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#1
11-06-2018, 11:56 AM
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Neck woods other than mahogany
We do not seem to get good mahogany here and they want an arm and a leg for it. So for budget builds what are the inexpensive alternatives like? Maple, cherry, walnut, khaya (African mahogany), sapele...
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Fred 
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#3
11-06-2018, 12:14 PM
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Cherry is a great neck wood. There's a reason why the Colonial cabinet makers used it as a substitute for Cuban mahogany.
Walnut is also good. For Classical guitars I've used butternut, which is similar to cedro.
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#4
11-06-2018, 12:45 PM
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I think the most important part of neck wood is straight grain for stability. I've used mahogany, spanish cedar, solid maple, three and five piece maple/walnut, and they all seem to work great. Sometimes you have to watch the headstock design, if the wood is heavy and you use a large headstock it can get out of balance.
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Brian Evans Around 15 archtops, electrics, resonators, a lap steel, a uke, a mandolin, some I made, some I bought, some kinda showed up and wouldn't leave. Tatamagouche Nova Scotia.
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#5
11-06-2018, 01:05 PM
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I have used Sapele, African mahogany, Philippine mahogany (meranti), maple, cherry... if it's well quartered and straight grained it should work well. I'd even used western red cedar on one guitar, which I thought worked out nicely, though it dents very easily.
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#6
11-06-2018, 01:11 PM
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I've used cherry, walnut, oak, Spanish Cedar, Maple, Imbuia, that I can think of. As well as lamination of all of the above. of all the alternative neck woods I like cherry and walnut best.
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#7
11-06-2018, 01:12 PM
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Besides maple and mahogany, I have used ash and oak - both weighed less than the mahogany neck I had weighed. I also used osage orange on a ukulele (too heavy for a guitar) and I just finished one with an Alaskan Yellow Cedar neck, curious to find out if it will hold up, VERY easy to dent, but a dream to carve.
Ed
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#8
11-06-2018, 02:30 PM
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Are we able to use basically any wood for the neck, now that we have CF reinforcements and such^
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The past: Yamaha AC3R (2016) Rose, Eastman AC822ce-FF (2018) The present:Taylor 614-ce (2018) Clara, Washburn Dread (2012) The future:Furch Rainbow GC-CR (2020)Renata?
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#9
11-06-2018, 02:38 PM
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Quote:
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#10
11-06-2018, 03:16 PM
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Padauk works well also. You have to like "orange" and be willing to deal with deep pores, though.
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#11
11-06-2018, 05:00 PM
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I have picked up enough maple and am looking for other candidates. This afternoon I bought a piece of walnut and some quartered Spanish cedar. The walnut is hit and miss to get with a straight grain, even then it is flat sawn. The better pieces they send through a planer and double the price. The African mahogany is a reasonable price if I come across a suitable piece.
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Fred
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#12
11-06-2018, 05:18 PM
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Quote:
There is mahogany and there is mahogany, kyaha genus is far better than toona genus, it’s double the weight, Cedrela genus and carapagenus are okay, Entandrophragma is very commonly used now Steve
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Cole Clark Fat Lady Gretsch Electromatic Martin CEO7 Maton Messiah Taylor 814CE
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#13
11-06-2018, 05:19 PM
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Quote:
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#14
11-06-2018, 05:46 PM
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I made two identical headstocks for a broken gretsch
African Mahogany (Kyaha genus) Heavy  Chinese Mahognay (Toona genus) Half the weight 
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Cole Clark Fat Lady Gretsch Electromatic Martin CEO7 Maton Messiah Taylor 814CE
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#15
11-06-2018, 09:27 PM
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Quote:
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Fred
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