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I have been shopping for wood for the neck on my next build and have a few questions.

It appears that the most common wood for steel string acoustics is Mahogany. I know there are different varieties but I am not sure what the difference between them are as far as strength, workability and looks. Can someone explain the differences to me?

Also, I am more prone to buy solid 3"X 4" blanks over 1" X 3" boards that would be laminated. In doing repair I mainly see solid necks so that is why I am more apt to go with that as opposed to laminated. I have repaired a few guitars with split necks at the heel and those have been of the stacked heel/laminated so that is why I would tend to shy away from doing a neck like that.

And the last thing, Should I be looking for as close to quarter sawn wood or is it not that important with necks?

I am interested in hearing what others think.

Thanks for you help,
Bob

All comes down to jaw much you want to spend. A 3 by 4 block will get two necks out of it for about 80 bucks. Or you could laminate and get four necks out of the same amount ( using other scrap for the peg head and heel).
As far as workability, genuine mahogany (sweitenia macrophylla) carves better than African mahogany (khaya) due to less run out

I like quarter sawn sapele ...

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I prefer one piece necks, but only cause it's less work.

Well quartered is easier to carve, but I'm not overly fussy on that...

I'm not too concerned with cost. I am more interested in quality and longevity. I would much rather spend more on wood than have to repair a fault in the future.

Bob

FWIW, i only had one sapelly neck blank, and it moved _much_ more with humidity than either mahogany or khaya. of course, ebony moves a lot too and seems to be on every guitar neck.

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If cost or wasted wood was not a factor, I would always go for quarter sawn Honduran Mahogany in 3x4 size.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Being of the frugal sort I prefer 3 piece necks - neck shaft, heel block and spliced peghead. I don't like the look of stacked heels, but prefer the improved strength and economy of built up construction. I have been working on a "green" neck design that may only use about 1/3 of the wood used in the typical bandsawed one piece neck. As resources become scarce I think it is important that we use them more conservatively.
I've used some alternative woods on occasion. Black Walnut makes a fine neck and has become more affordable as the price of mahogany has risen.

I have a couple hundred board feet of 4/4 flat sawn maple that I have had in my shop for about 10 years that I was thinking of trying to use for necks. Do you think that would work in the way you are laminating them?

I also have a source of kiln dried lumber. A friend of mine has a lumber company and they kiln dry large quantities of Maple and Walnut as well as a few other local species of wood but most is flat sawn.

I am not opposed to laminating a neck up but not sure that Maple is a good way to go. I just don't know enough about building a neck so that is why I pose the question.

Any thoughts on stability and longevity?

Bob

Same here. I don't like the look of stacked heels, but reject 1x3 blanks make great heel stock, laminated vertically. Especially if riftsawn so it makes a V pattern:


The blank that one is from is curved anyway, so no good for necks. Ask your wood supplier for a good deal on a bad blank

I prefer quartersawn, but I'm not sure it actually matters. And in the case of Honduran mahogany, it definitely doesn't matter, because its radial and tangential expansion rates are almost equal. So it's great for one-piece necks.

No experience with khaya/African mahogany.

Spanish cedar is perhaps the greatest neck wood in existence. Lightweight, stiff, stable, carves like butter, smells great, not too terribly soft. I hope it remains available far into the future.

Black walnut is great for steel string necks. A little heavier than mahogany, but also stiffer and tougher, and has smaller pores which feel very nice with an open pored finish, provided you cut it so there's near-zero runout along the back of the neck. It does have fairly high humidity expansion, so I'd be more inclined to go with quartersawn to be safe, than I would with more stable woods like Spanish cedar. Somewhat hard to come by walnut that's up to my standard for necks, and I'm only looking for 3/4" thick boards. Most of the stuff at my local hardwood place has curved grain, runout, off quarter, or pin knots. Hibdon has good stuff, though.

Peruvian walnut also seems nice, although I haven't actually built with it yet. According to the numbers on wood-database.com, it may be a little lacking in stiffness for steel strings. I have two blanks from LMI. One appears to be from a spiral tree judging by the runout, and is highly unstable/curved along the length. The other is perfect quality, and density is actually closer to Spanish cedar at 34lbs/ft3. I think I'll save it for a classical.

