If maple was a poor mans wood, then why is a les paul or prs topped with it?
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| Myth about Maple Guitars http://mowrystrings.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=30812 |
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| Author: | Mike Collins [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 8:38 am ] |
| Post subject: | Myth about Maple Guitars |
I just had a client come to my shop & try a used Maple & Spruce Classical I made in 2002. I bought it back when the owner needed cash for a divorce. The new client loved it and gave me a deposit on it. He then told his teacher,who told him Maple was a poor mans wood and could NOT sound as good as Rosewood. I asked him why violins & Arch tops are made with it. Price a Torres or Hauser I maple guitar. Well the teacher insisited on coming to my shop to hear the guitar himself . He loved it ! He then told his student that if he didn't buy the guitars then he would! Another myth busted Mike |
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| Author: | David LaPlante [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 8:58 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
Hi Mike, Hope you guys are staying warm up there today! I haven't used maple much over the years but I've made a few, including a guitar for my father about twenty years ago. It seems that it's a favorite of many people. I'm just finishing up this one for a client presently, I adjusted the back and side thicknessing to get as similar a result to my other guitars as possible. We'll know in a few weeks. I think many perceive Maple as harder and denser than it really is and thus treat it like rosewood when building with it. I can see how that might produce disappointing results in some cases. I really do like working with it as the wood is pretty, "cleaner" (none of that black RW dust) and much easier to FP as it has no pores (YEA!!). BTW, the set below is Bosnian Bird's eye and considering what it cost my client, I would not consider it a "poor" man's wood! Best Attachment: Laplante#96topfinish.jpg Attachment: Laplante#96Backfinish.jpg
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| Author: | Mark Groza [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 8:58 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
If maple was a poor mans wood, then why is a les paul or prs topped with it?
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| Author: | Mike Collins [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 9:02 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
Beautiful guitar David! ![[:Y:]](./images/smilies/smiley20.gif "Thumbs Up") I to treat Maple differently then RW. I make the back thicker especially. Yeah-NO Pores -I love it! Mike |
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| Author: | Howard Klepper [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 2:14 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
Maple has pretty high damping. That's a good reason why it works well on bowed instruments. It may be some people's taste in a guitar, or a guitar for a certain purpose. But the high damping is not a myth. |
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| Author: | Joe Sustaire [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 3:22 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
Great story Mike, sure nice when the nay-sayers are won over! Well . . . , except for Howard.  Joe No offence, just funning Howard. Listening and learning. |
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| Author: | alan stassforth [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 4:10 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
Hey, I guess I'm a maple freak. flame maple back, straight maple sides, slightly figured maple bindings, b.e. maple rosette and headstock. |
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| Author: | TimAllen [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 5:19 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
This thread showcases some beautiful instruments! I love the appearance of maple, and have several sets, which I have not yet built with. Most of the steel string maple guitars I've played have sounded kind of cold--a little bit dead at the edges. I am very happy to see this discussion. I am hoping to learn some ways to get a good sound from maple. I appreciate the tip to leave the back thicker. I recently played an excellent Collings maple SJ, which was encouraging. And my personal favorite guitar at the last Healdsburg festival (of course there were many I didn't play) was a maple/redwood guitar by Bruce Sexauer. He said he'd been dissatisfied with other maple guitars he'd built, and tried redwood because he thought it would complement maple. It sure worked on that guitar! Esthetically, I wouldn't think of putting redwood with maple, but perhaps redwood's low damping compensates for maple's high damping.  Any additional ideas for how to make maple sound as good as it looks are very welcome. |
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| Author: | Corky Long [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 5:29 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
