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Woods & construction

For a better natural sustain & artistic look, the guitars I produce are usually neck through construction (the opposite of bolt on - using bolt to join the neck part to the body; or set neck - using glue to join the neck part to the body).  



The neck through (same piece of wood that go from the head to the body) is made up of different layer of wood. For me I use maple, mahogany, maple (3 layers). Sometimes I layer with rosewood as well (5 layers). Beside giving bold accent to the look, layering more than 1 piece of wood makes the neck more stable. A piece of wood tends to have micro movement to certain direction, but with 3 or more different pieces, they're neutralizing each other. 

 

I like to use maple for the neck as it's a strong solid wood that can stand against the strings' pull.  Rosewood's also strong, but it's heavy if I use it for the whole neck. Anyway we don't want guitars that has the head & neck side heavier than the body, as it always 'dive' in & difficult to hold. The rosewood & mahogany I use only partially for the neck.



Mahogany wood is the most commonly used for electric guitar body. They are easy to work with, yet strong enough for guitar. Mahogany with the strong stripe grain is favourable to me for aesthetic reason. Sometimes I can find mahogany with beautiful grain with 3D effect...so pretty! I also use other wood veneer to cover some part of body top to give accent to the design.



Sometimes I use pine wood too for accesories; back cover, top body patch (The Pallette guitar & Hearty double neck), also truss rod cover (though sometimes it's from mahogany). Pine wood has very beautiful pale color with big stripe. It's used also for wine crat.



Maple and other hard wood such as rosewood & ebony are good options for fingerboard. Fingerboard need to be hard enough against the pressing fingers on the frets & to grid the frets. 



Usually people choose black ebony or tight stripes rosewood for fingerboard as the dark color grain is stronger than bright one. On the other hand I personally prefer exotic color & grain fingerboard for artistic purpose (at least not so boring), since the type of the wood I choose is already strong enough for fingerboard.  



I have used maple, exotic rosewood, and blonde makassar ebony as fingerboards. They are comfortable for fingers to press on it & looks georgeous.



The tone of electric guitars is largely determine by the strings & pickup. The wood & construction is just to help in sustaining the vibrating strings. So what I look from the wood is stability, strength, durability & beauty. 

Exotic 'blonde' Makassar ebony from my old stock. It's pretty rare & expensive wood.

Top picture: neck through construction (maple, rosewood, mahogany, rosewood, maple).

​Below: Mahogany logs with strong grain. 

Exotic rosewood with 'wild' grain.

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