Guitar Neck Woods

[EastCoastPlayah]

Hi - has anyone ever noticed if different acoustic neck woods need more or less adjusting throughout the year? I mean, does mahogany seem more stable than walnut to changes in the seasons? How about rock maple compared to flamed maple?

 

I'm asking for a couple of reasons. A friend's father has a 1983 Grit Laskin handmade acoustic with a flamed maple neck, but it seems to need adjusting a couple times a year or he doesn't play it. It had a case humidifier when I played it last month, but I'm not sure how much he uses it.

 

I also just started building acoustic guitars and I am wondering if I am setting myself up for future headaches by using non-traditional neck woods. I like the look of a matching neck to the back and sides and just finished a guitar with black walnut back, sides and neck with no issues...but it has only been finished for a week. My factory guitars have never given me any trouble and are mostly mahogany. Although I have a rock maple and a mahogany blank for future work, I am considering Narra (New Guinea Rosewood) for the next one and would like to try Bloodwood as well.

 

I have humidifiers and hygrometers in my place, but you can't keep everything constant all the time...especially when you live and work in two different places and can't have them all with you.

 

Any thoughts?

[LoboR1]

Bump it! C'mon guys..I am interested to hear opinions on this too!

[Freeman Keller]

EastCoast, I have very little experience with your specific question about stability of various neck materials. My three home made gits were all Honduras mahogany, altho my mando was a beautiful piece of flame maple. In the chapter on necks, Cumpiano says" the principal criteria for choosing suitable neck wood ... are stability, working ease, and strength to weight ratio". He goes on to say "far the most versatile timber for neckstocks is Honduras mahogany", but adds, "where strength and stiffness are of paramount concern, North American rock maple is typically the timber of choice". He further says that because of its high weight is is seldom used on lightly constructed instruments like classical guitars". On that same page is a picture of the back of a lovely curly maple back and neck of one of his 12 strings.

 

Cumpiano also speculates that neck materials can affect the over all sound of the guitar, but doen't give any specifics. FWIW - I once played a nice little OM sized guitar with a neck made from Yew - pretty, but not anything dramatic.

 

My last quote from Cumpiano that bears directly to your question is "the most that we can say is that the student builder should seek to use traditional materials of good quality, and leave more esoteric decisions about the choice of timber to a time when most other factors have been brought under control"

 

I would suggest asking your question at the MIMF forum and if you want, directly to William Cumpanio himself (he has a wonderful FAQ on his site)

[t60 fan]

Though not accoustic, my beloved T-60 has a maple neck/fretboard that Peavey calls "bilaminated", a techique wherein the blank is split longitudinally, one half rotated 180 degrees lengthways, then rejoined prior to machining into a neck. The theory appears to be to have any grain "pull" offset itself in opposite directions.

 

FWIW, I've had it 29 years and it has never needed any adjustment. And it is the thinnest neck I've ever played with among the lowest actions as well. I really do love that guitar.