Walnut cap, what wood would you use for the body?

[gsoutherland]

I've spotted a nice piece of walnut that would be nice cap on a tele body. What wood would go well with this for the main bulk of the body?

[BigDaddyLH]

What sort of tone are you looking for? Traditional Tele or something mellower?

If mellower, I vote mahogany. If it's too heavy you can chamber it or maybe do a thinline (with or without f-hole).

[gsoutherland]

not really sure what I'm looking for. I have another one in mind that will be more traditional tele tone, so maybe mahogany would be a good choice for this.

[BigDaddyLH]

A rosewood fretboard on a mahogany neck would be a nice match. Rosewood is warmer than maple. Then your trad Tele could be all maple.

[shoretyus]

I have done two all walnut. This is a cap and hollowed. Walnut neck with IPE fretboard.

[Donnie55]

Damn,,,,,Thats SWEET

[Al Watsky]

I would go with light ash
Then no hollowing necessary

[Fernder]

Those are good looking guitars man!

[Ironwolf]

I used a chambered black limba body with a (mostly) walnut cap on this one.





It's not too heavy and it looks and sounds nice.

[Telenator]

In my experience walnut is not a great tone wood. It tends to be bright without much character. I'd be tempted to use something like mahogany underneath it, or even alder.

It will then become a matter of finding the right pickup set to yeild the best sound. Not the sound in your head, but the best sound that guitar is capable of, whatever that sound may be. Let the guitar tell you what that is. Trying to impose any sonic preconceptions on it will almost surely result in failure.

[gsoutherland]

Nice lookin' guitars there gentelmen. I have a feeling I'm going to go back and forth a few times on this one. Here is the walnut I bought. It is actually Claro Walnut.

[shoretyus]

Originally Posted by Telenator

In my experience walnut is not a great tone wood. It tends to be bright without much character. I'd be tempted to use something like mahogany underneath it, or even alder.

It will then become a matter of finding the right pickup set to yeild the best sound. Not the sound in your head, but the best sound that guitar is capable of, whatever that sound may be. Let the guitar tell you what that is. Trying to impose any sonic preconceptions on it will almost surely result in failure.

I actually have built three all walnut axes and two walnut with a Cocobolo top. The are all very nice guitars. The all sounded different but one had Lollar pu's and the rest had JS Moore's with different windings . I didn't find them too bright and had lots of character.

[Greg M]

There doesn't seem to be much agreement on the tonal characteristics of Walnut. And of course, there are different walnut varieties so that's a bit understandable.

I have some black walnut, and before I started building with it, I perused the internet to try and figure out what kind of sound I would be getting. I saw that it was compared to both maple and mahogany, which didn't help at all obviously.

I have found that a lightweight body and a stiffer, denser neck yield the best sound (for me and imo). So I used the walnut for the neck and some light mahogany I had for the body. Added some Dimarzios and it's a niiiiiice guitar.

I don't have any experience with Claro and don't know how similar the two are, so take that to mind from my advice.

I also would add that there is no wood on Earth that looks so much better after a clearcoat is applied than black walnut. Not an especially good looking wood until it's finished, and then it's really beautiful.

Good luck to you.

[turmite]

g,

Here is what your wood would look like on a Tele. I assumed the two pieces had not yet been glued together and switched sides with one half to show you both options of grain flow.

Mike

[Groovey Records]

Chambered Mahog Body and Neck

Rosewood Finger Board and Flamed Walnut Cap

[BigDaddyLH]

Originally Posted by turmite

g,

Here is what your wood would look like on a Tele. I assumed the two pieces had not yet been glued together and switched sides with one half to show you both options of grain flow.

Mike

I vote for the transparent pickguard, bridge and control plates!

[turmite]

Originally Posted by BigDaddyLH

I vote for the transparent pickguard, bridge and control plates!

Now if we could pull that off.....

Actually it might be possible, other than the transparent screws needed to hold everything together!

Mike

[boris bubbanov]

Originally Posted by turmite

g,

Here is what your wood would look like on a Tele. I assumed the two pieces had not yet been glued together and switched sides with one half to show you both options of grain flow.

Mike

Very nicely done, Mike!


I vote all the way for the one on the left - the color contrast on the seam makes the one on the right a non starter, IMO.

Normally a set of Bill and Becky Keystones is one of your best choices in a pickup. Given how often walnut is described as being insipidly bright, I may very well use one of these other Tele pickup types I have on my one piece Walnut body. Because after all this time; all the tinkering I am still not really satisfied with the way it sounds, just yet.

[gsoutherland]

Thanks turmite, I had been playing with some photoshop mockups myself but did not get a chance to post them before my computer blue-screened on me this morning. Thankfully it was not the HD, so I have not lost anything. For now I'm posting on my work laptop but I should be back up and running tomorrow with the home pc.

The mock up on the left is the way I'm going to glue it. But I might use it with the grain going the other way (spun 180 degrees). Haven't decided yet. I'll post the mock ups I've done when my computer is back up.

[shoretyus]

Originally Posted by gsoutherland

The mock up on the left is the way I'm going to glue it. But I might use it with the grain going the other way (spun 180 degrees). Haven't decided yet. I'll post the mock ups I've done when my computer is back up.

[turmite]

g there is a reason this thread attracted my attention? I wasn't going to show it since it is not a true Tele, but was designed using some features of the Fender lines. I did the photo using Rhino V4 with a feature called PictureFrame.

I did the same thing to this one to see how the wood would look.

Mike

[iansmitchell]

Originally Posted by gsoutherland

Nice lookin' guitars there gentelmen. I have a feeling I'm going to go back and forth a few times on this one. Here is the walnut I bought. It is actually Claro Walnut.

How wide is that whole piece? Would make a GREAT back for an acoustic...

[RnB]

Walnut's a great looking wood gsoutherland. Whatever you do...don't cover it up w/ a pkgd...!

[gsoutherland]

RnB, I'm planning on going with the chrome pickup ring instead of the pick guard.

[gsoutherland]

Here are the mockups I've done of the tele with birdseye maple and cocobolo for the fretboard. tough choice. Either way it will have a birdseye maple neck. All my other guitars are rosewood fretboards, so I'm leaning for maple on this one. But, then again, I'll have enough wood for more than one build, so maple the maple fretboard will go on one of the others. Decisions decisions decisions...

[boris bubbanov]

I like the look of the all Birdseye better.

A dark, exotic wood board gives the headstock an "outlier" appearance and disjoins it from the rest of the guitar.

Now, a Claro matching veneer over the headstock and I'm all on board. :^)

[hackworth1]

Boris is right. The maple fingerboard looks much better with the walnut guitar body. IMHO, a light-colored top can go either way, but a dark rich wood needs a light color fret board. (And I love Cocobolo. Brings back memories of Costa Rica.)

[gsoutherland]

You guys are right. After looking at it awhile now the headstock does look a bit disjointed with a darker fretboard. Now I just need to decide on the body to go under the walnut top. I don't think I'm going to go with mahogany. More likely to be alder or ash.