Check out this hot piece of ash

[jeremy]

umm... yeah. its hard wood. i do love it though. got a swamp ash esquire i made years ago, 2006 i think, sounds amazing but isnt a light weight. also has a little custom bit where the neck pocket routing template moved a bit on the first pass. lesson learned. dont use the same tape on a second guitar. kinda looks cool though. this is the only pic i can find quickly

 

[ehdwuld]

I knew it was hard, but not "kill your palm router" hard

I'm switching to cherry for the time being, that's the best my local yard has for my purposes

Pine

Teles and Strats should be Pine

 

[Snake Aces]

There's no doubt about it, ash is a durable, sturdy wood. It makes instruments that will outlive us.

 

[blakejcan]

what glue did you use to put those two halves together?

Looks like it's coming along. Ash is so dang heavy and hard. But if you're willing to put in the work it can be great. If you're ever up for it, try making an ash guitar but with a chambered body. It cuts down the weight a ton but the ash is so rigid that it vibrates a ton when it's got some air it can move around inside it.

 

[Snake Aces]

I definitely prefer chambered ash bodies. I have two solid body ash axes, one guitar and one bass. And I have one chambered ash guitar.

The chambered ash guitar is perfect. The solid body guitar is paired with a roasted maple neck which makes it a reasonable weight and it really sounds great.

The solid body ash bass on the other hand is heavy as hell. It's paired with a thicker p-bass neck profile that's also a heavy wood, bubinga. Both the body and neck are anchors, it's an avid neck diver and the whole thing weighs about 13 pounds. It's a great practice or studio bass, but too heavy for use on stage outside of a song here or there. I call that bass the Brickhouse.

I used to have another ash bass, it was a chambered body paired with a thinner Jazz bass neck profile with bubinga. I sold it to a buddy of mine and ex-bandmate back in 2009 or 2010. I miss that bass. Chambered ash is the way to go.

All my future ash bodies will be chambered, no doubt.

 

[Mincer]

Northern ash is the baseball bat stuff. Southern ash can be lighter, and it is the stuff that grows in the swamp to become swamp ash.

 

[Snake Aces]

Northern ash is the baseball bat stuff. Southern ash can be lighter, and it is the stuff that grows in the swamp to become swamp ash.

All my bodies feature swamp ash sourced by Warmoth or the carved top on my bass sourced by orpheo. I prefer swamp ash. I played a northern ash strat once, it was okay but it wasn't the same as swamp ash.

 

[Chistopher]

what glue did you use to put those two halves together?

Looks like it's coming along. Ash is so dang heavy and hard. But if you're willing to put in the work it can be great. If you're ever up for it, try making an ash guitar but with a chambered body. It cuts down the weight a ton but the ash is so rigid that it vibrates a ton when it's got some air it can move around inside it.

Titebond II. Works a lot better than the previous glue I was using, which was some no-name Titebond II "equivalent"

 

[Chistopher]

umm... yeah. its hard wood. i do love it though. got a swamp ash esquire i made years ago, 2006 i think, sounds amazing but isnt a light weight. also has a little custom bit where the neck pocket routing template moved a bit on the first pass. lesson learned. dont use the same tape on a second guitar. kinda looks cool though. this is the only pic i can find quickly

View attachment 6327180

Yeah, this current body I'm having an adjacent problem. Routed the neck out for a Tele, didn't realize my template had a slightly oversized route

I'm making it happen though. I might just put in some shims to fill the gaps. This is just my 3rd attempt, so I'm not expecting perfection just yet

 

[Mincer]

All my bodies feature swamp ash sourced by Warmoth or the carved top on my bass sourced by orpheo. I prefer swamp ash. I played a northern ash strat once, it was okay but it wasn't the same as swamp ash.

I had a very light swamp ash body from Warmoth. No matter what neck I tried, it was neck-heavy. I also own a 1982 Fender 'The Strat' made of northern ash. The body is heavy, but the guitar sounds great.

 

[Chistopher]

Yeah, all they got around here is northern ash.

I figure I might buy a good stock of basswood and rip through them till I can use harder nicer woods.

Basswood puts me at like $9 for lumber per body if I'm being efficient. Plus I can use my scraps and failures as woodburning/carving stock for my wife

 

[GuitarStv]

I've got a Jazzmaster with a swamp ash body. The Jazzmaster is a pretty large piece of wood, but the body is only about 3 lbs - it's the lightest guitar I own. I think if I didn't have the floyd bridge weighing it down it would have problems with neck dive.

 

[Chistopher]

"Swamp ash" is southern ash from below the waterline, but sometimes its just a fancy way of saying southern ash. The wood is lighter below the waterline all else being equal. Also southern and northern ash are the same tree

 

[jeremy]

yep, was about to jump in and say that. its not the species of wood, its where it grows. i have a heavily chambered ash tele, and its light. i also have an unchambered ash tele thats even lighter. a board is a board and there can be a lot of variation between em

 

[Snake Aces]

I have one more solid body swamp ash guitar I always forget about because it's not playable at the moment. My Strat is a one-piece solid body swamp ash that is only about 2 pounds and 8 oz.

It's very lightweight. Although the species is the same as northern ash, it does seem that swamp ash has a tendency to be lightweight. However, heavier pieces of swamp ash still exist (obviously).

 

[Chistopher]

Low wind leads to lighter wood

 

[GuitarStv]

I have one more solid body swamp ash guitar I always forget about because it's not playable at the moment. My Strat is a one-piece solid body swamp ash that is only about 2 pounds and 8 oz.

It's very lightweight. Although the species is the same as northern ash, it does seem that swamp ash has a tendency to be lightweight. However, heavier pieces of swamp ash still exist (obviously).View attachment 6327193

Damn, that's a sexy strat!

 

[Mincer]

Yeah, I think ash in the south (not even in the swamp) has a lot more humidity, so the climate can affect how it grows, even if it is the same species.

 

[Snake Aces]

Damn, that's a sexy strat!

Thank you! I need to finish it. I need to order a FR and a Duncan Custom '78 set for it. I will bring the neck to a luthier to get the Floyd nut installed. Although, I'm tempted to order a new bocote neck with SS frets. I might just have a luthier install SS frets on this neck because I dig how the neck looks.

 

[Snake Aces]

Yeah, I think ash in the south (not even in the swamp) has a lot more humidity, so the climate can affect how it grows, even if it is the same species.

No doubt the humidity is a factor. As a northerners, we have extremely humid summers in MN/MI, but extremely dry winters. My understanding is a lot of northern ash comes from places like Michigan.