Howard Klepper wrote: Maple has pretty high damping. That's a good reason why it works well on bowed instruments. It may be some people's taste in a guitar, or a guitar for a certain purpose. But the high damping is not a myth. Howard, Do you know where I can find any data on the relative damping of woods (in general) for back and sides? Janka hardness is all over the inter net, but I can't find any data on damping. |
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| Author: | Ti-Roux [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 5:37 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
I was planning to build a maple OM for my next build, but my teacher discouraged me, saying it wounds like cardboard and it's good for fire wood. I have to say I was a bit vexed and sad, cause I had invested pretty much on a really nice flammed set and a curly maple neck. This thread please me! I'll keep this set for a future guitar. I also have a Adi top that I can't use because grain become really wide on the edges.. I was thinking of a parlor sized gutiar with this Adi top and B/S maple. Anybody tried this? Francis |
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| Author: | bluescreek [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 7:01 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
I didn't think maple made a good guitar till I made one. I will say that there is more than one type of maple . I like used hard maple . The guitar had a sitka spruce top scallop bracing . This instrument had great tone not tinny and very balanced . Sustain is also very good . This guitar was a 14 fret dred and red spruce bracing . Don't sell it short , it makes a nice instrument . |
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| Author: | alan stassforth [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 7:41 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
I built another weiss out of plain soft maple, cheap spruce top from Mac Beaths, (got lucky!), a few years ago. That thing sounds fantastic. Balanced and loud. I've heard maple takes longer to "open up"? I can't wait to finish the one in da pics, because the build is going very well ![[clap]](./images/smilies/smiley32.gif "adulations") ,and I'm doing some different structural things to that one.
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| Author: | truckjohn [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 8:18 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
Yep - I had a buddy that was a semi-pro guitarist on the side... He finally decided it wasn't for him and sold all his "expensive" guitars - he kept a maple body Japanese dread he found behind a friend's couch..... We were always jealous of him because that thing had such an amazing sound. Unfortunately, most of the commercial Maple guitar offerings couldn't hold a candle to it.... On the whole maple classical guitar thing .... Well... It was the "Traditional" back and sides wood for classical guitars for a really long time..... Likely for good reason... Thanks John |
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| Author: | Alan Carruth [ Sun Jan 23, 2011 9:17 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
Several years ago I started work on an OM in curly Eurpoean maple. The fellow who was teaching guitar in the shop saw it, and asked me why I was wasting my time. I put it aside for a while and worked on other things. Finally I got it back out and finished it up. Once it was out on the rack that teacher would pick it up every time he came to the shop: he loved it. Howard is right: maple does have higher damping in general than the rosewoods, for example, although it's about the same as cherry, walnut or mahogany, any of which can make a nice guitar, I'm told. I do think that higher damping woods work better for smaller bodied guitars (pace, D-18 players). Maybe the tendancy of small guitars to be more 'treble balanced' helps here: higher damping tends to work against high frequencies. Which brings up the question of why maple guitars are said to sound 'dry'. Frankly, I can't answer that one. You'd think offhand that a 'dry' sound would mean a lot of highs and not much fundamental, but maybe that's wrong. We need to figure out how the spectrum correlates with the various descriptors, and before we do that, we need to agree on what those descriptors actually _mean_. Finally, another point about damping: it doesn't matter much what the damping factor of the wood is if it's not moving. A stiff, heavy back of wood that has high damping simply won't absorb much sound. The guitar I made using persimmon for the B&S had a reasonably 'rosewoody' sound, even though the back wood had fairly high damping. It was just heavy enough and stiff enough that it didn't matter. Aside from sounding pretty darn good, that was also the best street fighting guitar I've made: persimmon is hell for stout. If I were playing one of those places where they put chicken wire between you and the audience, that's the guitar I'd want. So, go for it. Maple has it's own sound, and it can be a nice one, even if it's not the same sound as rosewood. And, in spite of 'Photoflame (TM)', curly or birdseye are effects you just can't get from plastic. |
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| Author: | Ken Franklin [ Mon Jan 24, 2011 12:32 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
