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Greetings all,
I have been mulling the purchase of a stupidly over-own-budget one-of-a-kind guitar which sounds beautiful now but is at the price of a new Custom Shop Gibson (discounted). All carved Custom Crimson way-out-of-the-normal guitar made by one of Gibson's go-to guys for 'really out there' hand-carved guitars. But it has a one-piece neck. For whatever reason.
Is is this a real problem? Is there a significant risk this becomes unplayable in a few years' time?
I simply don't have enough experience looking at single-piece neck guitars. The concept kind of scares me.
Is a single-piece neck on a high-end guitar playing with fire?Last edited by travisty; 03-24-2015 at 10:02 AM.
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03-24-2015 09:53 AM
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Look at almost any electric guitar or flat top acoustic and they will have a one piece neck.
Are you going to string it with super heavy strings?
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Lot's of D'Aquisto's guitars were single piece neck. He thought the multi-piece thing was unnecessary, and just cosmetic.
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Nothing wrong with a single piece neck, if the wood is good and its done right. I you're confident in these guys, then why not?
I've seen plenty of laminated necks that didn't make it, including a 8 piece one.
Last edited by Archie; 03-24-2015 at 01:43 PM.
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Although not high end, the neck on my old es135 was one piece rock hard maple. Excellent neck and was impervious to seasonal changes. Did Not touch the truss rod for many years. Just my .02
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To the OP; You've asked quite a few questions. ArchtopHeaven offered some good responses. I'll add a few.
There are many variables to consider when trying to determining if a one piece neck will be as stable as a multi piece . . . . three piece, five piece or more neck. The first consideration would be the actual stability of the piece of maple prior to any carving or profiling. The next would be the environment it's bieng kept in during the process of shaping it. The last, and equally as important . . is the luthier doing the shaping. You have no control over these variables, other than the level of confidence you have in the luthier who has done the work.
Your vague reference of who the luthier might be, leads me to guess it might have been Triggs. He's one of the best!! He's got many arch tops out there with single piece maple necks that have never moved a bit. D'Angelico and D'Aquisto made many guitars decades ago with one piece maple necks that have remained stable throughout those decades.
There are no absolutes. I've seen one piece, three piece and five piece necks twist and contort. I've also seen the same variants which haven't moved at all.
So to answer your question of "is a single piece neck on a high-end guitar playing with fire" . . . I'd have to say, no . . not any more than it is with any other type neck. But, with that being said . . there is no doubt what so ever that a laminate neck is more stable . . . if assembled correctly. However, it can also be more unstable if assembled by someone who doesn't understand wood grain and how to best splice it.
Put your trust in the luthier . . not the raw material.
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Maple is inherently twisty, so most makers use a laminate on maple necks. It can be stable if it's very well aged, but it's just safer to always use at least three pieces on maple necks. Roger Borys told me he aged his maple for years before he would use it in a neck, as did his mentor Jimmy D'Aquisto. OTOH, mahogany is inherently stable, which is why Gibson's three-piece mahogany necks from the late '60's onward made no sense. They wisely went back to one-piece mahogany after they came to their senses.
Danny W.
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every Fender neck is a one piece maple neck.
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Yup, and easily replaceable
Danny W.
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Let me also point out that when Fender built a "high-end gitfiddle" they called the D'Aquisto Ultra they used three-piece maple, unlike a real D'Aquisto.
Danny W.
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With Gibson, it was more of a cost issue. Gibson was using the 3 piece neck as a part of their cost reduction strategy of that era. A piece of hog large enough to make a one piece neck is more expensive than 3 tinner pieces glued together. They did the same thing with the pancake bodies on Lesters and they were doing 3 piece maple caps on some Lester as well. They went away from that to regain the lost love from their legions of followers. The bodies on the Lesters are now 1 piece and the caps are 2 pieces . . even 1 piece when they have a good enough piece of maple.
Originally Posted by Danny W.
Similarly, a piece of hog large enough to make a 1 piece body, is more expensive than a few thinner pieces glued together.
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Patrick correctly (shudder) points out the cost issue.
Properly made one piece maple necks are fine.
Properly made laminated necks are fine.
Fender and many other guitar makers big and small have used one piece necks for years without issues.
Violin/viola/cello/bass/and more makers have used them for hundreds of years without issues.
Cabinet makers have used single pieces of maple for furniture legs for hundreds of years without issues.
"Is this a real problem?" No, this is a fake problem.
"Is a single-piece neck on a high-end guitar playing with fire?"Last edited by Hammertone; 03-24-2015 at 10:53 PM.
