Question about the difference between mahogany and maple necks:

[Mapleg4]

This is a kind of Neck pickup soloing question. Would a mahogany neck with an ebony fingerboard sound similar to a maple neck with the same fingerboard or a maple neck with a maple fingerboard?

 

[-CB-]

The neck is a major tone shaper on a solid body guitar.

Not only the type of wood, but the profile of the neck makes a difference.

To me... what I've experienced.... is that a maple neck will always be brighter than a mahogany one of similar profile. 

On maple, the choice of fredboard does not effect the tone as much as it does on a mahogany or other more resonant wood (say goncalo or whatever)

So, on your mahogany neck, the choice of rosewood, ebony, etc... is going to make a bit of difference.  To me on a maple neck there is very little difference between a maple and rosewood or ebony board.  Do it for looks, playability, finish, repair ease... but not for tone.  You can change brand of strings and have more tone change than you'll see on a maple neck with different boards.  At least thats what I've found.

 

[Nando Vallart]

Listen to =CB=, he knows things!

 

[-CB-]

Well.. I've tried it!  But the reasoning is also like this:  When you add the fretboard, essentially you're doing a laminate.  Laminates tend to stiffen things.  Look at your typical piece of gypsum board (sheetrock).  If there was no paper on each side, it would be damn near useless.  But, they take the compressed core and bond it with paper - ok "thick paper", but its still just paper - and you get a very strong combination.  Similarly, plywood is very strong for its thickness.  Take a nice piece of very fine layer plywood - furniture grade plywood, and compare the strength to that of a solid pine board.  No comparison, the plywood is some tough stuff.  Look at a surfboard.  Essentially a Styrofoam core with cloth and resin laminated.  You end up with very strong.  Look at glider wings... just about the same as a surfboard in construction, only more bits in there for control surface manipulation and such.

So, take an already stiff neck - maple - and add a laminate to it, you're not stiffening it up a whole lot more.  You're not altering the resonance in huge ways.  But take a more limber wood - mahogany, cedar, nato, etc, and you add that nice stiff piece of dense rosewood to it, and you've got something where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, as far as stiffness goes.  Sure the maple neck gets a bit stiffer, but it was already quite stiff, while mahogany got a good boost in stiffness by the addition of the fretboard.

I suspect that profile - thickness - because it alters the resonance of the neck, also effects tone in big ways.  I know that my stainless fretted, fatback goncalo neck is much darker than my nickel-silver fretted standard profile goncalo neck.  Vic's mahogany/rosewood neck was not dark,but more "fat" in tone, compared to a plain ol' mahogany/rosewood neck.  Vic's was also a fatback.  So maybe "fat back' equals 'fat tone response'?  Just seems to work out that way, but I've not checked with maple yet.  The neck I have ready to put on the tele project is a boatneck, so we can see how that does on other guitars when I get the finish complete on it.

Thats my take on it anyway - maybe my mind trying to "prove" what the ears have already experienced, dunno.

 

[jackthehack]

Another point of view....

Mahogany can vary greatly in density/resonance and it can be hard to make empirical statements as two different mahogany necks can be noticeably different.

As C.B. pointed out, neck contour/thickness can have a lot to do with this with thicker necks making differences more pronouncible, what is your desired contour and what type of body with which pickups/elctronics do you intend to put in it?

Prime example, I have a Strat with a mahogany neck and Indian rosewood fretboard and another with a maple neck with Indian rosewood neck. Both have standard thin Warmoth contours and essentially the same Fender Custom Shop pickups in neck and middle position.  Plugged directly into the same amp, the mahogany neck is a little warmer, but the differential is subtle. Stick any distortion/overdrive effect between the guitar and amp and you can't hear much difference at all. Using a thicker neck profile, the difference would probably be more noticeable.

What are you planning for contours/pickups?

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Well, I think the neck question has been conclusively answered or addressed logically at the very least.

CB, what are your 2 cents on the Gibson SG Zoot Suit?  It is effectively made of plywood.
http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=9188.0

 

[-CB-]

Have never handled one.  I like that real crazy looking one with all the rainbow colors.  Real LSD flashback stuff.

As for how it plays... dunno.  I have two rifle stocks that are total laminates, and are pretty nice and stiff items.  One is poplar laminate the other is maple/walnut laminate.  Both are solid because they took the time and inclination to run the grain in a way that reinforces the final product against stresses from humidity changes (or temperature too for that matter).

Having only seen the pictures... heck.. what wood did they use?  If its maple, thats gonna be a bright sounding SG, and SGs can be a bit brighter than their LP cousins to begin with.  A lot depends on pickups.  Those new P90's Gibson has been making are much darker than before - wound much hotter, in the 12-12.5k range.  They're a dark item, but they rip a new butthole in terms of dynamics and drive.  Those might be very interesting in a maple laminate body.  Maple be heavy though... then again... SG's are very light. 