I have a redwood and curly hard maple guitar that I have played for years. It certainly isn't dry sounding. There is a difference between the brighter tap tone of hard maple versus the cardboard tap tone of bigleaf maple. David, that back is just beautiful. |
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| Author: | Haans [ Mon Jan 24, 2011 7:28 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
Geez, I thought white oak was the poor man's wood! I've used maple in mandolins for 20 years. Treated properly, matched with the top for the tone you want, it is a very fine back wood. You can pick from big leaf, Euro, red, and sugar AND combined with red spruce, German, Italian, etc., you have quite a range of tonal possibilities. |
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| Author: | Mark Groza [ Mon Jan 24, 2011 7:59 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
Maple and Mahogany are the 2 most woods used for guitar building, so there must be a good reason for it. Right
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| Author: | Alexandru Marian [ Mon Jan 24, 2011 9:03 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
Corky, I think you should only rely on how the actual piece sounds like. There is quite an obvious difference between high damping and ow damping pieces, with a lot of stuff somewhere in between. Which leads me to my first maple guitar, which is currently in construction. It feels nice and dense (about 650Kg/m3) and the taptone is not that bad at all. Definitely not glass but not cardboard either. The top even if spruce is definitely low damping. Not quite like a nice WRC top but not far either. So all together I am confident this will make a nice classical. |
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| Author: | Haans [ Mon Jan 24, 2011 9:27 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
I got news for y'all, taps like cardboard don't mean that much. Oak taps like cardboard. Mostly means less sustain...AND, in certain instances, that ain't so bad. Oh, yea, IMO... |
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| Author: | douglas ingram [ Mon Jan 24, 2011 10:04 am ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
My most recent, a Torres FE19 build, was in hard maple with a nice curly grain. My best sounding so far, IMO. Last Saturday I took it over to a professional classical guitarist, guitar teacher, and president of the the local classical guitar society. He really liked it and must have played it for the better part of an hour. He had no prejudices about it being maple. Fortunately the maple prejudices are not universal! I have plans on my next guitar being another FE19, but this time in EIR. I'll see if it makes all that much of a difference then. And while we're showing maple...here it is. |
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| Author: | Steve Kinnaird [ Mon Jan 24, 2011 12:46 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
Great post, good discussion, beautiful guitars! My favorite picture, though, is one of Al playing behind chicken wire.  Steve |
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| Author: | Howard Klepper [ Mon Jan 24, 2011 1:34 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
Corky Long wrote: Howard Klepper wrote: Maple has pretty high damping. That's a good reason why it works well on bowed instruments. It may be some people's taste in a guitar, or a guitar for a certain purpose. But the high damping is not a myth. Howard, Do you know where I can find any data on the relative damping of woods (in general) for back and sides? Janka hardness is all over the inter net, but I can't find any data on damping. Ask Alan Carruth. |
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| Author: | crich [ Mon Jan 24, 2011 1:42 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
There is defiantly a general aversion against light colored tone woods from the general public, then again, shiny guitars sell over not so shiny. People hear with their eyes, I can contest to that from working in music stores, in my youth. The factory makers can't afford to not follow the general consensus, even if they are based on unfounded prejudices, erroneous or not. Myself, it's a hobby, so building, experimenting outside the box, and even going as far as to prove the former prejudices wrong, is half the fun. Clinton
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| Author: | Mike Collins [ Mon Jan 24, 2011 2:13 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
Howard; I've never seen anyone bow their Archtop Guitar! Hee! I work Maple like any other wood. I weigh it & flex it & tap it & so on. High damping woods can make great guitars-with some pre-planning. Mike
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| Author: | Lindamon [ Mon Jan 24, 2011 2:32 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Myth about Maple Guitars |
As a dobro player for a while now, I can say that for many of us maple is the preferred wood for bluegrass style dobro. While the majority of the sound comes from the cone, most maple guitars seem to have some extra brightness to cut through the mix in an all acoustic environment. It's subjective, but I prefer maple over all the others I have heard and played, with Koa being a close second. |
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