I only have one sapele blank from LMI, and it's a great quality blank (well cut and straight grained), but really heavy. Also looks like it will be a pain to carve, due to ribbon stripe grain. Not planning to buy any more.

Port Orford cedar is another of my favorites. A little soft, but lightweight, stiff, carves easily, and the light color looks good with lighter back/side woods.

I need to try black cherry sometime. Seems like good density and stiffness, plus no pores.

Regardless of species, examine your piece closely for straightness of grain, and if possible, let it sit around for a couple years in a room without humidity control, and check that it remains straight in both summer and winter.

H

The strongest and most stable neck is a laminated neck and for that you want flat sawn material so when you flip it 90deg it becomes quarter-sawn.

Maple makes a great center lam between mahog. or walnut, for example. Or you could make an entire neck out of it if you don't mind the weight.

If you do make a laminated neck there needs to be an odd number: 3, 5, 7 plys, for stability.

I like mahogany for the neck. If you believe the engineers a glued splice will hold beyond the endurance of the wood. Always wanted to do a scarf joint.


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One of the unique and wonderful things about Honduran mahogany is that it has about the same stability whether it's quartersawn or flatsawn.

But really, it doesn't matter for most woods given the width of a neck unless you take your guitars to extremes of humidity... and if you do that then the grain orientation of the neck will be the least of your worries. If you have straight, consistent grain down the shaft with no knots or other defects then you've likely got good neck wood regardless of species. After that, weight is a consideration... denser woods are stiffer, but a really top heavy guitar is less playable.

My advice is that mahogany is the accepted standard on most SS guitars for a reason... if you stray from the standard be sure to understand how the wood you want to use is different and make sure those differences won't make an inferior neck.

Mahogany is considerable easier to carve than maple, and as a result I find I can carve a Mahognay neck a lot faster. I do occasionally make a Maple neck (usually to match a Maple guitars), but carving it always reminds me why I love working with Mahogany.

I've made neck of out of Maple, Walnut, Cherry and lots of laminate combinations of these woods. They are plenty strong enough and should also be stable.

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Josh House

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Agreed, I can't say I love carving maple necks, but those Shinto Saw Rasp really makes things easy! I really hope I don't have to carve maple anymore than I have to, and the only reason I made necks out of maple is because I have about 30+ bdft of it, and want to get rid of it.

I used LMI's sapele and I can't say I like it. It's really heavy which makes for a neck heavy guitar. I have not seen enough honduran mahogany to know the difference between it and khaya. I worked with khaya a lot and loved working with it. Easy to carve and not too soft. Thinning a mahogany side reminded me why they are used so much on factory guitars. Planers (Safe T Planer) make short work of it without burning.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
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My Neck wood choices are
A honduran / Spanish cedar
B Kayha African Mahogany
C Maple

I won't use anything else except maybe for quartered Walnut.

Sapele is less stable that the other woods and I won't touch that . When looking for a good neck blank Grain orientation is a concern. Honduran is the most stable. Maple often a touch heavier. I also do like a glued up neck as they are often more stable than a 1 pc. Also if you do a glue up you have some design options.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

@ John,

I take it your list is in order of preference?

So it sounds like a lot of you don't have problems with laminated necks. As I said the ones I have seen for repair have been laminated but both of them were cracks in a stacked heel. One had the lower 1/3 of the heel cracked completely in two and the other had a hairline crack in the heel. Both were cracked directly along the glue line. I assumed both were from the neck moving and the dovetail joint holding tight.

Would the best option for laminating then be 3 pieces laminated lengthwise of the neck including the heel?

Also, Is there a big difference in the properties of the different Mahoganies? I will probably stick to using it since that is mostly what I have seen but would like to know more of the different species for necks (if anyone can explain what I should be looking for).

Thanks again for your help.

Bob

Let me say that I don't not like or use a stacked heel. I have seen them separate when steaming out a neck. I much prefer a vertical glue line.

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Not sure if there is a definitive "best", but it certainly is a good option that a lot of people use, and allows using riftsawn woods of any species by flip matching to counterbalance any asymmetrical humidity expansion. I disagree with runamuck on number of plys. The odd number rule only applies then the long grain direction is rotated 90 degrees with each ply. Necks, it's all the same way, so two pieces mirroring eachother should be perfectly stable... provided the joint is good so the truss rod doesn't split it open.

