can simply treat the wood more thoroughly, let it fully dry out, and it will still be stable enough to use without a hard finish. Check out Mayones for examples of baritone 7- and 8-string maple and mahogany necks with nothing more than a single pass of thinned tung oil on them.
Warmoth treats their neck wood about the same as any large manufacturer like Fender or ESP. You want a hard finish on it because the maple alone isn't stable enough, though the dual truss rod helps a great deal if you go that route (at the cost of a significant change in tone and weight, of course). That does not mean that it is the one and only way. If you're chucking stuff out in small enough quantities, or simply have the luxery of time, it is very possible to treat maple and mahogany in such a way that they will not need a hard finish to prevent them from warping (though of course it doesn't hurt).
I mean hey, have you ever actually played a well-loved Fender or Gibson from the 1950s? There's nowt left on those necks but air and they need less seasonal adjusting than any new guitar. That's what actually good wood treatment and a few decades of drying time will do for a piece of maple :icon_thumright:
You lot checked out baked/roasted maple? It's a really simple concept; heat the buggery out of maple and it will eventually be almost totally void of moisture. At this point not only does it becomes much lighter but it also becomes much, much more stable. In fact it becomes more stable—without a hard finish—than ebony.
Of course, you don't need to go so far as to chuck your neck in an oven. You can simply treat the wood more thoroughly, let it fully dry out, and it will still be stable enough to use without a hard finish. Check out Mayones for examples of baritone 7- and 8-string maple and mahogany necks with nothing more than a single pass of thinned tung oil on them.
Warmoth treats their neck wood about the same as any large manufacturer like Fender or ESP. You want a hard finish on it because the maple alone isn't stable enough, though the dual truss rod helps a great deal if you go that route (at the cost of a significant change in tone and weight, of course). That does not mean that it is the one and only way. If you're chucking stuff out in small enough quantities, or simply have the luxery of time, it is very possible to treat maple and mahogany in such a way that they will not need a hard finish to prevent them from warping (though of course it doesn't hurt).
I mean hey, have you ever actually played a well-loved Fender or Gibson from the 1950s? There's nowt left on those necks but air and they need less seasonal adjusting than any new guitar. That's what actually good wood treatment and a few decades of drying time will do for a piece of maple :icon_thumright:
line6man
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Ace Flibble said:
The point was, you're fighting the nature of the material. Wood in that application tends to move. Drying it doesn't necessarily stop that.
Roasting is not a traditional drying process for wood. It alters the structure of the wood significantly.
Jumble Jumble
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Yeah, roasting maple basically caramelises it.
If you dry a sponge for 20 years, it'll soak up moisture when it gets some. Same goes with some woods - doesn't matter how dry it is, once it sees some moisture, it's gonna suck it up.
If you dry a sponge for 20 years, it'll soak up moisture when it gets some. Same goes with some woods - doesn't matter how dry it is, once it sees some moisture, it's gonna suck it up.
Jumble Jumble said:
So to return to my original question, does the fact that Swamp Ash spends all its living life submerged in water, make it any less stable than Alder, Northern Ash, etc, etc? I'm talking about small amounts of expansion and contraction caused by a change in temperature, enough to throw the tuning out a bit.
Jumble Jumble
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I have Strat and Tele bodies in both Swamp Ash and Alder and they're all as stable as each other - ie very.
jackthehack
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"Swamp ash" just another name for Fraxinus pennsylvanica, rather doubt you'll ever get a piece that actually came from a swamp...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraxinus_pennsylvanica
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraxinus_pennsylvanica
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