What Type Of Wood Should I Use?

  • Thread starter Thread starter SteveCPerrino
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SteveCPerrino

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My friend offered to build me a guitar if I bought the parts for it.

I'm having a hard time deciding what types of wood I should get for the body/neck/fingerboard.

It's going to be a seven string guitar, and I play in a deathcore band. The guitar will have 1 EMG 81-7 in it and I'd prefer something maybe in the middle of a dark and bright tone.

If you need more information please let me know, I don't really have a price limit, but don't make me work an extra year to come up with price please haha

thanks,

Steve.

PS: I'll be buying the parts on warmoth.com.
 
Maple neck, rosewood fingerboard, would be my suggestion.

Maple neck because it is cheap and good (though if you don't want it to be cheap, you could get a figured maple neck, which will look pretty, but will be less stable), and a rosewood fingerboard because you don't have to finish it, it is easy to work on if you ever need a refret, and because it is relatively cheap and very good.

You could go with a maple fingerboard, which would be a bit brighter, but you would then need to finish the fingerboard and that would raise the cost of all future maintenance. You could also go with an ebony fingerboard, which would be a bit brighter too, and doesn't need to be finished, but I usually like rosewoods more.


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"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
keep your friendship intact and buy a pre-cut neck. As I recall, they come with or without fretboards, and the headstock is way oversized so you can have your choice of HS design.

For the body, if you want good tone (i think...), exotic wood AND be envoronmentally responsible, go with sinker cypress. But be warned- it is EXPENSIVE. Or, to possibly continue the Louisiana connection, swamp ash. Sorry, I'm too lazy to research these woods to be sure about their tone wood qualities, or even where the trees grow.

Personally, I like the LOOK of maple for fretboards- it's different. Ebony and rosewood look too much alike- that dark fretboard look is just too common. Go your own way.

Or not.
 
Death core? And EMG's? I'm no pro, but I doubt the wood will make too much of a difference there. Just get something that looks good to you and won't kill your back.
 
There are some really good wood threads in this forum if you can find them with searching

I agree that the EMGs are going to dominate. In the 80's I had a basswood guitar and I hated the sound and went through about 5 sets of different pickups trying to get a usable sound. When I finally put EMGs in it, it sounded just like all the other guitars with EMGs (which was a lot better than it before :D ). Still got it and them.
 
danw said:
Death core? And EMG's? I'm no pro, but I doubt the wood will make too much of a difference there. Just get something that looks good to you and won't kill your back.
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I've always prefered alder and ash for bodies. Depending on what you want for a finish, I'd probably go for alder.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Koa Maple is beutiful...I have an old Strat Neck I picked up a while back...just waiting for a body with a broken neck.
 
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