Looking for advice

Pharos

Junior Member
Messages
62
Hello everyone!

Just joined here and I'm about to start my first Warmoth build. It'll be a 5-string with a P-Bass style body. I have the body woods picked out based on personal experience (lacewood over alder), but I'm a little stuck on the neck and fingerboard. I'm looking for a nice round punchy low end, and a clean top with a lot of overtones and harmonic content. It'll be strung with a high-C instead of a low-B for chordal stuff so a nice top end is essential. For the fingerboard, I was thinking either ziricote for the bright highs and noted strong overtones. Canary is also an option as I've heard from a few people and from listening that it has a nice top end with stronger overtones than maple and with some added low end, but I haven't played either, but have been listening to sound clips for the last several weeks. I've played a lot of different woods and the ones that are definitely out are maple as it sounds somewhat 2-dimensional to me and a bit brittle, and rosewood as it seems to dampen the highs and overtones. I've played a lot of ebony and it is a very nice fingerboard wood, but I'm looking to try something new.

For the neck, I'm not quite sure. I like the tight lows of bubinga, but it is pretty heavy. I had a Warwick Corvette-5 and the solid bubinga body was ungodly heavy. I was also thinking about lighter woods like imbuia and walnut and I like the sound of both, but I'm not sure if they are strong enough for a 5-string bass neck. I'll be choosing the graphite rods for added strength, and I like the tonality of the mids and highs of graphite (had a Modulus Quantum). Ipe is a pretty neat sounding wood, but I hear it's a pain to work and it's fairly heavy (same as bloodwood at around 67-69 pounds per cubic foot as compared to most of the other exotics [bocote/canary/bubinga/etc.] which are around 50-55 pounds per cubic foot. Walnut/imbuia/koa sit around 37-42) and I don't think Warmoth offers it.

I'm open to suggestions on both. Thanks a lot and sorry for the long post!
 
Welcome to the board!

You're right; Bubinga is heavy. I had an all-bubinga guitar neck on the bench recently and by the time I put frets and tuners on it, it was 2.05 lbs. Kinda surprised me - I thought my Bloodwood neck was the heaviest I'd seen at 2.0 pounds. It's a sweet wood, though. Although, for a bass, I guess I'd think twice about it. You'd probably need to be a Wookie to hold the thing up for any length of time.

Canary is very similar to Maple, both in weight and tonal characteristics. Also, it doesn't need a finish, which is a huge plus. Warmoth also offers roasted Maple now, which is a good choice. Also doesn't need a finish and burnishes up super-fine.

A big favorite for basses here seems to be Wenge. Very unusual wood, with a great feel and a good sound. Not as bright as some species, but we're talking about basses.
 
Cagey, thanks for the reply.

Bubinga is definitely heavy lol The Bubinga-bodied Warwick I had was unreal. It's hard to pass up on though because it sounds very nice.

Do you know about how much weight the graphite strengthening rods take off compared to the steel?

Does anyone know how walnut might hold up as a neck wood with the graphite rods?

I've also read that there's a possibility of ziricote being very temperamental when it comes to humidity and needs to be in a fairly narrow relative humidity window. Does anyone know if that's true? I don't want to come home one day and the fingerboard has blown up lol
 
Pharos said:
I've also read that there's a possibility of ziricote being very temperamental when it comes to humidity and needs to be in a fairly narrow relative humidity window. Does anyone know if that's true? I don't want to come home one day and the fingerboard has blown up lol

I've never heard of that happening.
 
I don't know about the graphite vs. steel reinforcing rod weight difference, other than that there is one.

Walnut is heavy and requires a finish, if that says anything.

I've never heard of Ziricote being unstable. I have a 1-piece Ziricote neck here that's been sitting in the closet for about 2 years now and hasn't moved. It's one of the woods that doesn't require a finish, so it can't be too sensitive to humidity. Plus, if you get the "Pro" construction neck with the dual-action truss rod, those things are remarkably stable. Even in wild humidity changes, they don't move on you. Very much a "set it and forget it" neck.
 
Ziricote as used for acoustic guitar back and sides, is more sensitive to humidty changes than other woods I have read from high end acoustic luthiers.
Being that you are looking at it as a fretboard, I would not worry as it is attached to another piece of wood. Also a big solid piece of ziricote (as a neck) should not have issues.
 
Thanks a lot for the input, guys.

I called up Warmoth today and ordered up the body (woohoo!) and asked a bunch of questions about necks. Here's what I found out:

The graphite rods are about 1/4 pound lighter than the steel ones.

Walnut is a no-go for bass necks. Imbuia works good, but is not obtainable right now. So that put me back to square one. We did talk about what options I have based on what I'm looking for and what they have. They said bocote might be an option, but would be very expensive. So here's what we came up with:

1- goncalo neck/macassar board

2- canary neck/macassar board

3- canary neck/bloodwood board

4- canary neck/bubinga board

I've had a few ebony boards and I do really like them so that's an option on there. The questions now are how is bloodwood for a fingerboard? How is the tonality? How's goncalo as a neck? I've heard that canary has a little more bass response than maple, is that true?

One question I forgot to ask that maybe you guys would know, is I've seen some 5-piece necks on the site for sale. Do they offer that on a special order?

 
If you like Ebony, you'll like Bloodwood. It's basically red Ebony. It has the same feel/density/hardness. I have an Ebony over Bloodwood neck on one of my guitars, and it's one of my favorites. Really nothing else like it. Although, it is heavy. Gotta be prepared for that. Mine came in at 2lbs. after installing tuners, etc. Still, highly recommended.

There's almost no difference in tonality/character between Canary and Maple. I have both, but prefer Canary because it doesn't require a finish. Sand it up properly, and that is one sexy neck meat. I'll probably never order Maple again, unless it's roasted. That's also a choice that Warmoth now offers, and is worth consideration. It's everything a Maple neck is plus some, and also doesn't require a finish.

Warmoth sometimes makes some speculative necks/bodies that show up in the Showcase that you can't build in the online builders, but you usually can't order them. You buy what shows up, or you pass on it. If you see a laminated neck and it seems like something you'd want, you need to jump on it RFN. Chances are, it's one of a kind. But, you shouldn't be afraid to call them and ask if you want something off-menu. They clearly have all the talent and machinery to do all sorts of things, so it's usually just a matter of how much money you're willing to throw at an idea and how long you're willing to wait.
 
Thanks a lot for the help.

One last question; does anyone have any experience with teak as a neck wood? I've seen one or two, but can't find any info on how it sounds anywhere.
 
Pharos said:
One last question; does anyone have any experience with teak as a neck wood? I've seen one or two, but can't find any info on how it sounds anywhere.

It's hard to say because most of my builds are (deliberately) different, but I would describe my Teak/Ebony neck as basically neutral with some warmth. It doesn't have a distinctive sound color like maple or some other woods and it definitely isn't particularly bright like say Pau Ferro. Nor is it excessively dark. Since it's apparently so rarely used, I did a fair amount of due diligence before ordering and basically all of the measurables fall somewhere between maple and mahogany.
 
Back
Top