Mixng body woods anyone?!

[Desade]

Hi,

I've built a number of guitars over the years sticking to the mahogany body/maple neck/rosewood fingerboard format as befits my interest in warm heavy rock tones. Recently however I came into possession of a cheap '92 japanese Fender Tele (N serial number...I hear there's a possibility that due to some error this might actually be an american made unit....but other than the 'made in Japan' decal I've got no other indicators on the guitar!) and was blown away by the acoustic resonance and sustain produced by the alder body (I think I got one of those magic ones!!). I say alder, it's light weight and where the finish is cracked I can't see any of the large open pores associated with Ash...anyone got any more concrete ways of determining the wood form the 1 x 1 cm patch I can see?
Anyways, back to the point.....I would love to utilise that resonance of the alder but want to temper that characteric hollow tele twang (I've heard the same thing from other alder bodied guitars so it's not just the bridge etc of the Tele) and am thinking about perhaps having a mahogany cap. I'm not aware of any guitars that have this construction and am wondering if there's a good reason. Is the pervading wisdom that the string vibration transfer through the interface between the two markedly different densities of wood would actually inhibit their relative resonaces rather than create a tone which was actually a sum of the two characteristic resonances? Any advice would be gratefully recieved. Thank you.

 

[marnold]

First of all, welcome. Second of all, why not try it? You are basically shooting for the same thing as putting a maple cap on a mahogany body, just in reverse (although they often use a flamed/bird's eye/spalted maple for the looks of it all too). At least it would make an interesting experiment.

Can't help you on the ID. Wouldn't have a clue.

 

[Katastrophe]

Is the pervading wisdom that the string vibration transfer through the interface between the two markedly different densities of wood would actually inhibit their relative resonaces rather than create a tone which was actually a sum of the two characteristic resonances? Any advice would be gratefully recieved. Thank you.

Hey, welcome to the fret!

That question was written so well it made my poor head hurt! I think the original intent behind putting a maple cap over mahogany was so that the maple would add a little high end to the tone of the guitar, in other words, so the frequencies would work together. AFAIK, Epi has been using alder tops on some of their LPs for years, and they sound great. I don't know if putting either alder or mahogany on top would make any difference.

It's my unscientific belief that pickups contribute the most to a guitar's amplified tone, with woods contributing overtones to round out the sound. It's possible to get a "dead" piece of wood that sounds like crap no matter what pickups you put in, and there are guitars out there with fantastic woods that sound like crap because of microphonic pickups, or pups that were just crappy to begin with.

Third, I believe that was the highest number of times that I've ever used the term "crap" or a derivative thereof in a post here at the fret.

Welcome, and show some pics of that build! We don't get near enough build pics here.

 

[mrmudcat]

If it sounds good why mess with it................. Your neck with a n means american......and the bridge is schaller of germany.......top quality ...It is common though as the jap guitars used american parts shipped by fender.They are great guitars and top quality!!!


Also the body is most likely american basswood......maybe alder or ash....I am 99% sure!!!:socool


Need pics and serial number to tell ya the specs.

 

[Tig]

I wouldn't mess with it. Japanese Tele's are somewhat special as is. "Made in Japan" means it is from the legendary Fujigen factory. If it happens to be a TL52-90 '52 re-issue, even better.
Here are some pictures of a TL52-90 made in '91:

 

[Desade]

Thanks for the replies, I should make it clear I'm not aiming to change the Tele (and wouldn't, it's lovely as it is!) but want to make my own guitar using alder but perhaps with a mahogany cap. I wanted to up load some pictures of the wood of the tele as seen through the cracks but I don't seem to have permission. In a slight alteration to my initial post, the Tele is actually from 88, when I removed the dust from the serial number it turned out to be H not N, definitely making it a Japanese Tele. Again I'm none the wiser whether it's Alder or, as has been suggested, Basswood. My main question though was regarding building a body mixing two woods of significantly different densities and whether the vibration transfer from a low density, softer wood like Alder or Basswood to the harder, higher density of mahogany, might significantly impair the resonance of that body. With the Las Paul constuction of Maple and Mahogany, both woods are of similar hardness and density so it's easy to see why these might work well together....I just haven't seen or do not know of any bodies mixing woods of significantly differing characteristics.

 

[Desade]

After seeing your pictures I whipped my neck off and found the neck pocket gave me a lot better view of the grain of the body. There's very little difference between the colour of the growth rings and rest of the wood, and has an overall colour of very light tan with a hint of pink.......I think it might be Basswood after all!! The stamp on the neck pocket of the body is all but gone (only '30' is visible), and the stamp on the neck shows a thick 'Z' as per your 'N' and TL-354. I guess it's a bog standard jap Tele. Still sounds sweet though!

 

[Desade]

p.s. the last reply was to Tig***. I either don't have too many permissions here or I'm just not getting how to use all the reply options!!!!

 

[syo]

Welcome Desade. May I call you Marky? (sorry, sorry... bad joke...)

Interesting topic. I have never heard of that combination before on a solid body. Or semi-hollow for that matter. I have designed some semi-hollows with alder/maple top and mahogany/maple top and they were quite different from each other. Both good in their own way with the right pickups. Just because I know of no solid alder/mahoganys doesn't mean you shouldn't give it a go as you seem to want to experiment. Might be interesting. Mahogany can vary considerably (tonally) depending on the quality as I understand it. Why not alder/maple?

 

[Desade]

It's ok....it's not a bad joke, my name IS Marcus and a previous band singer decided to make me more metal than metal, hence the Desade moniker!! Cheestastic huh?
I figured on Mahogany as I love those darker midrange tones which I think (personal opinion) make for better overdriven tones. I'm not a great fan of too much top end with overdrive, even humbucker loaded strats don't do it for me. I just happen to love the the resonance of my tele but just want to make something that has part of those attributes but is much more of a rock beast. These something in the 'twang' of my tele thats great for blues-y and clean stuff but which doesn't cut it for me when playing metal. With all this I am talking about the basic acoustic tone/sustain of the guitar which if not there cannot be helped even with the best pickups (sorry Katastrophe that's just my experience!).