One-piece does have an advantage for dovetail necks, because steaming them apart can also steam the laminations apart, unless you use a water/heat resistant glue. Not that a perfectly fitted dovetail really needs glued anyway. You might try Judy Threet's style of pinning the dovetail with a screw instead of gluing it http://www.threetguitars.com/faq.html#join

Hi Bob,
A site you might be interested in visiting, if you haven't already is: http://www.wood-database.com/ It gives a brief description of the characteristics of many different woods.
There are some differences between south american and african mahoganies, S.A. hog generally being preferred for it's ease of carving, but there is enough variation within the species that some pieces of Khaya might carve more easily than some pieces of Swietenia.
African mahoganies are less likely to be banned from import or export at this point.

I don't know how Judy Threet does it, but a dovetail joint doesn't really lend itself to being screwed together.

I might think about that, a well fitted dovetail will hold itself together even against string tension, and only minimal glue was used to hold it in place. If you had to steam it enough to break the glued neck heel apart, you've used way too much glue in the dovetail. I only put glue on the mating surface and nowhere else, and it takes 30 seconds of steam at most. If you're really concerned use a heat resistant glue such as epoxy to laminate the neck together. Note factories tend to fill the entire dovetail space with glue, which requires you to steam it for about 2 hours before anything will budge...

Screws seems like a good idea, maybe a variation on this by using a threaded insert to secure the neck to the body...

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

It's not pulling the joint together in any way, just pinning it. The joint holds itself together in all directions except "up". If you stick any sort of pin through the headblock and into the endgrain of the neck, then it can't go that way either. And even that's not necessary except in impact situations. Especially considering that the fingerboard->soundboard glue joint is also preventing the dovetail from moving in its open direction.


A threaded insert and bolt would not only be ineffective, but possibly compromise the joint. The dovetail works by pinching action, almost pushing outward from the body. Pulling on it with a bolt would run the risk of loosening its pinch. Plus the hole through the headblock for the bolt usually has some wiggle room around it. For the dovetail, you want the pin to immediately transfer any shear force to the headblock, with no wiggle room at all. A screw is very effective, compressing the wood as it goes in, holding itself in place by the threads, and just as easy to take out for a reset.

I suppose it would technically be possible to get the hole and insert perfectly aligned so the bolt would fit tight in its hole, but as soon as you reset the neck, that perfect angle would be compromised... actually, maybe it would for the screw as well. I wonder if you have to stick it in a different place after a reset? Or switch to glue at that point.

I have used a two piece quarter sawn (or close) Honduran Mahogany neck for the last 10 years. I get them from Walter Lipton at Euphonon. This approach seems to conserve material quite well. They have performed flawlessly. Very stable.

The heel block and neck section are matched wood so the line of demarcation is not very noticeable. I have used one piece necks when using Maple for archtops. They all get carbon bar reinforcement across the headstock junction. I agree, Maple is no fun to carve and I just did one.

One advantage of a one piece from a 3" X 4" block is that you have matched wood for peg head ears if you need them.

I use a bolt-on so heat resistance is not an issue.

_________________
It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

There are different species of African Mahogany. i bought two large boards that have totally disimilar carving qualities, looks, and smells. I think one is Sapele and the other is Khaya.
If you enjoy torture, try carving a Mesquite neck. My Mesquite is free and sure is pretty but it dulls cutters like crazy.
The last time I used real Mahogany, it cut like butter and was a joy working with. Unfortunately, I cannot afford it.

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Thanks for that link Clay, Have not seen it but it is bookmarked now.


Thanks John, Since my experience with stacked heels is not favorable I probably will avoid using them. I still am swayed to using a solid neck but try to keep an open mind since I have yet to even carve one.


I am most familiar with dovetail necks and have gotten pretty good at re-setting them. I always glue them when I re-set a neck but have heard of people say they didn't need to be glued but I think on a guitar it is needed because one good jolt can knock it out. I see where pinning it with a screw would work but... I guess I like glue because when I put a neck on for the last time the glue acts like a bit of lubricant and I always seem to be able to clamp it in just that little bit more (that is why I get mine to "just about" fit prior to gluing.


My thoughts exactly...

Nice trio of necks there Terence. And that shop... When I first saw pictures of it I decided to strive to come close in my new one.

Thanks for all the input guys.

Cheers,
Bob