multi-piece necks

[Nagash]

I was reading a page on how to choose tone woods for a guitar, and something came to my mind... multi-piece necks.

Let's take an example : Ibanez like to do 3 or 5-piece necks with maple and walnut. But, which tone characteristics does this mix have ? Some of maple, some of walnut, then it depends on how many pieces, how big the pieces are, etc.

So I started wondering about how they choose the number of pieces, the size, the woods (and the wood combinations of course), etc...

Just to say it in a short sentence : school me please.

[jake_xms3_punk]

Re: multi-piece necks

with the multiply necks (excluding the fretboard) the majority of the wood would contribute to majority of the tone, the stripes are more for show and structure really rather than tone. they use them a lot on thru neck guitars. glued pieces of wood is a lot stronger then one peice of wood so i guess thats why they do it.

[Nagash]

Re: multi-piece necks

Aha.

When you say stronger than one single piece... Jackson USA guitars feature "quartersawn maple", I've heard it's meant to be for more stability than "cut the normal way"... are multi necks still stronger than this (generally speaking) ?

[Coma]

Re: multi-piece necks

Been wonderin' that too...

[trevorus]

Re: multi-piece necks

Generally, yes, it's done for strength. My Hamer has a 3 piece neck with no stringers in it, and it's for stability and strength both.

[Coma]

Re: multi-piece necks

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a lot of Fenders use one-piece necks. How does that affect it?

[Warheart]

Re: multi-piece necks

Maple is a strong material regardless. It really doesn't need to be quartersawn.

Basically, if you were looking at the end of a board, flatsawn would be ======== where as quartersawn would be IIIIIIIIIII.

The quarter sawn is supposed to have more strength. Think of this example:

If you place a 6ft long, 1 ft wide board on two cinder blocks at the ends of the board, laying the wood flat, then step on the middle, it will bend downwards

If you take the same piece of wood and turn it on its edge, and stand on that, you would probably barely make the wood bend downwards.

One of the reasons they do 3 piece necks is for Mahogany. By itself its not so strong, but by taking regular neckblanks and putting them on their edge, and gluing 3 of them together to get a good width for the fretboard, you end up with a VERY strong neck.

Imo Maple doesn't need this unless your neck is SUPER thin, Wizard style!

[jake_xms3_punk]

Re: multi-piece necks

gibson use one peice mahogany necks (the main reason for headstock breaks?!) lol

[Coma]

Re: multi-piece necks

In all likelyhood, the breaks are not occuring due to soft mahogany and one non-reinforced (not counting truss rod) construction (though that most likely adds insult to injury), but rather, as a direct result of the extremely thin layer of wood right at the headstock angle. I've seen some 70's LP's that had a neck volute, but according to this page, they actually managed to somehow misconstruct them, so that they wouldn't really prevent a break. Strange, that.

[Nagash]

Re: multi-piece necks

Imo Maple doesn't need this unless your neck is SUPER thin, Wizard style!

Now THIS is what I needed to know

[Aceman]

Re: multi-piece necks

Neck is probably number one tonal contributor to the guitar. Multi pieces both modify the tone AND are stronger.

Love my three piece maple 70's LP's. Bright and strong!

[IanBallard]

Re: multi-piece necks

Glue is stronger than wood, generally. My Peavey bass, essentially is a one-piece neck, but it's cut in half and re-glued.

[AdamBrad]

Re: multi-piece necks

Just thought I'd post this since we're talking 'bout ibanez 5-piece-ers: Mayones guitars (polish custom shop that also makes production models) do up to 11 piece necks! I think they're maple, walnut and bubinga, but I'm not sure...

[daemon barbeque]

Re: multi-piece necks

The Neck material has less effect on tone in general, but more on attack and sustain. All the known "popular" neck woods where chosen for 3 reasons: Stability, availability and price.
A multi laminated Neck, especially when combining "hard" woods like wenge, walnut with "normal" woods like maple or mahogany will give you a strong neck with fast sound delivery and good EQ. Some luthiers only laminate the same kind of wood in 2 or 3 pieces. The theory for that is the different woods react different under heat and humidity. Same goes to aluminum necks. Very stiff and musical, but sucks under spotlight and body heat.
There are not just multi laminated necks, but necks with Carbon/Graphite cores, Titanium/aluminum cores, carbon or titanium reinforcement rods... Or one of my favorites, 1 piece softwood neck with a carbon shell like Parker. The string tension and string count also plays a big role in choosing your neck. Standard tuning with 009s might be easy on your neck, but 013s will have a different effect. Or you have a 8 string guitar with an 80 F#, which "warps" a normal neck on the YZ axis. 5ths tuning or CGCGCG type of tuning needs more stability too.

Each has it's own character. Each has pros and cons.

[SabbathFan0220]

Re: multi-piece necks

gibson use one peice mahogany necks (the main reason for headstock breaks?!) lol

Actually, I think this is more about the headstock joint. Gibson uses one piece of wood all the way through, meaning the grain is going in one direction, even over the angle of the headstock. The grain terminates at the joint, creating a weak point. That's why people starting making necks with scarf joints. The scarf joint is stronger, but some people think it hurts the tone/sustain to use two pieces of wood. I drew up a diagram, traditional Gibson on the left, scarf joint on the right.