heres what im thinking:

Birdseye maple body (which would be simply cleared)
and a Birdseye maple neck (also cleared)

I work in a wood-working shop which isnt very busy right now so it probaly would only cost me what the supplys cost.

post any suggestions or toughts on the idea.

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Paddle faster! I hear banjo music!

Hi trj 1393: I have two ideas. The first is; please post pics of this project as you go along. We love that stuff!

The second is; go to work!

Good luck - C

haha, id would def post some pics if i decide to go ahead with the project.

im not sure if i should just buy a LP standard instead...it would be alot more money but not quite as much work

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Paddle faster! I hear banjo music!

Maple body and neck would be crazy heavy weight-wise (LP owners would cry) and probably overly bright I'd think. Might want to see about putting birdeye laminate on the front and back of basswood, alder, limba (korina), or mahogany to offset some of the brightness. I don't think birdseye figuring goes very deep anyhow so it would only be front or back on a solid piece.

Maple is pretty hard to work with too as far as routing and stuff. It eats tools, although I'm sure you have better tools at your disposal in a shop than I had when I tried to mess with maple.

You could check out western maple as it is not as hard, but it does not do birdseye. Can get some nice burl, flame, and quilt though.

Good luck whichever way you end up going! My wood experience is in furniture stuff and years ago. I've been tossign around the idea of building a guitar from billets though. Keep us posted.

Solid Birdseye Maple body with a birdseye neck and fretboard? Boy would that guitar be bright beyond all reason <_< Sure you don't want to through another wood in there to mellow it out a bit?

(lawl posted at the same time as the guy above me, sorry bout sounding redundant <_<)

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I traded my car in for a microphone.

well, he could use tinted clears, not quite the same. there is an almost infinite variety of 'natural' wood tones he could achieve.

I would say go for it. Building a guitar is more fun than buying one.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Now that you have our attension, are you building from scratch or taking parts from a few different guitars? Please do keep the photos coming, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has conidered this project at one time or another
Best of luck,
John.E

Hi again, trj 1393: actually, I do have a serious suggestion.

If, as people are supposing, you indeed intend building a guitar out of a solid piece of birdseye maple for the body, then I'd go with the others on the preference for using a thick cap of it over a larger piece of alder, ash or whatever behind.

Moreover, if you have a decent workshop (sounds like you have) with a big enough band saw I'd cut that slab of maple into slices and use it to cap several guitars. You should be able to get five or six decent quarter inch thick slabs out of a single piece thick enough to make a Strat body.

Tone aside, it's really a bit of a waste to use nice birdseye all the way through a solid guitar bod. Make that wood work for you: slice it up!

Can't wait to see what you have going...

Cheers - C

Twelve bar said it best, "building a guitar is way more fun than buying one!"

I have to agree with the previous posters in that a maple neck and body is probably not the best choice. The birdseye body sounds sick and is far less common then birdseye necks. So I say keep the body idea but go with an ebony or Koa slab for the fretboard.

Best of luck with whatever you decide and of course, post lots of pics!

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"I started out with nothing, and still have most of it"

maybe both, its all in idea at the moment, i was just seeing if some people had any tips for building a guitar

as for the brightness, well i never tought about that...or the wieght.

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Paddle faster! I hear banjo music!

I'd build a neck through guitar. Cut the wood into 1 x 3's and glue them together to form the neck all the way down to the bridge. The part where you see the three pieces of wood glued together will be the front or back of your neck. Save a nice piece of curley maple for the fretboard and the front of your body wings.

Go wild and build something unique. Anything is possible with this setup.

For what it is worth, and to expound further on my previous post...

The birdseye figuring is probably not going to go too deep in a billet of wood. If you are really into the idea of maple you may be better off getting some birdseye veneer to cover the front and back rather than one slab of birdseye that most likely isn't going to go all the way through and will cost a ton more either way. Since birdseye is only found on eastern hard maple any thicker piece will weigh a lot. Western maple would be softer and lighter, but only a little less bright. Most likely a lot more comfortable to hold for any length of time.

As far as the brightness alone, a lot of hollow and semi-hollows are made from maple. Rickenbacker uses maple for both their solids and semis. Rumor is that there are some people who like Rickenbackers so maple can't be all bad. Maple will just accentuate the highs more, most of the tone is going to be from the pickups either way. For pickups I'd look around for some that will accentuate and expand the naturally brighter range it will most likely produce. If you try to get dark or mellow pickups to offset it you may end up with more pronounced spikes in your tonal range.

I've built a couple cheapo guitars from parts in the past. Was planning a build from a body billet and an existing neck. I did a bunch of studying on different tone woods. As far as maple went, the bright push in addition to the weight and relative difficulty in working with it that I've experienced in the past ruled it out for me. I think the tone will push much too far to the bright end to be very versatile. However, if chicken picking and twang are your thing it might be perfect.

All the tone charts and stuff are basically educated guesses though as each piece of wood is different. That's a lot of the reason for playing different guitars until you find THE one. There is some "dead" ash and alder out there, along with every other tone wood, that just doesn't have the same musical qualities.

Best of luck whatever you decide though! This thread gave me the itch again so I'll probably be shopping for billets in the next few days...

frosty- i like what your thinking, i found a fender neck on ebay for CHEAP
and its just what im looking for

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Paddle faster! I hear banjo music!

No-o-o-o! Nuts to the body: it was the birdseye neck some of us were secretly hoping to see you build!

Use that Fender neck for something else: build the birdseye one! (trj 1393: you're never going to manage to please all the people all the time on a project like this... )

BTW:

Indeed! And on that, just look at the one that got away from me the other day:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0351776721

Just look at that price - and that ain't the highest, by any means. This stuff goes expensive where I live. I won't show you the piece I'm following at the moment, but - well, touch wood...

Cheers - C