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Suposedly it is a Birch laminate, and as I understand it, Birch is what other parts of the world call Maple.  First instincts would be it's plywood so it has to suck, but I maintain not all laminates are the same. There's good ones and bad ones.  Just because it's plywood, they didn't build them with a purchase order to the Home Depot.

 

[-CB-]

Birch is not maple.  Maple is very hard and dense.  Birch is much lighter, softer, less dense.  There are birch laminate gunstocks too - the low end ones.  I dunno if I'd want a birch laminate neck.... now that has me thinking.

 

[DangerousR6]

Birch is not maple.  Maple is very hard and dense.  Birch is much lighter, softer, less dense.  There are birch laminate gunstocks too - the low end ones.  I dunno if I'd want a birch laminate neck.... now that has me thinking.

I beg to differ, birch is just as hard as the hardest maple, which is sugar maple according to the Janka hardness scale...

 

[-CB-]

Birch is not maple.  Maple is very hard and dense.  Birch is much lighter, softer, less dense.  There are birch laminate gunstocks too - the low end ones.  I dunno if I'd want a birch laminate neck.... now that has me thinking.

I beg to differ, birch is just as hard as the hardest maple, which is sugar maple according to the Janka hardness scale...

Now thats funny, because I can recall felling both maple and birch trees by hand with a loggers saw (and one very seasoned logger helping, or rather, me helping him).  The maples, and they were some sort of sugar maple because the used to be tapped.......the maples just seemed like sawing into some very tough stuff while the birch was just easy-peasy.

I'm wondering if we're talking about the same things?

 

[-CB-]

Okaaaay.   Having consulted my oracle (aka the old millshop buddy still in the biz).  There is birch, and then there is birch, and yet again, there is birch.  There are some very tough birch woods out there according to him.  He says its lighter than maple, but easy to mill and ends up usually being very strong.  Then he tells me there is birch thats used in plywood that is crap and its about the only place you find crap birch.  But... you can get good birch plywood too.  Says he, the birch ply thats crap usually has clear ply on one side and its used in cabinetry where maple veneer would normally be used - like the inside walls or back wall of a cabinet, where the outer walls were going to get veneered anyway.  He doesn't use the good stuff, too expensive for what is basically a low strength but ornate use.

So what did I cut - white papery trees about a foot around vs rough barked trees about a foot around.  All I know is the birch cut easy and the maple cut hard - AND - the crap grade rifle stocks use birch lam or birch and (something else) lam.  Or at least they used to.   Haven't gotten one in 15 years or so, so that might have changed.

So I'm still clueless except to say - all that is birch is not quite the same, and neither is all that is maple all quite the same.  The details matter.

Back to the subject of the Zoot... do ya think Gibson is laminating their own?  Probably not.  I'm wondering if they're having it made by the same folks who make up the lam for the rifle stocks.  Be interesting!  I know ALL the lam stocks have some voids that are filled where they show, wondering if Gibby does that. 

If I didn't already have two SG's I might be interested in a zoot.  Right now, Telecaster is on my mind.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Well, apparently birch ain't maple.  There have got to be several different varieties of every species, soft and hard.  The maple tree my parents had was very soft, and grew very fast.  Before guitars were in my life that was my only experience with maple.  Imagine my surprise when I learned about the maple used for guitars.

 

[DangerousR6]

Well, apparently birch ain't maple.  There have got to be several different varieties of every species, soft and hard.  The maple tree my parents had was very soft, and grew very fast.  Before guitars were in my life that was my only experience with maple.  Imagine my surprise when I learned about the maple used for guitars.

You are quite right Gary, there are several varieties of both maple and birch that are both soft and hard...
birch, gray Betula populifolia  760
birch, paper Betula papyrifera 910
birch, sweet Betula lenta  1470
birch, yellow Betula alleghaniensis  1260

maple, bigleaf Acer macrophyllum  850
maple, black Acer nigrum 1180
maple, red Acer rubrum  950
maple, silver Acer saccharimum  700
maple, sugar Acer saccharum  1450

 

[-CB-]

Ok so when someone says I got birch plywood, or birch laminate - I do suppose, like maple, we should know what specific kind it is.

And thank you Dangerous... I though I was goin nuts at an even faster pace than before.  I looked up some info on the Ruger 10/22 from years ago - "hardwood" stock, later called a "carved birch stock".  Those are really soft light wood, nothing like the maple we see in a neck. 

 

[DangerousR6]

Ok so when someone says I got birch plywood, or birch laminate - I do suppose, like maple, we should know what specific kind it is.

And thank you Dangerous... I though I was goin nuts at an even faster pace than before.   I looked up some info on the Ruger 10/22 from years ago - "hardwood" stock, later called a "carved birch stock".  Those are really soft light wood, nothing like the maple we see in a neck. 

Yip, as with most species of trees, there are usually several varieties. So it does help to be specific.... :icon_biggrin: