Mahogany Tele Neck => Kingwood or Pau Ferro Fretboard?

[shagga]

Hi there guys,

as i am currently in the process of ordering my second warmoth guitar, i'd like to hear some opinions on the title questions..

guitar will be a chambered lam top tele, mahogany with flamed maple top and f-hole.
neck will be warmoth pro tele neck made of mahogany, and now i am trying to decide between kingwood and pau ferro as the fingerboard wood..

i have a pau ferro board on my first warmoth build (wenge neck) and i love it, but i might just go with something else this time..
kingwood should be somewhat warmer in overall tone, right?
but on the other hand, the pau ferro might just give the al lmahogany build the right amount of "maple-y" treble..

what you guys think?

ccasion14:

 

[NonsenseTele]

Think that you shall have a flame maple veneer on headstock...

And Brasilian Rosewood fingerboard If you want a mapleish tone, the better is go with maple, canary, etc... If going on fat, go to big fat and classy  :glasses9:

 

[shagga]

Think that you shall have a flame maple veneer on headstock...

And Brasilian Rosewood fingerboard If you want a mapleish tone, the better is go with maple, canary, etc... If going on fat, go to big fat and classy  :glasses9:

I think you are right here bro!  :icon_thumright:
I also already settled for a flame maple veneer, i bet it' ll look totally awesome!

As far as fingerboard wood goes, you might also be right..
As i already own a very nice 72' Tele Thinline with an all maple neck, i should really go for something completey different here..  :icon_jokercolor:

I just want the whole thing to not sound too muddy, you know?
will a mahogany (with maple top) geetar with mahogany neck and brazilian rosewood still have enough treble to cut through?

thanks!

shagga

 

[kboman]

I wouldn't worry too much about the fretboard, more important is what pickups you're going to use.

 

[neuftone]

I just want the whole thing to not sound too muddy, you know?
will a mahogany (with maple top) geetar with mahogany neck and brazilian rosewood still have enough treble to cut through?

I have thinline with mahogany back, redwood top, mahogany neck, and rosewood fretboard, and it has stingingly bright treble, in comparison with a similar guitar of mine with an all maple neck/fb and swamp ash body.  Pickups really do make a lot of the difference...the mahogany guitar has fralin tele pickups and a bright underwound alnico polepiece P90 in the neck, and the swamp ash / maple guitar has normal Fralin P90s.  The latter has a richer, less trebley tone by far (although both are great).  The mahogany thinline has plenty of bite and treble, with new strings it can sound almost acoustic.

Moral of the story is don't stress out about it.  If you choose a mahogany/rosewood neck, your tele is not going to automatically sound like a Les Paul neck pickup with the tone on zero.  My two homebrewed guitars bear that out pretty well, the one with "muddy" wood sparkles with loads of chime and treble, and the one with "trebly" wood, or wood that is traditionally associated with trebley guitars, has a smooth, big midrange and modest treble bite.  And the pickups aren't even that significantly different...both have Fralin soapbars in the neck (the difference being one is a traditional screw polepiece P90, and the other uses magnet polepieces and is somewhat underwound).  Subtle differences in pickups is a bigger deal than what we often think of as big differences in wood tonal qualities.

JMHO, YMMV.