Wood and Guitar Buying

[Chris Pile]

I go by the correct taxonomic Latin nomenclature.... If it's not Swietenia mahogoni - it's not mahogany. PERIOD. You can have stuff that's close in workability, appearance, texture, and tone response - but it's not mahogany.

As ErikH points out, lauan is often sold as Phillippine Mahogany. It's cheap, weak grained - almost punky in some instances - makes good plywood or cheap furniture. It can be any one of the Shorea family of woods from Southeast Asia.

The real problem starts with the wood wholesalers. You know many ironwoods there are? Nearly every nation has a heavy, hard wood called ironwood by the locals, but only woods with the Latin Sideroxylon are true ironwoods.

Then there are tradenames.... Korina was trademarked by Gibson because they thought it sounded better than white limba (Terminalia Superba). Spanish Cedar is neither Spanish, nor cedar - it's Cedrela Oderata. It looks like mahogany and even works like mahogany, but the resin smells like cedar when cut or sanded.

You want the real skinny on woods? Use this: The Wood Database (wood-database.com)

Oh, yeah - Guild's Asian line of solidbody guitars - Madiera and DeArmond are sometimes made of laminated bamboo, but sold as mahogany. I would not have known had I not purchased a DeArmond Jetstar (copy of a Guild Thunderbird) that was severely abused. When I stripped the finish - I was surprised by the stripes of bamboo. It will probably make a decent guitar someday.

https://imgur.com/bXrBSOH

 

[Clint 55]

lol!

lol!

 

[alex1fly]

Sometimes you buy for tradition or heritage. Ibanez = basswood, Fender = ash/alder, Gibson = mahogany.

Sometimes you buy for curiosity or thrift or weight. Agathis, basswood again, swamp ash.

Sometimes you buy new and heritage woods aren't as available anymore. Pau ferro.

Other times, you buy for looks or sound or to fill a void in your soul and so wood plays less of a role.

Tonewood is a rabbit hole though, and not one that makes or breaks a good sound. It's only one factor out of your signal chain - wood, neck joint, hardware, strings, plectrum, fingers, cables, pedals, preamp, power amp, speaker, room, ears.

 

[Clint 55]

Poplar broke the sound for me and was a no go. Also not a rabbit hole because I choose the woods I know I like that are cheap and available. End of story, no rabbit hole.

 

[Chris Pile]

It's only one factor out of your signal chain - wood, neck joint, hardware, strings, plectrum, fingers, cables, pedals, preamp, power amp, speaker, room, ears.

^^^^ Here is wisdom. ^^^^

 

[Bogner]

The key for me is really knowing what a particular guitar excels at naturally and where it may struggle. You will never fully overcome those areas no matter what you do. You can alter, improve, shift them somewhat, etc. but if a guitar is naturally very dark you will never make it very bright by swapping pickups. Each guitar has its area of residence sonically and you can push or pull in a direction but will never change the natural direction.

 

[Erlend_G]

I bought my Epiphone Wildkat Koa lmt.ed. -

with the Koa top, instead of the regular maple.

I insist, that I hear a GREAT difference in tone- also the Koa top is sligtly softer, so it allows for a gentle vibrato/shimmer effect, when waving the guitar gently back and forth.

It looks beautiful too.

I'm mostly fond of all-maple guitars, like the 1966 Yamaha SA-5 I owned (#374). But mahogany also sounds OK to my ears; though it is actually my least favourite tonewood .

It works very well with the P90's- not getting too bright/edgy.

-Erlend

 

[Ashurbanipal]

For electric guitars, not as much (as long as it's not a boat anchor) - more interested in neck profile, pu config, bridge setup, and so on.

Acoustics, different story.

Oh, yeah - Guild's Asian line of solidbody guitars - Madiera and DeArmond are sometimes made of laminated bamboo, but sold as mahogany. I would not have known had I not purchased a DeArmond Jetstar (copy of a Guild Thunderbird) that was severely abused. When I stripped the finish - I was surprised by the stripes of bamboo. It will probably make a decent guitar someday.

https://imgur.com/bXrBSOH

Interesting, I remember Yamaha made some FG acoustics out of bamboo back in the late 90s. The whole soundbox was made out of the stuff, neck was mahogany.

Some luthiers offer bamboo back and sides on their instruments, like Bastien Burlot and Evan Kingma. It's pretty neat looking stuff with a bit of stain.

 

[Mincer]

For an acoustic guitar, I am much more interested in playability and the sound when plugged in, as that is what most people will hear (including me). A great guitar with a so-so pickup system will get passed over by something untraditional that sounds amazing through a PA system.

