Electric Guitar Tonewood Guide - Solid Body

Differentiating between guitar tonewoods can be frustrating. With a large variety of choices for making electric guitar bodies a luthier must do his/her homework. This guide is meant to help you choose the right wood for your guitar body blanks the first time around.

Understanding tonewood is fairly simple. Each tone wood has its own subtle characteristics. Some considerations to take into account when choosing tone wood for electric guitar bodies are the density, visual aspects, and workability of the wood. All of which affect the overall tonal qualities of the guitar body blanks you make.

The density of the guitar tonewood has a lot to do with the weight of the finished body blank, as well as how it resonates over the frequency spectrum. The visual aspects will reflect the aesthetic value of the instrument. The workability of the tone wood is how easy it is to tool and shape. How the wood excepts and secures hardware is also important. These are very important things you need to take into consideration when designing your guitar.

Alder - A common lite weight wood used on solid body guitars. It has good resonance and balanced tonal response. A strat body made with Alder will weigh around 4 pounds. The wood grain is visually similar to ash , though it has an overall darker color.

Swamp Ash - Has long been coveted for its light weight. Grown in the southern regions of the United States this tone wood has a porous composition with hard wood grains. The porous cellular structure is the reason Swamp Ash is so light. It is visually pleasing with a light buttery color and darker wood grains. This tone wood displays great tonal qualities through out the whole frequency spectrum. Many of Fenders guitars were made of this tone wood in the 50's.

Northern Ash - Has similar qualities to Swamp Ash. The biggest difference between the two is Northern Ash has a denser cell structure, resulting in the wood being a lot heavier. With the increase in density you see stronger highs.

Bass wood - Used by low end guitar manufacturers, Bass wood ia a light weight wood with tight grains and a light color. Although the higher grade pieces show a bit darker color. The softness of Bass wood is a major draw back due to durability issues, unless you add enough polymer coating to protect the surface. On the other hand the wood is easy to tool and work with. Special considerations need to be addressed when mounting hardware to the guitar body due to the tendency of screws stripping in the soft wood. The overall dynamic frequency range of this wood is somewhat lacking. This tonewood displays greater intensity on the high and low ends of the frequency spectrum with unflattering mids.

Maple - There are two different types of maple, hard maple and soft broad leaf maple. Hard is primarily used for the neck of the guitar instead of the body. Hard maple is a heavy dense wood with favorable highs and long sustain. Visually it has a very light creamy color.

Soft maple has the same light creamy color of hard maple. The tonal qualities differ due to the lighter density of soft maple. This gives soft maple bright highs and strong lows.

Perhaps the greatest aspect of maple is its visually appealing characteristics. Figured maple as its called comes in several different forms and grades. The more pronounced the figuring in the grain of the wood, the higher the grade will be and the resulting price.

Figured Maples Include

• Flame or Curly Maple
• Birds eye Maple
• Quilted Maple
• Spalted Maple
• Burl Maple

Scroll down to see some pictures of figured maple.

Poplar - is another common domestic hardwood which has been used by several guitar manufacturers. Some consider Poplar an ugly wood due to its greenish color. It does however have similar characteristics to Alder. Manufacturers who use Poplar primarily use solid finishes to hide the unpleasant visual appearance.

Koa - is considered an exotic hardwood. Koa ia a product of the Hawaiian Islands. The grain pattern is very visually appealing with a light brown color and creamy accents. This wood is sought after by high end guitar builders. Koa performs well through the high and mid range frequencies with fading lows.

Mahogany - There are two types of Mahogany on the market. African and South American. For environmental reasons many luthiers have started using more African Mahogany due to unethical logging practices in South America. There are legitimate suppliers of South American Mahogany that insure there product is harvested in an environmentally friendly manor.

The tonal qualities for mahogany are excellent through out the frequency range. Mahogany has great sustain, velvety highs, solid mids, and full lows, this wood is a popular choice when making guitars.

Dont Forget to Check Out the Tonewood Pictures Below.

DIY Electric Guitar Finishing - A good guide for those in the finishing stages of there electric guitar build.

Electric Guitar Kits - Great for building your first guitar or if you do not have all the tools to build from scratch.

The true tone of the guitar is dependent on the skill level of the luthier. In other words, a novice guitar builder can buy a $300 exotic body blank and make a crappy sounding instrument. With that being said plan your instrument build out well and have fun with it. Soon you will be making sweet music!

If you are new to guitar building, try buying lower grade tone woods. Or build your first few instruments out of low end guitar kits. Move onto the more expensive exotics when you gain some building experience, and become a proficient luthier. Any mistakes you make in the early stages of your journey as a luthier will not be as costly.

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Thanks,

Chaoui