Wenge Neck Stability

aizenx

Junior Member
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I'm considering building a warmoth VIP with a wenge neck, but I have seen some internet "rumors" regarding tuning stability issues with wenge.  So, does anyone have personal experience with wenge as a neck wood?  Is tuning stable?

I love love love the look and feel of wenge, but I want my guitar to be stable from a tuning perspective. 

thanks in advance for the input guys!
 
Rock solid, very stable, doesn't respond hardly at all to climate fluctuations.
I've seen it used for guitar necks, and bass necks, and it's stiffness is very consistent.
 
Awesome.  Thanks for the quick reply, Tony  :icon_biggrin:

I'm glad to hear it, I will be ordering one soon!
 
My Quty Pie has a wenge neck that has required zero adjustment since its initial setup four years ago. 


NB:  This is a Warmoth Pro neck; vintage-style may perform less satisfactorily.
 
I've been toying with making my next guitar with a wenge neck. Glad this thread came up. Now I won't hesitate when the time comes. Besides not needing a finish, the stuff sure looks great and the Warmoth neck woods page shows it to be warmer than maple but brighter than rosewood.
 
I've got five of them, if you do the trick with polishing them up to 1500-2000 grit the only problem I have found with them is that they are so darn slick you have to really hold on to them when moving them around.  Otherwise they are stable like what Tony and Bagman said.  The bass neck almost seems to not need tuning...  Not quite true, but goodness are those things fun as necks.
Patrick

 
I've got 3 or 4 guitars with wenge necks; a joy to behold and be-held-never a problem!
 
aizenx said:
I have seen some internet "rumors" regarding tuning stability issues with wenge. 

You're listening to the fools that have it exactly backwards.
 
Not only is da' Wenge stable, it is just some tuff stuff!!!

My very first Warmoth was a V with a Wenge neck.  Had it professionally set-up when I built it.  It's been over five years now and never had a problem.

Shortly after I built the V, I accidentally stuck the headstock into a moving ceiling fan.  You could hardly tell the thing was touched with just an itsy, bitsy ding that you had to really look for to see.  I used to have a pick of it posted in a thread, but the pics are no longer there.  Anyway, I highly recommend the Wenge and would consider another...
:rock-on:

 
In 45+ years of playing/repairing/modifying/building guitars, I don't think I've ever come across one that had tuning issues due to the neck meat. Not even on the cheapest $25 student acoustics made out of toadshit and wax paper. It's always the tuning pegs, nut, strings or bridge. Always. I mean, every single time.

Now, necks will move on you. Environmental changes will affect some neck woods more than others. But, that's a slow change. It'll tune just fine during that change. It'll just get gradually tougher to play over time, or start making noises you don't like as the neck geometry changes. Even that isn't etched in stone, though. Get a neck with a dual-action truss rod, and those things are as stable as the Rock of Gibraltar. That's not a tuning issue.

Wenge is a lovely neck wood with a feel and tone like no other. My only criticism of it would be that it's a wildly open-grained wood, so it has a tendency to collect... stuff. Think of your fingernails, and what kind of various unidentifiable kukka can accumulate under them over the course of a few hours or a day. Same thing happens with Wenge. Skin oil, dead skin cells, dirt, sweat, distilled beer, sneeze residue, hooker dust, staph, strep... who knows? It all accumulates in those nooks and crannies and there's not really a good way to clean it out.

So, keep you hands clean, don't let anybody else play it, and enjoy a fantastic neck.
 
I have one as well, never an issue in 5 or so years...Rock solid stuff.... :icon_thumright:
 
Normally this one bugs the daylights out of me, but in this case - Wenge could be taken for granite.
 
swarfrat said:
Normally this one bugs the daylights out of me, but in this case - Wenge could be taken for granite.
That's so you can rock out.
 
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