Flamed or Birdseye maple neck?

[Anonymous]

Thats cool Steve! To be honest i love the look of Flamed maple more than other types of neck woods

Well.... In that case:

Steve

 

[Copperhead]

That's awesome!

 

[MrDan666]

Thats cool Steve! To be honest i love the look of Flamed maple more than other types of neck woods

Well.... In that case:

Steve

Man that is EXACTLY the kinda neck i want!! That flameage is just awesome!

 

[Anonymous]

Man that is EXACTLY the kinda neck i want!! That flameage is just awesome!

How about the rest of her?:

Steve

 

[Shawn Lutz]

if you are going for the old school Charvel spec and feel look no further then a birdseye neck with a maple or rosewood board. They feel and sound incredible. As far as the tonal differences between the two its been way to long since I compaired them and I could not give you a good example.

if its a maple board you want a one piece neck not a super glued fretboard unless ebony or rosewood on top of it

I prefer birdseye myself but I haev one flamed neck thats pretty cool

http://www.shawnlutz.com/blkjackson.htm

Birdseye / ebony
http://www.shawnlutz.com/Teal_Bound.htm

Birdseye maple (one piece)
http://www.shawnlutz.com/cherry_burst.htm

http://www.shawnlutz.com/Blue_Bound.htm

http://www.shawnlutz.com/Purple_bound_strat.htm

http://www.shawnlutz.com/GMW_Flames.htm

 

[Anonymous]

All that blood scares me

Not as much as my drunken chugga chugga riff through a Cameron CCM I bet though...

Steve

 

[noseminer]

I went with a pau ferro skunk stripe type neck since maple really likes to have a finish and some maple necks will warp if just finished in oil. Pau ferro has similar frequency response as maple and is harder (you can use it on fretless guitars), apparently feels super fast on the hands and doesnt need a finish to not warp. I guess it looks closer to a rosewood though, I'll see how it turns out, if its like 10 pieces of wood glued together then i will feel like a dumbass

 

[itsme]

No difference in tone. I like birdseye for necks and flame for bodies.

 

[Digital Jams]

IMHO, if you take a birdseye maple neck from a guitar and swap with a flame maple neck, you probably won't hear much difference at all. You'll probably hear more of a difference if you went from 9's to 10's or raised your action a little, or maybe swapped a pickup. Switching the entire neck for say, a solid Mahoganey neck would proably change the tone a little though.

I may be wrong but i thought Hgainiac told me that birdseye maple is not as stable as solid maple for a neck. Not that it isn't stable or anything, just that it's not as stable and may require a slight tweak more often

That makes sense! Im thinking... if flamed maple is more stable than Birdseye maple, then maybe thats the better option to go for. I mean if it feels as good, sounds hardly different and needs tweaks less often, then its a no brainer!

Here's my take.... I've had many birdseye maple necks and birdseye maple (interesting enough) looks like it does because it is actually diseased wood. I know some are down on it saying it is unstable (I know Lee at GMW does not like working with it and won't warantee it), however, I've never had one neck go bad. Never had one warp or bow. Never more than average attention was required to keep it working fine. I've never had more than oil finish on any of them. I've also had several flame maple necks and never had a problem with only oil finish. I've even had a quilted maple neck and no problem there either... I can't hear any difference between plain, flame, quilted or birdseye maple necks. As far as I'm concerned it all comes down to cosmetics... Which do you like the look of better? I'd go for that...

Oh yeah... never had a problem with an ebony fretboard either...

Steve

From what I read Birdseye is not diseased wood and many arborists have several theories to why it happens. I do know that to identify if a maple has birdseye you look at the bark towards the base of the tree, it will show up. The problem with the base of the tree as it matures is that alot of resin will make its way to the bottom of the tree and that is not good for tone wood and may dry funky.

Now Spalted maple is a sick tree, while splitting wood this past fall I ran into a beautiful log that was spalted maple and that tree was not right hense it being burnt.

Why do I care???? I should not and just stay to my shitastic playing.