 

[solspirit]

of course
but it is built in China
and the last one was super light for mahogany
but it is super thin as well
I am sure it is a species of Mahogany but not the one we commonly use

Not a true mahogany at all.

 

[LLL]

We all have to realize that for some living in a twisted, alternate universe of tone deafness and/or too much earwax buildup:

Guitar woods being pretty much "tonally the same" in comparison works for them.

Just as getting "authentic" EVH tone with an old SS Crate amp and a delay works for them.

Or "authentic" Metallica tone with a Fender Twin and a Bad Monkey works for them.

They are allowed to have their aural fantasies - as long as they keep it to themselves, because the consensus states otherwise.

 

[solspirit]

I go by the correct taxonomic Latin nomenclature.... If it's not Swietenia mahogoni - it's not mahogany. PERIOD. You can have stuff that's close in workability, appearance, texture, and tone response - but it's not mahogany.

As ErikH points out, lauan is often sold as Phillippine Mahogany. It's cheap, weak grained - almost punky in some instances - makes good plywood or cheap furniture. It can be any one of the Shorea family of woods from Southeast Asia.

The real problem starts with the wood wholesalers. You know many ironwoods there are? Nearly every nation has a heavy, hard wood called ironwood by the locals, but only woods with the Latin Sideroxylon are true ironwoods.

Then there are tradenames.... Korina was trademarked by Gibson because they thought it sounded better than white limba (Terminalia Superba). Spanish Cedar is neither Spanish, nor cedar - it's Cedrela Oderata. It looks like mahogany and even works like mahogany, but the resin smells like cedar when cut or sanded.

You want the real skinny on woods? Use this: The Wood Database (wood-database.com)

Oh, yeah - Guild's Asian line of solidbody guitars - Madiera and DeArmond are sometimes made of laminated bamboo, but sold as mahogany. I would not have known had I not purchased a DeArmond Jetstar (copy of a Guild Thunderbird) that was severely abused. When I stripped the finish - I was surprised by the stripes of bamboo. It will probably make a decent guitar someday.

https://imgur.com/bXrBSOH

I challenge you to buy a guitar made of Swietania Americana or much of anything else made out of it. Maybe you are forgetting about Honduran mahogany,Marcrophyla. The big mahogany scare of 2003 pushed by guitar producers and pretty much everyone else, is because because macrophilia went on the CITES 2 Classification from CITES 3

 

[solspirit]

I go by the correct taxonomic Latin nomenclature.... If it's not Swietenia mahogoni - it's not mahogany. PERIOD. You can have stuff that's close in workability, appearance, texture, and tone response - but it's not mahogany.

As ErikH points out, lauan is often sold as Phillippine Mahogany. It's cheap, weak grained - almost punky in some instances - makes good plywood or cheap furniture. It can be any one of the Shorea family of woods from Southeast Asia.

The real problem starts with the wood wholesalers. You know many ironwoods there are? Nearly every nation has a heavy, hard wood called ironwood by the locals, but only woods with the Latin Sideroxylon are true ironwoods.

Then there are tradenames.... Korina was trademarked by Gibson because they thought it sounded better than white limba (Terminalia Superba). Spanish Cedar is neither Spanish, nor cedar - it's Cedrela Oderata. It looks like mahogany and even works like mahogany, but the resin smells like cedar when cut or sanded.

You want the real skinny on woods? Use this: The Wood Database (wood-database.com)

Oh, yeah - Guild's Asian line of solidbody guitars - Madiera and DeArmond are sometimes made of laminated bamboo, but sold as mahogany. I would not have known had I not purchased a DeArmond Jetstar (copy of a Guild Thunderbird) that was severely abused. When I stripped the finish - I was surprised by the stripes of bamboo. It will probably make a decent guitar someday.

https://imgur.com/bXrBSOH

Americana hasn't been used for much of anything and definitely not commercial made guitars. Gibson ued Honduran mahogany which is macrophilia and not Americana. The big guitar makers mahogany scare, was because macrophilia was reclassified from CITES 3 to CITES 2.

 

[AlexR]

I go by the correct taxonomic Latin nomenclature.... If it's not Swietenia mahogoni - it's not mahogany. PERIOD. You can have stuff that's close in workability, appearance, texture, and tone response - but it's not mahogany.



https://imgur.com/bXrBSOH

Interesting. You do know that the term Mahogany is referring to a genus, not a species. But then you try and apply it to the species only. It would have been much more credible if you'd actually applied the taxonomic detail more correctly.
And especially so since Cuban mahogany was only ever used on boats, and was even then was being replaced with Honduran about a century before solidbody guitars were made.