Quote:
Originally Posted by Aaron Smith
As Paul pointed out, laminated necks are definitely more stable and most often stiffer than one-piece necks. Whether or not they sound better is an open issue.
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That's what I was getting at...pure physics states that a laminated beam is always stiffer and stronger than the same sized beam of one piece of wood. (assuming there is no flaw in the gluing process) Forest Products Labs tests this kind of stuff all the time (indecently , they are just blocks from my shop).
So yes, if I put one of my necks against an identically sized neck of solid mahogany, the mahogany neck would break first, though that would be under hundreds and hundreds of pounds of force. Not likely an issue in guitar building.
I'll argue the stability issue as well. Unless you have perfectly straight grain with no runout, (not very likely) a solid piece of wood will inherently want to twist or bend. Now, the way I laminate is to flop-bookmatch each cut so that the forces are counteracting each other. I have no way of testing something like stability, but common sense says that this situation would be more stable than a single piece of wood with even a slight bit of varying grain.
As to tone: I'll never preach which is better. My laminated necks are a factor in why my guitars sound the way they do. Kent's solid necks are a factor in why his guitars sound the way they do. Again, neither is better or worse, just different in this regard.