wood help

[mark5]

Hi I am new here from Ireland, I'm looking at building a warmoth soloist next year with a swamp ash body.  For neck I will go reverse angle strat, I love the esp jon donais/ blackmachine guitars look, real simple with bare knuckle pickups.  I want advice on neck wood.  Will go ebony fret board and would like a unique neck body wood.  I was thinking wenge.  Would this be a good combo.  Play mostly downtuned metal.

Thanks  :headbang:

 

[Cagey]

Welcome to the board!

Ebony over Wenge would be a good choice in that application, and would match everything nicely, too. Don't forget to specify stainless frets. Big rascals. 6100s. Also, do the Warmoth Pro construction so you have a dual truss rod. Very stable.

I'd warn you that it'll be a tad heavy, as a Swamp Ash Soloist body will also likely be, so I'd think seriously about getting the body chambered.

 

[mark5]

Thank's a million  ccasion14:

It will be a flat top, i play with the guitar quite high, almost as short as the strap will allow lol.  will chambering effect the sound much ?

 

[Cagey]

Not much. It's subtle. Not something you'd ever notice playing metal. But, I may have mis-spoken myself anyway... you said "Soloist" and I was thinking "VIP". The Soloists are usually lighter anyway, so you may not have to worry about it or spend the extra money. In fact, I'm not sure you can even get a Soloist chambered.

 

[tylereot]

Light body + heavy neck + heavy locking tuners= neck diver!

If I were playing metal, I'd be more concerned with weight than any kind of wood-tone issues, as you're burying most of the sound under pickups and distortion.  But a light and balanced ax will let you do all the acrobatics you want.  :headbang1:

 

[Cagey]

It's almost impossible to make a Strat/Soloist/VIP or anything along those lines into a neck diver. The neck-side strap button is too far forward of the center of gravity, even if you shift the CG forward with a heavy neck.

 

[AutoBat]

locking tuners don't seem significantly heavy enough to affect weight distribution, even with them on the end vs nonlocking.

 

[Ace Flibble]

Locking tuners don't (Planet Waves aside...), but the heavy-as-balls Warmoth 'Pro' construction sure can unbalance a light Strat/Soloist body. It's not going to dive to the floor like an SG or some hollows do, but there will be more weight in the neck than there is in the body and that means there's more weight bearing down on your fretting hand. Not a problem if you're sat down or use a shorter strap; quite a big problem if you like to sling your guitar lower.

That said, it's not like Warmoth give you much choice in the way of construction methods (offer Vintage Modern with tiltback headstocks already, damnit), so balance is something of a moot point. The neck is going to be heavier than the body no matter what you do, with the possible exception of having a body made out of solid maple, walnut or rosewood.

A bigger point to be made here is that with 'Pro' construction, you're getting a thicker chunk of wood for the fretboard, more metal in the middle of the neck and les swood used for the actual neck stock. So there's not so much reason to worry about the neck wood. For example, I have two Warmoth 'Pro' Tele necks, one is ebony/maple and the other is ebony/purpleheart. In theory, the purpleheart neck should be warmer than the ever-bright maple, but using them on the exact same guitar body, the tone is identical. Conversely, I've got a Musikraft neck (basically standard/Warmoth's 'vintage modern' construction) which is ebony/mahogany, and sure enough, that's a helluva lot warmer in tone, again, on the same body. That's without even taking into account metal levels of gain.

So as far as wood goes, I'd go for feel and look, rather than tone. Wenge will do you well if you want a dark look and don't change your thumb positioning much during playing. Personally, I do change from thumb-over to thumb-parallel to thumb-not-even-on-the-neck a lot, so I find Wenge to be rather grating, but I can appreciate why some people like the feel. I myself would recommend Bloodwood, Pau Ferro, Purpleheart or Goncalo Alves; you may even be able to get a neck stock made of Ebony. All of those will give you a universally slick feel with a variety of looks. Flame or birdseye maple with a tinted oil finish will give similar-feeling results with a flashier look.

 

[TBurst Std]

Canary is a wonderful option as well.

I love my Canary/Canary neck. Honestly, it is not that much different than my maple/Pau Ferro tonally

 

[TBurst Std]

I myself would recommend Bloodwood, Pau Ferro, Purpleheart or Goncalo Alves; you may even be able to get a neck stock made of Ebony.

Many of those woods as a FYI can not be done in a tilt back as the scarf join will not hold. Have had a number of discussions on this with the W. My tilt back neck shaft wood will be bubinga when I get back to that build.