 

[Code001]

From what I read Birdseye is not diseased wood and many arborists have several theories to why it happens. I do know that to identify if a maple has birdseye you look at the bark towards the base of the tree, it will show up. The problem with the base of the tree as it matures is that alot of resin will make its way to the bottom of the tree and that is not good for tone wood and may dry funky.

Now Spalted maple is a sick tree, while splitting wood this past fall I ran into a beautiful log that was spalted maple and that tree was not right hense it being burnt.

Why do I care???? I should not and just stay to my shitastic playing.

I was always told the same thing. I never found any evidence that Birdseye maple is a diseased wood, either.

 

[Anonymous]

From what I read Birdseye is not diseased wood and many arborists have several theories to why it happens. I do know that to identify if a maple has birdseye you look at the bark towards the base of the tree, it will show up. The problem with the base of the tree as it matures is that alot of resin will make its way to the bottom of the tree and that is not good for tone wood and may dry funky.

Now Spalted maple is a sick tree, while splitting wood this past fall I ran into a beautiful log that was spalted maple and that tree was not right hense it being burnt.

Why do I care???? I should not and just stay to my shitastic playing.

You have a good point - I was just told it was diseased wood. Did a bit of research and found this:

"Birdseye maple used to be very common 40-50 years ago. It was a "defect" that could be snuck into lifts of lumber up to 5% to "get rid of it." Then it became popular. Nobody knows what causes it but the birdseyes are undeveloped branch buds that form in the center of the tree and they grow with the tree and radiate out like the spokes of a wheel. You can spot a BE maple tree in the wild because the bark is dark black and very rough and if you look under the flakes of bark you can see the swirls of the birdseyes. Because the trees are often thought to be diseased, people often cull baby birdseye maple trees before they show their true nature. I have seen it countless times where the gnarly telltale signs of a BE maple tree are mistaken for a poor quality tree and it gets run over by a skidder or cut to get rid of it. BE Maple is now extremely valuable (price has gone from ~$6/bd ft to over $15 in the last year at many of my suppliers). It is used most often to make veneer slices so as to get the most wood out of the log. Some parts of the country like Upper Michigan and parts of Vermont and New Hampshire have more BE maple than other parts of the country. It seems to like certain growing regions and even some little pockets of areas. People think it might have something to do with the soil, others think the weather, still others think it is caused by a virus or bacteria. I know a few groves in upstate NY and upper Vermont where the woods is loaded with BE maple trees. I know of one place near Potsdam, NY that is amazing. Hundreds of trees covering a few acres. But then again people have been selecting for these trees for 25+ years in those areas."

So what do I know... nuthin' I guess...

Steve

 

[Digital Jams]

Yeah, whatever the reason it looks great

I have started to read up on tone woods more due to some of the stuff you read on the boards and I was close to pulling the trigger on a custom shop Jackson so I wanted to be informed.

Another big error by many is the availablity of BLACK ebony as in the whole billet is just super black.......that is very rare and expensive today. Most ebony today is not nearly as black as the fretboards people are getting, it is lets say probably made to be darker by the mass production shops. The color does not effect the tone or feel as the grain is the same but just lighter.


AS stated I have more pressing items such as learning to play a fucking note anyways, I will leave this stuff for you gunslingers.

 

[noseminer]

spalted maple is the kind that is diseased

 

[BadHorsie]

1 vote for the swamp ash body, the ash has this tonal thing going that really brings this upper mids thing going that sounds awesome. I love my swamp ash GMW with maple neck

I also suggest a Custom in the bridge to start with, very nice pup imo.

Good luck with the build!

Got some pics of the GMW Scott??

Also how many pieces is the swamp ash body on your GMW?

One piece, I have a pic somewhere that Lee took while we were going over the build but cant find it right now

I also had the PRS style 5 way pup blade installed to split coils for strat type tones, Custom and Jazz loaded.

That's sweet (now clean up that yard!)

Someone asked about delivery time. I ordered a Rock Maple San Dimas style from Musikraft a short while ago. It showed up right around 4 weeks, which is in line with what the website says.