What kind of wood is this?

[bruzanhd]

Picture of a body I have, what wood do you think this is? I think it’s ash but it’s hard for me to tell. The surface has a very light coat of wax applied making it a smidge darker than it would otherwise appear.

 

[Rick]

Alder.  You can see the mineral streaks.

 

[NedRyerson]

Agree with Rick.  Here's an alder Tele I'm working on (full size to see all the grain & streaks).

 

[bruzanhd]

My worst fears… it’s a warmoth body. I paid for ash but after assembling the guitar had to sand the pocket to change neck angle. Once the turtle was out of the way I realized I might not have what I’m supposed to.

 

[Rick]

Don't fear the alder.  If it were me, I'd tell the person I bought it from.  There's a $30 difference and ask them to send me the difference.  Why did you sand off the turtle?  There are worse things that could happen.

 

[Sadie-f]

I expect this is the guitar you bought direct from warmoth. I'm sure it's what they said it is, and looking at only a neck pocket, Ash and adder looks efficiently close to each other that there's no reason to think it's not what it was advertised as.

 

[Rick]

Sadie's right, it is hard to tell from just the neck pocket,  ... are there any other places that show raw wood?  Are the streaks smooth embedded in the wood flat, or are they little divots?

 

[NedRyerson]

This is one example of a WM swamp ash body. To me, that looks significantly different from alder (but that could just be because of the sample size of 1...)

 

[stratamania]

It looks like alder to me.

 

[Knorris]

What you have is Alder. Those streaks in the pocket are aggregate rays in the grain. I also am curious about your modification to the neck pocket?

 

[bruzanhd]

Yes this was bought from warmoth. Turtle was sanded to alter neck pocket angle/depth (in order to get the geometry right for an 80s style decked Floyd setup), had I not removed the turtle I might not have noticed. I have talked with them and the rep I spoke with said it looks like alder to him and that this is the first time he’s seen this mistake. Check your wood folks