Yet another neck wood combination thread...

[alexreinhold]

I'm on the verge of building another Warmoth. The body is going to be Black Korina (transparent black). The "tone" I am going for is an in-your-face metal tone.

I am a serial buyer of roasted maple (shaft and fretboard) and wenge/ebony (shaft/fretboard). This time, I'm planning on going for something more exotic. My criteria:

• tone aim: better too bright than too muddy
• color: body will be black, so shaft/board should match somehow
• finish: has to be unfinished!!! (I do not like finished necks)
• throwing these in the race:
  • roasted maple
  • wenge
  • goncalo alves
  • pau ferro
  • purpleheart
  • zitricote (fingerboard only)
  • ebony (fingerboard only)
  • indian rosewood (seems weird as shaft wood, no?)

Please help!

 

[Rick]

I have a Korina body matched with a Goncalo neck and it feels great. Sounds great. Looks great. Matches well. Checks all the boxes.

Also while I don't have another Korina body I've founded Wenge and rosewood to be on the bright side, and both of them feel luxurious. I guess out of two, I like the sound of rosewood better, a little richer, while wenge, to me, leans more towards the fundamental with a little less stuff going on. That said, best match for me is Goncalo.

 

[ragamuffin]

Sounds like a good plan!

Aesthetically I would go with an ebony fretboard (also tonally folks consider it bright/punchy). I love ziricote but think ebony would work better with a trans black black limba body.

For the shaft wood any of those sound great. As far as feel goes: roasted maple, pau ferro, and purpleheart will be more "slick" and dryer feeling woods. Goncalo and wenge have a nice smooth and "waxy" feel, but has lot of open pores so feels "faster". Rosewood is in the middle of "dry" and "waxy" groups in my experience.

I really like the wenge/ebony neck on my Albert Lee build. That guitar seems to naturally have a lot of mids and really like a hotter humbucker in the bridge.

 

[alexreinhold]

I like the idea of Goncalo / Ebony (since I also love my Wenge / Ebony neck). Has anyone used Goncalo as fretboard wood?

 

[Rick]

On mine it's a rosewood fretboard, that to me, matches the neck, which matches the body visually. As to the fretboard wood, I always go to what feels good, and then second, what looks good. I haven't found that fretboard wood makes a lot of difference in the sound, though, YMMV.
Ebony certainly is a classic, and there's a reason it's been used for centuries.

 

[micmil]

Aaron did a really good video a few months back that directly compares various necks on the same body.

In this case the necks and boards are made of the same woods but, honestly, there's no REAL difference between fingerboard materials that you could suss out without a frequency analyzer. There's just not enough mass to matter. The look and feel is far more important on that point.

Personally, I'm moving away from any woods that are CITES or IUCN Red List. Too many great options not to. With your specs I'd probably go Goncalo/Ziricote, given how crazy good looking the patterning on Ziricote can be.

 

[Strat Avenger]

In this case the necks and boards are made of the same woods but, honestly, there's no REAL difference between fingerboard materials that you could suss out without a frequency analyzer. There's just not enough mass to matter. The look and feel is far more important on that point.

Unless your ears are so much more "sensetive and sophisticated" than everyone else's (LOL!).

 

[Eddie-Applegate]

Aaron did a really good video a few months back that directly compares various necks on the same body.

In this case the necks and boards are made of the same woods but, honestly, there's no REAL difference between fingerboard materials that you could suss out without a frequency analyzer. There's just not enough mass to matter. The look and feel is far more important on that point.

Personally, I'm moving away from any woods that are CITES or IUCN Red List. Too many great options not to. With your specs I'd probably go Goncalo/Ziricote, given how crazy good looking the patterning on Ziricote can be.

This video is really interesting— I didn’t expect an audible difference in the woods, but i thought the goncalo alves sounded *notably* better than all the others, and was so distinctive that i could identify it in the blind test

I may have to use goncalo for my next build—

 

[micmil]

This video is really interesting— I didn’t expect an audible difference in the woods, but i thought the goncalo alves sounded *notably* better than all the others, and was so distinctive that i could identify it in the blind test

I may have to use goncalo for my next build—

I've always looked at it like the tonal variation is equal to the mass of the thing. This isn't strictly true, of course, but it helps keep perspective.

I came to the exact same conclusion with goncalo. Helps that it looks damn good too.

 

[Bob Hoover Ross]

I'm planning on going for something more exotic. My criteria:

• tone aim: better too bright than too muddy
• color: body will be black, so shaft/board should match somehow
• finish: has to be unfinished!!! (I do not like finished necks)
• throwing these in the race:
  • roasted maple
  • wenge
  • goncalo alves
  • pau ferro
  • purpleheart
  • zitricote (fingerboard only)
  • ebony (fingerboard only)
  • indian rosewood (seems weird as shaft wood, no?)

Please help!

Might want to add padouk shaft with ebony fingerboard to your list. I have a Warmoth guitar-in-progress with that combination and it looks and feels phenomenal.

https://i.postimg.cc/W1FwgRWD/Padouk-neck-front.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/tCmzsR5Q/Padouk-neck-rear.jpg

(Note, after those pics were taken I burnished the back of the neck...amazing feel, like glass, super-fast, not sticky. And no finish required.)

 

[alexreinhold]

Awesome and beautiful. After a lot of consideration, I think I'll be going for Canary with a Zitricote fretboard.

 

[ragamuffin]

Awesome and beautiful. After a lot of consideration, I think I'll be going for Canary with a Zitricote fretboard.

A favorite of mine!