Check out this sexy beast!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... %26ps%3D54

not the hugest fan of mighty mite. but thats a really nice looking body! whats the story with laminates? do they hold up? any difference in sound quality?

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

Bigjay... you never heard of Mighty Mite? The original Fender licensed replacement parts company?

The top isn't going to peel off. Yes, laminates hold up, especially after being encased in a near-dozen costs of poly. There is no appreciable difference in "sound quality," but there's no way of knowing whether or not this body is highly resonant, merely average or deadsville by looking at it.

Looks like a steal, if you like the look.

I didn't assume you were "ripping" the company. I expressed surprised that you didn't know their rep.

I've been tempted lately to buy a MM body. But i have held myself back so far because when the *new* MM company started up, i bought 2 strat necks that both turned out to sound so bad i would call them sonically defective. the tone was IMO a product of wood that was never dried out, or at least not enough. And i say *new* because they were a company back i the 70's that was resurrected in the 90's i believe with only the name being the same. Thier products were junk. Today they may have improved, but i'm still gunshy because the prices are way too cheap not to have sacrificed somewhere in the manufacturing process, and the sacrifice could well be in the drying process and/or quality of the wood. But as far as the looks, they have a ton of great looking bodies. i just don't see how they can be that cheap w/o sacrifice because even the paint alone usually cost double that of the body's total cost to have done !

Beautiful front! What a shame they didn't do the same thing to the back. The contrast between the two is too shocking for my taste.

Oh, and check out the bottom right section of the back photo: You'll see some of the same kind of WWWW marks that were the subject of discussion here a little while ago.

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I really like all them "Aster" guitars. You know, like the Stratoc, Telec and Jazzm.

BigJay: they're alright. But my Kickassocater is built from 100% Warmoth parts. Mighty Mite may have been the first, but Warmoth is the company that really took it to the next level. That's who I would look at for the best wood and the most complete options.

Its sure not going to peel. Plus how do you no if it a Veneer or a Cap? There is a difference between the two. I have had guitars with veneers on them and thick Caps in fact right now I have a Les Paul Custom with a Mahogony body and a Flame Maple Cap. Guitar companies have been using both for ages.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

You can usually tell because since they only lam top bodies that are to be clear or burst, you can look at the trem and pickup cavities and usually tell. You can see the lam, or better yet you can look at the grain of the lam and see that the same grain patter is or isn't carried into the cavity. also you can look for the glue joints that give away a multi piece body and see if those lines are also in the top. With all those thongs to look for i have never yet had a problem telling if it's a lam or not.

To do most of that you have to have the guitar in hand and have them let you open it up. Also many custom guys use multi lam bodies as the one I posted on the other general topics a little while ago.I have seen some lam bodies with so many lams I could not tell how many there were and most of these are very expensive guitars. Also I have seen both front and back veneered with very close matching veneers on some top line guitars.
Also lams of exotic woods are not the same as cheap plywood glued together.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

Hi cvilleira: though looking at the grain on the back of this one it is easy to see that it is solid ash with a thin maple veneer on the front.

The grain of the ash continues right into the little overhang at the back of the trem block cavity. The maple must be thinner than that overhang, and given that it has been bent to follow the face of the forearm contour (a "drop top") it must be very thin indeed. Obviously just a 0.6 mm veneer, therefore.

Don't care for that crudely applied black paint in the cavities, but that hardly matters. And at the price, not bad at all! Compare it with the cost of an unfinished plain ash body...

A perfectly reasonable buy for anyone who's chasing it.

Cheers - C

EDIT: Looking at it again you can clearly see the grain of the ash beyond the maple veneer on the front where the edges have been rounded. That's a very thin veneer...

Regarding the build quality of Mighty Mite: I've used a couple of their necks and had no issues whatsoever. Perfectly good.

However; visual clues about the body in question. Putting aside that sloppily applied black paint (why is it even there?), take a look at the neck pocket. The upper cutaway joins it right at the very front of the pocket. None of my Fenders do that; the neck pocket always carries a small way beyond the top edge of the cutaway.

Maybe the photo's deceptive, but that pocket looks a little on the short side on my screen. That's unappealing. And if you follow the line of that bass side cutaway it doesn't follow a nice smooth curve. Badly cut out and nobody's taken the trouble to put it right. The jack cavity is badly shaped too.

None of that may matter once the instrument is assembled - provided there's no more serious issues with the neck pocket. But it all speaks to the speed and lack of care with which the work has been done. It's all just a tad crude.

Still reasonable at the price, though. How much does a quilt maple topped bod cost from Warmoth?

Cheers - C