neck wood opinion?
 

I plan to change out another neck and have a choice of Honduras mahogany vs maple. It's a 000 and will be Sitka over EIR when finished.

Which should yield the most sustain?
Will be maple be a lot harder to carve?
Thanks

Maple carves very nicely, mahogany might be a better color match.:D

Color, weight and ease of carving, my choice would be mahogany.

Mahogany is a common choice for neck wood because of its easiness in carving, its stiffness, weight, and its dimensional stability across humidity changes.

hog not maple

Thanks for the replies !

"Maple" is a vague term. There is hard maple, soft maple, birdseye maple, flamed maple... Harder maples are not easy to carve and figured maples can be a little trickier than non-figured maples.

Some maples are relatively very heavy and others much lighter in weight. Some maples are much stiffer than others. If you go with maple, I'd recommend that you use quarter sawn material - or laminate non-quartered material from several or more strips.

There is also variation in weight of mahogany, but, generally, it works very easily and is far less dependent upon being quarter sawn or not.

My choice is called medium flamed maple. The guys says it's much harder/stiffer than the mahogany I got last time. I like the mahogany neck he sent me, so I've about decided to repeat.
I just thought something different, might be well..different in a good way.
I'm wood illiterate relying on what I read here in the forums.
Thanks Charles

Then I suggest you expand your experience, and with it your knowledge. You experienced mahogany, now try maple. Go with the maple if for no other reason than simply to experience working with it.

A denser, stiffer neck will tend to produce more sustain.

A heavier neck will change the balance of your guitar as well.

Thank you all for the responses !
Doug

I've had a guitar that used both. 3 ply laminated neck with quartersawn birdseye maple sandwiched between mahogany outer layers (or it could be done the other way around). Very nice looking and something to consider.

Charles, I'm not sure that Leo Fender would have concurred with your viewpoint regarding the criticality of maple necks being quarter sawn ...

I'm sure he, and his many copy-cats, wouldn't have. But, that doesn't change my recommendation, particularly for an acoustic guitar. ;)