what's the fender wood levels

[jamie_eyp]

in the difference production line,such as chinese, mexico, american or customshop's difference is no need to say
but in the same production line,such as us standard,us vintage,the wood will be really difference?
i saw that in the fender.com is us deluxe marking select alder/ash,but us standard and us vintage marking same normal
it's meaning us deluxe's wood will better than vintage?(can't believe)
somebody know the fender's wood levels in fact?

 

[AlexR]

Re: what's the fender wood levels

What do you define as better? Certainly the more high end factories will have the pick of the deliveries, and the top level guitars will have perhaps a weight criteria for the boards used, but I've not come across a single person who can visually inspect wood for tonal superiority. And a large factory like fender will work on simply gluing the next 2 billets on the pallet together. You'd have to go to a custom luthier before you got any wood selection based on tap tones.
Consistency and weight are certainly selected, as are billet width. This will mean a guitar of fewer pieces, which is perhaps a better chance of consistently compatible wood.
The cheaper guitars might have been sourced from mills who do a poor job of drying, giving perhaps more dead toned wood.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: what's the fender wood levels

doubt it... doubt anyone that isnt a insider at fender could really tell you that info. But this is the internet and im sure you will get a dozen guys speculating on it.. but its just that speculation. Keep in mind many guitars use the same grade of wood like most gibsons do the difference is if the body is 1 piece or 4.

 

[ItsaBass]

Re: what's the fender wood levels

It's whatever they want, and whatever people buy. There are no rules dictating what wood can be called "select" and what not.

The best thing you can do is to quit believing **** about what wood sounds like what, and simply go into a store and buy a guitar that actually SOUNDS good to your own ears, not buy online based on spec sheets and pictures.

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: what's the fender wood levels

They ship american wood down to mexico for building, which would be assumed since they dont really have ash forests in north central mexico. So its MURIKA WOOD USAUSAUSA

 

[AlexR]

Re: what's the fender wood levels

^yep, the same types of wood get shipped to mex, but these are usually the small bits, which make the up to 7 piece MIMs that are out there. But even then that isn't a definitve measure for an inferior guitar.

 

[Kamanda~SD]

Re: what's the fender wood levels

According to some video I watched at the Fender factory, all MIM and US guitars wood is sourced from the same suppliers, but then they sort (or 'select') if you will, the more desirable pieces for the US (according to weight, size, grain etc.) and the rest goes to mexico. One would also assume this gets picked further ('select') for certain areas...such as deluxe or sunburst/ trans finishes. Ever notice the burst and trans models always seem to have nice grain? Go strip a solid colour and I bet you will see more blemishes or streaks than on a trans/ burst model.

my conclusion: select wood is just that....selected out of the batch for certain models. Even the EJ signature models can't be over a certain body weight, someone has to pick that **** out.

but hey...just speculating.

 

[Powdered Toast Man]

Re: what's the fender wood levels

Here is a photo of a pile of body blanks taken by me at the Fender Corona factory:

They pick through and use the two and three piece with no flaws for their transparent finishes (Natural, BSB, Sunburst, Crimson Red). Anything with a flaw (discoloration, poorly matched grain, etc) is used for solid colours. If I remember correctly, they said the maximum that the USA factory will use is five piece - and that's only on the solid colours. Anything higher is sent to the Mexican factory.

I believe the Custom Shop procures their own wood separately as their customers demand very specific attributes.

Anyway, that's what was explained to me while I was standing there.

What's interesting is that the odd extremely nice or valuable piece will come through the regular production channel. We were looking at a rack of P-Bass neck blanks and our guide noticed that one was a nice birdseye maple. He commented that some customer is going to luck out on that one.

 

[BrianS.]

Re: what's the fender wood levels

^Some great posts here, especially PTMs.

I've done the same kind of wood selecting...although on a much smaller scale...at Stoney End Harps. Most of the wood that gets delivered gets used. What it gets used for kind of depends on where the knots are, how straight the piece is, etc. I also had to select for strength and grain orientation for parts of certain models.

Once in while we would get a customer in who wanted their harp to have a certain type of "look" to the wood, and so we would select for that as well. And like was mentioned about the birdseye, sometimes really nicely figured wood will come through randomly and someone would luck out.

 

[SoundAt11]

Re: what's the fender wood levels

A max of 5 pieces is pretty cheap of Fender to do. Alder and Ash are very inexpensive woods on the wholesale market. The last time I looked, they were less than $3 a board foot for a small time buyer like me. There are 4 board feet in a standard body blank, so that's a whopping $12. From the US suppliers, there isn't normally an upcharge based on width within reason, obviously a super-wide tree might get sold off for a specialty use, but the only real issue is that there's just less boards available as you get wider (depending on the type of tree and how wide they normally grow). At 5 piece or even 4-piece bodies, you're getting down to maybe 3" and 4" wide boards. There might be some small cost savings there. The real savings are on the lower grade woods (knots, streaks, cracks). I guess the bean counters at Fender figure "hey, we saved a buck or two on each guitar and we'll save $_____ total on all the guitars we build" and of course, it's a solid color finish, so who's ever going to know. Still, though, on a $1,000 American Strat, I'd be happy to spend a few dollars (literally) more to have 2 or 3 piece bodies standard.
On the Asian-made (excluding Japan, who seem to use quality wood), you may get a species that looks similar to a common wood like Mahogany, Ash, or Alder, or you get the Asian-variety of that tree (not that there's anything wrong with that). The real issue is the lack of quality control sometimes. I've had Korean Epiphones with knots in the body or cracks on the end that have been filled. Now, on the Chinese Epi's, they put a veneer on the front and back of the body woods. Fender even does that. I had a Candy Apple Red American Strat from the 90's with the finish worn off part of the top. It had a Alder veneer over Poplar (cheaper wood similar to Alder). It sounded great, but I did always wonder what ugly or knotty piece of Poplar might have been underneath.

 

[Powdered Toast Man]

Re: what's the fender wood levels

Fender even does that. I had a Candy Apple Red American Strat from the 90's with the finish worn off part of the top. It had a Alder veneer over Poplar (cheaper wood similar to Alder). It sounded great, but I did always wonder what ugly or knotty piece of Poplar might have been underneath.

Why on Earth would anyone put a veneer under a solid colour finish?

 

[AlexR]

Re: what's the fender wood levels

There was an issue with the wood supply....edit: actually come to think of it its most like the body was destined or a plus or deluxe which did have veneers but over bursts. The leftover body or a makeup body then gets used under solid colour as the burst pattern was done differently on the regular am std.

And wood is needed in increasingly large amounts......and trees dont grow that quickly. Even in the forced growth plantations it is still decades for trees to mature. Tree size is also smaller than when the was plenty.....it shouldn't take too much brainpower to realise that there will be fewer trees harvested which will give you the nice 2 to 3 piece bodies, and that with the increased prices for natural materials that all boards are getting used no matter almost how narrow.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: what's the fender wood levels

In the Nineties, Fender had a phase of putting tasty top and back veneers over spreads of up to seven pieces. Check out examples of the Deluxe American Stratocaster when it came with Fender-Lace Sensors. Often, the beer gut contour is entirely finished in the dark/opaque pigment of a sunburst.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: what's the fender wood levels

Expressions such as "select" and "premium" sound impressive but, to paraphrase Douglas Adams, don't tie Fender down to actually meaning anything.

What I can say is that the series to which Fender applies these jargon words - Custom Shop, American Deluxe and American Vintage Re-Issue - are consistently good for mechanical acoustic and amplified tone.

+1 on what PTM wrote about some tasty stuff sneaking through in the American Standard line. Just not very often.