Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello, I am new to this forum as I am new to Guitar building. So I'm introducing myself here as well as going to come right up front with my question.

I intend to build a strat style guitar, but am planning on building it with a mahogany body. Now my local hardwood store carries AFRICAN mahogany and it is a reasonable price, I think $7.15/bf. But another store near me carries Honduran mahogany, which I know to be the preferred of the two. But they are charging $44.00/bf and calling it music grade.

I play mostly blues and am looking to build something with a mellow/round tone without compromising/choking out the high end.

So first, I want to know exactly what the tonal differences are going to be between the two. Is there enough of a difference to justify paying for the Honduran mahogany?

Next, the music grade appears to only be different in that it is s4s instead of s3s, and seems to be cut a little more precise, but I am not sure as to whether or not there is really any tonal difference between the two. I mean, I have the equipment to plane and cut the wood exactly how I need it and if the only difference is that and nothing to do with sound then I can put the extra effort into prepping the wood myself.

So what I am asking is what the difference between music grade and furniture grade is?

Thanks for your answers I will probably frequent this website with the many questions that will arise during the build.

Sorry for being so long in my first post…

IN MY EXPERIENCE....

"Music grade" is all marketing.

I'll give any given hardwood dealer the benefit of the doubt and assume they've gone though the wood to make sure it's straight grained and defect/knot free. Other than that, I honestly don't believe there's any difference between that and "normal" lumber. From what I've seen there's nothing more to it than that.

As for Honduran vs. African, that may be right or it may not be. Prices per BF vary regionally. EG: I can't get clear 8/4 alder around here. The best I can do is 3-4" wide 4/4 clear, which then runs me about $10/BF. A quick price check on-line at tells me that a fair market value is about $5-6 for 4/4, and about $6-7 for 8/4. We just can't get it in here, so supply and demand come into effect. Heck, I've seen 8/4 maple be higher than 8/4 mahogany, depending on the market.

All that being said, $44/BF is excessive. I could agree with $12-$15/BF for Honduran, but that's about it. The $7.15 you mentioned sounds in line.

Tone difference? You're just asking for it with that one. GENERALLY SPEAKING, mahogany is mahogany.

My advice is to make sure that the $7/15/BF African is relatively straight grained and knot free. Personally, for a body I look more for the knots & defects than the grain. You can get away with a lot more grain runout in a body than you can in a neck.

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


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

Thanks,

Logically that's what I thought too, I just wanted someone to confirm it. I've read a lot of articles on the internet that claim that African mahogany is damp and doesn't sustain as well as Honduran or generally have as good of a tone but I couldn't see why. It's good to here that I'm not the only one that thinks this way.

I have also hear that the lighter the wood (3lbs or less per BF) the better, is this true? why?
I could see lighter/less dense wood absorbing the sound and being less articulate than a heavier wood.

I don't know...

Here's your basic 'Music Grade' 2x4 and MDF...plus a $5 piece of maple and a $15 pickup.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCVmhVI4ZFM

For electric guitars don't waste money on someone's sales pitch, just buy the wood you like that fits the purpose.

Lighter is better for your shoulder when gigging.


How can it be more damp if it's all (presumably) kiln dried to 6%-8% moisture? The rest of that bit I have quoted sounds like someone's wood-tone voodoo.

You can read plenty of nonsense on the internet about what does and doesn't make a good instrument. I call BS on all of it for multiple reasons.

Consider the classical makers of history like Stradivarius. I don't have any in-depth knowledge, but I seriously doubt that the luthiers of that era scoured the nations for the best "musical grade" materials. It just wasn't possible st that time. Logistics and economics would have mandated that they used what was available within XXX miles. They'd have picked the best of what was available, but they would have been limited to what was immediately available. Was it dried? Perfectly quartersawn? Honduran vs African vs Bob The Neighbor? Who knows. Despite this, they still made masterworks of lutherie that can't be equaled today with all of our logistical advantages.

Taylor made an acoustic from wood salvaged from a packaging pallet. Robert Benedetto made an archtop from construction-grade pine. Both are master-quality instruments.

How are these things possible? Simple. It's the craftsmanship that determines the quality of the instrument, not it's components.

There's an old musician's adage: It's a poor musician who blames his instrument for the music he makes. The same thing applies to lutherie: "Better" parts don't make a better instrument, just more expensive to make.

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


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

Thanks everyone, I can't express how glad I am to hear that.

That's the way I have felt all along but it raised a bit of concern in reading some of the internet articles that I have read. It's good to hear that my logic was right from the start. It sounded like BS to me but I needed someone with experience to confirm that notion.

Thanks again, this really relieves some of the stress from this project.