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Ya know Hammertone, I kinda see things from a bit of a different slant sometimes. I see a high end arch top with a one piece maple neck . . and the first thought that comes to my mind is . . "now there's a builder with a great deal of confidence in his ability to assess the stability in a pice of maple . . and in his ability to craft it so that it won't move". In all of my years of checking out guitars . . and all of the arch tops I've come across with a one piece neck, I've never encountered a roller coaster. Not saying they aren't out there. But, so too are there 3 piece and 5 piece maple necks with issues.
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I meant made no sense from a player's standpoint--I know why Gibson did it. Originally Posted by Patrick2
And yet most archtops with maple necks have laminates. Originally Posted by Hammertone
You are throwing in several irrelevancies there--I don't remember anyone trying to achieve an ultra-low action on a cabinet leg, but then, I don't always read all the threads here. For that matter, "twisty" on a Violin/viola/cello/bass is different from the same problem on a guitar, and most fine bowed instruments get their boards serviced pretty often.
Danny W.
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Danny:
The leg example is about twisting/bowing/warping of a piece of wood that is sort of like a guitar neck, in that it is not glued to other pieces of wood to prevent it from twisting/bowing/warping. Lots of furniture legs are sort of the same size as guitar necks. That's why I threw in that non-guitar example. Good furniture with maple legs does not typically suffer from this problem, because it is not a problem.
Bowed instrument fingerboards, typically rosewood or ebony, are serviced because of wear to the surface and the tendency to warp up past the joint, where thay are not reinforced by their non-warping, one piece maple necks.
At the end of the day, properly-seasoned wood does what it is supposed to do.
Everything past that is a matter of preference, taste and style.
The OP isn't asking about some Furutama drekstick, he's asking about a high-end guitar presumably hand-built by a well-known luthier.
And his last question is simply inflammatory (thank yew, thank yew, try the veal, we're here every Tuesday).Last edited by Hammertone; 03-25-2015 at 01:36 AM.
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The thing is if a furniture legs twists .010" no one will ever know but if a guitar neck does the same thing it's trash.
Its all a matter of degree!
Danny W.
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Fair enough. You do the Wednesday shows? Originally Posted by Danny W.
The thing is if a furniture legs twists .010" no one will ever know but if a guitar neck does the same thing it's trash. Its all a matter of degree! Danny W.
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Really diggin' one piece necks over here, 72-year-old and perfectly fine
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There is nothing wrong with one piece necks. They don't warp any more than laminated necks.
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A couple thoughts on 1-piece maple necks...
Sugar/Rock/Hard Maple is inherently more prone to physical instability even when dried to equilibrium moisture content when dried from green wood (that just shows the volumetric shrinkage) than Honduran Mahogany. Sugar Maple commonly used for necks are about 20% denser and stiffer than mahogany. Its key liability has to do with the asymmetry in how it shrinks and expands when environmental % RH conditions change. The ratio of tangential to radial shrinkage (or T/R ratio) is a good indicator of this asymmetry in shrinkage (think of it as x and y axes of a neck cross section, and z as its length).
For Sugar Maple that ratio is 2.1 (Tangential = 9.9%, Radial = 4.8%) and for Honduras Mahogany it is 1.5 (Tangential = 4.3%, Radial = 2.9%). This physical phenomenon along with aesthetics (maple necks look nice with maple bodies) and some of the cost factors that others have discussed drives the decision to laminate maple necks to minimize this phenomenon. In contrast, one piece mahogany necks are far more stable and lighter (but less stiff). The closer in proportion a wood shrinks tangentially and radially, the more stable the wood will be environmentally.
My $.02
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Thank you very much all. Very helpful to get me grounded. Should have said in OP that it was a one-piece maple neck.
I asked not to raise a ruckus but because a) I did not know if it was not truly a greater risk, and I want to know, and b) I have a fair experience living with wood (I collect wooden craft, objects, and furniture, and live with it - I am sitting atop a 100-ton pile of teak and yakal as I write this), and c) out of my limited experience playing archtops (I am sure I have had far fewer in my hand than most others here), I have seen some twisty necks and of those, a majority have been one-piece necks (one piece maple necks more than mahogany necks I would guess).
Patrick2, the luthier of the prospective (and perhaps ill-advised) purchase is Bruce Kunkel (and it is not at all like any other Bruce Kunkel guitar I have ever seen (many of which I admit to being underwhelmed by (though his recently-developed Jazz Deco archtop he has on his site is nice)).
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Ouch indeed
but the OP was talking high end instruments. A 70s vietnamese archtop can hardly be called such. Not using well dried stable wood will do that
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It was probably built in 90% humidity and then dried out, turning the neck into spaghetti.
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Almost a half of every year is monsoon season in 'nam. Originally Posted by fritz jones
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