Exotic wood

[Adio_stack]

so me and my dad wanna start to build a guitar. Its gonna be based on James hetfields Ken lawerence explorers. He wants to have a transparent finish with some kind of exotic wood. What kind of woods would you recommend? and should the body be made of one piece or like some of it mahogany or something and just the top layer exotic wood? also post pics of some woods with some cool grain patterns

 

[Ultron]

Black Walnut for teh win.

 

[theNoseBleedKid]

Bubinga Pommele - if weight is no issue

 

[Juggernaut]

Mahogany body with a Buckeye Burl top.....

 

[Adio_stack]

im not worried about weight and juggernaut, i am deffinently not a fan of that. too wild for my tastes

 

[Juggernaut]

scaredy cat......

 

[theNoseBleedKid]

If weight is not an issue go to the warwick.de site, check their custom shop section and look at all the wood samples there - that'd be a good place to start.

 

[Juggernaut]

Warmoth has a good index for wood as well.

 

[stanbog]

i've always liked spalted maple, but i guess that's not exotic enough...

 

[Digital Jams]

A mahagony blank large enough to cut an explorer body is going to be expensive and hard to find with the blank having inperfections or knots, you may have to go two pieces.

 

[Capulin Overdrive]

im not worried about weight and juggernaut, i am deffinently not a fan of that. too wild for my tastes

if that's too wild, then maybe going with a one piece body with a nice would be the way to go?


Black Korina looks and sounds nice, surely there's some good looking Mahogany around, Swamp Ash maybe?


as mentioned, go to Warmoth and look around for some of the finished guitars, there's quite a few natural finishes.

here's a not so great photo of my Black Korina

 

[Death by Uberschall]

+1 Black Korina
Koa is a fine wood also.

 

[griff10672]

I'll +1 Warmoth ..

I think you can order blanks from them too . If your hell bent on really building from scratch .

If not scan their finished shop ... you can find some sick stuff .

I grabbed this neck from them ..

Bocote ( Mexican Rosewood )- ebony fretboard - doesn't require a finish

 

[Shawn Lutz]

I'm not a huge fan of exotic woods, I like hte more traditional wood sets like a mahogany body with either a flame or quilted maple top, body binding, birdseye maple neck with an ebony fretboard would work for me

 

[Copperhead]

I'm getting my deposit together for a spalted maple GMW, here's a couple pics Lee sent me....

Edit: typo

 

[dylannelson]

I wouldn't make a explorer without it being made of mahogany

 

[griff10672]

I'm getting my deposit together for a spalted maple GMW, here's a couple pics Lee sent me....

Edit: typo

that's going to be real purty

 

[Adio_stack]

I'll +1 Warmoth ..

I think you can order blanks from them too . If your hell bent on really building from scratch .

If not scan their finished shop ... you can find some sick stuff .

I grabbed this neck from them ..

Bocote ( Mexican Rosewood )- ebony fretboard - doesn't require a finish

now that i like. also if i make a body out of something like that should it be the whole thing? or like make it out of mahogany and have just the top layer something like the rosewood?

 

[griff10672]

I'll +1 Warmoth ..

I think you can order blanks from them too . If your hell bent on really building from scratch .

If not scan their finished shop ... you can find some sick stuff .

I grabbed this neck from them ..

Bocote ( Mexican Rosewood )- ebony fretboard - doesn't require a finish

now that i like. also if i make a body out of something like that should it be the whole thing? or like make it out of mahogany and have just the top layer something like the rosewood?

I'm not sure how a whole Rosewood body would sound.... Bocote or regular .I like the idea of putting a Bocote top over mahogany though . Be one heavy bitch .

Spend some time at their site ... I lose myself when I go there there is so much stuff you can do or have done . Their customer service is top frigging notch too . In my experience anyway . Just call up and tell them what you have in mind .. they are all guitar players so it's cool as shit ...

 

[Adio_stack]

I'll +1 Warmoth ..

I think you can order blanks from them too . If your hell bent on really building from scratch .

If not scan their finished shop ... you can find some sick stuff .

I grabbed this neck from them ..

Bocote ( Mexican Rosewood )- ebony fretboard - doesn't require a finish

now that i like. also if i make a body out of something like that should it be the whole thing? or like make it out of mahogany and have just the top layer something like the rosewood?

I'm not sure how a whole Rosewood body would sound.... Bocote or regular .I like the idea of putting a Bocote top over mahogany though . Be one heavy bitch .

Spend some time at their site ... I lose myself when I go there there is so much stuff you can do or have done . Their customer service is top frigging notch too . In my experience anyway . Just call up and tell them what you have in mind .. they are all guitar players so it's cool as shit ...

i would go to warmoth for my neck and body but theres one thing that kills it for me. they only do bolt ons. ive asked em if they would do set neck stuff but they said no. so im just gonna build the body and order the neck from this website that i forgot the name of