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I've been playing guitar for over 20 years.....or maybe I should say playing at it. Well I finally decided to get serious about playing and in looking at various commercial guitars I never found exactly what I wanted, so I decided to build the guitar of my dreams myself.

Here are my thoughts and I'd appreciate yours in return.

Custom carved body made of Honduran mahogany........I like the look, and the tone range seems to fit my needs.

But the neck is something that I wondering about. Will the neck compliment the tonal range the mahogany or can I use it to compensate for the lack of tone.
I want a dark wood neck to go with the body and am considering mahogany for the neck but it might only add to the lack of midrange inherit in mahogany, if on the other hand I go with ebony or rosewood then it might compensate for some of the loss in midrange and add to the highs.............your thoughts please.

Now a very basic question and one that almost answers itself but like I said I'm a newbie and don't want to make stupid mistakes, if I use locking tuners like the gotoh would I need a locking nuts for the use of a floyd rose lo-pro tremolo?

I've been working in wood for a long time but have never tried my hand at something like this. I'm a bit excited about it and scared at the same time, so any advise would help........thanks.

what lack of tone or midrange do you mean? Mahogany gives you plenty of oomph, and is pretty heavy in the midrange. Les pauls often have maple tops to add a little high end sparkle, although pickup choice will also make a huge differnce. What tone are you going for? I doubt you can hear a major difference in fingerboard wood, but that depends on a ton of factors.



IMO floyd rose bridges aren't great for tone, and tend to negate many
of the more subtle aspects of wood and constuction methods. Locking tuners might work ok, but for full on crazy whammy go for a locking nut. Most had rock and metal
tones rely so heavily on distortion and post processing that while the nderlying guitar matters, it doesn't matter that much.


I've been working in wood for a long time but have never tried my hand at something like this. I'm a bit excited about it and scared at the same time, so any advise would help........thanks.[/quote]

locking tuners are a help when you're changing strings mid gig, but other than that, they are one of the best marketing cons ever IMHO

your nut either needs zero friction or infinite friction.

for a trem system I'd DEFINITELY use a locking nut.

for a non trem system, a properly cut nut and strings applied using the method described on frets.net will make any tuning issues dissappear (and a lot cheaper than lockers too!!

I put lockers on a guitar once.

made no difference to the tuning issues which went completely once I sorted the NUT.

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Joe-
I certainly think building guitars is fun, and a good idea, so would not try to discourage you.
It is really satisfying to play an instrument you've built yourself.

However, if you are looking for a 'tone' that you can't find among the thousands of different guitars available in the marketplace, I doubt that you will be able to 'hit it' on your first building effort.

If it is just a matter of the 'look' of the guitar, that is something a bit different.

I notice you are in my 'neck of the woods' so feel free to contact me via pm. There's a pretty active luthier group out here so you will no doubt find lots of local resources.

Cheers
John

Which is something I really had not considered, it was my understanding that Floyd Rose trems were best for not losing tune. But I have also heard that the double locking trems like Sperzels or the non-floating trems like the new StepMax also work well. When considering tone which trem do you think is the best with moderate use and no "dive bomb" drops?

I couldn't agree with you more John, with tone being such a subtle and individualistic aspect of building any instrument I can see how it would take someone years to master the different nuances of material, thickness, shape, resonance, dampening, etc. Then of course are the changes that the nut, bridge, pickup, strings, etc present.

But with help from people who have experienced these challenges, I am hoping that I can shorten my learning curve some what to make an instrument that not only looks good but sounds good as well. So I guess you could say I'm in this for the long haul.

Thanks for this and any future advise guys

If you're looking for a dark colored wood to compliment the mahogany's tone, consider walnut. It has a tone that lies somewhere in the 65% bright area, with maple being 100% and mahogany being maybe 10%. If you're an experienced woodworker, you'd have no problem ebonizing the wood once it's shaped if you're wanting a really dark color.

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Bad decisions make for good stories.
-------John


My blog - http://poplarmechanics.blogspot.com/

Great suggestion avengers63, I've looked into walnut or more specifically "Black walnut" and it would be a suitable choice considering the tonal qualities.

Thanks