Paulownia too soft a wood?

[spankyjangly]

Hello all, I'm looking to purchase a pre-owned HH Telecaster from a local guitarist, with a relic-ed Paulownia body from MJT with a Gotoh 510 bridge (a Tele taboo yes, I'm aware). I've been doing some research and I've seen a lot of comments that Paulownia is too soft a wood and screw stripping is a possibility, especially on a trem-equipped guitar. If anyone has experience with Paulownia guitars, preferably someone who's owned one with a trem for a while

 

[schmee]

It is easy to strip a screw in Paulonia. Also it dents very easy. If you take care it can be fine.
Not had one with tremelo.
What's MJT?

 

[bendercaster]

I have a Paulownia Tele, and yes, it is very soft. The trade off is it is super light and with my guitar at least, resulted in a really loud, resonant guitar.

I have not had issues with stripping, but I know some folks will coat the inside of the screw hole with super glue and let it dry to give a little more strength to the threading. I'd probably pass on a trem equiped Paulownia body though.

 

[4pickupguy]

I have had strats made from basswood (even softer) and had zero problems with trems. I don’t do anything but shake chords with the trem though, nothing aggressive. Paulownia makes for great light-weight, resonant guitars.

 

[jdl57]

Paulownia body. Yes, paulownia is soft, yes screws will strip out. Drill a hole where you want to insert a screw, and glue in a piece of hardwood dowel. Problem solved. This body has hardened mounting points on the bridge and strap button locations. I got the body and neck from Guitar Mill. I would think MJT knows this too, but a quick email to them asking if they harden the attachment points would answer your question. Personally, I love my paulownia body.

 

[Killing Floor]

G&L and Suhr and other legit brands use it.

People whine and cry and crumble to their knees under the crushing pressure of 8 pounds balanced on a soft strap.

Empress/paulownia is a good solution.

 

[musicalmartin]

I just use the super glue method on all screw holes .It works fine on both my Teles and Strats .It will dent more than hardwood .Its the pay off for a light body

 

[Burn Yesterday]

Basswood is softer than Paulownia? I hear people talking about stripping out P but not so much B.

 

[Repoman]

Basswood is harder, rated at 410 Janka and Paulownia rated at 300. Both dent if you sneeze on the lumber.
Balsa is 67 Janka for reference.

Usually production Paulownia bodies will have a thick coating of epoxy sealer to help.
It's an amazing wood for guitars, the only wood that made me think there might be something to the 'tone wood' thing after swapping parts between a Pine tele body and a Paulownia one ($30 dollar GFS body...in my mind it did sound noticeably better).
Shame the lumber is marketed as an exotic in the US which makes it a bit pricey, the trees grow very fast and it's basically considered junk in Asia.

 

[regularslinky]

I have a G&L Comanche (Strat-style with tremolo bridge) in Paulownia. G&L calls it Empress wood. No dents, no stripping, no problem.

 

[guitarbuilder]

When drilling holes in softwoods, forest products experts suggest using drill bits a tiny smaller diameter than for hardwoods. Trees that have leaves are hardwoods. Trees that have needles are softwoods.

from Wiki. Softwood is wood from gymnosperm trees such as conifers. The term is opposed to hardwood, which is the wood from angiosperm trees. The main differences between hardwoods and softwoods is that the structure of hardwoods lack resin canals, whereas softwoods lack pores (though not all softwoods have resin canals).



Density can be high or low in both. Paulownia is probably in the same boat as softwoods from the chart. The only holes I ever had to fix were for strap buttons which is endgrain. Now you can overtorque any screw and strip it out if you work hard enough to do it.

Drill bit sizes for drilling screw pilot holes

Drill bit sizes for drilling screw pilot holes

quikdrawers.com

 

[BryMelvin]

Hello all, I'm looking to purchase a pre-owned HH Telecaster from a local guitarist, with a relic-ed Paulownia body from MJT with a Gotoh 510 bridge (a Tele taboo yes, I'm aware). I've been doing some research and I've seen a lot of comments that Paulownia is too soft a wood and screw stripping is a possibility, especially on a trem-equipped guitar. If anyone has experience with Paulownia guitars, preferably someone who's owned one with a trem for a while

I had a A Paulownias trat That the whole term mount split and the body split. It was from ROndo Music.
I have a Pawlonia bodied tele that I have been using for several years I built from a cheap kit (with a better neck)
It has survived. Not sure I would have an other term guitar with PaUlownia. Poplar alder even pine ok. I have had trouble with Agathis bodies too. especially with 2 point terms.

 

[Mr Swisher]

I have a Paulownia JM mad by Kauffmann Guitars. It's incredible, super light and rings like no other guitar I have.

No issues whatsoever so far, I play hard and am quite aggressive on the Trem. Pray for me

 

[4pickupguy]

Yes I have heard about this on Fenders too. Production bodies are mostly CNC cut these days. Even the pilot holes are all drilled by automation. There are different pilot hole requirements for Paulownia than say ash. I suspect production guitars are all cut with the same tooling. I have a basswood MIJ strat and the trem is fantastic on this guitar. I put together a Paulownia strat a couple of weeks ago and the pilot hole suggested was .098” (#40 drill bit)!!

 

[Holy smokes]

The Japanese love it. Use it for all kinds of things. I think they call it Kiri. U.s. exports it to Japan

 

[Geo]

Basswood is softer than Paulownia?

Average specific gravity of paulownia is ~.28 and basswood is ~.43 so basswood is harder. Chart specs vary a bit but both are
pretty close in various readings.
Either way some care is needed with attaching fasteners as to not to over do it.

 

[archetype]

I have a Paulownia Tele, and yes, it is very soft. The trade off is it is super light and with my guitar at least, resulted in a really loud, resonant guitar.

I have not had issues with stripping, but I know some folks will coat the inside of the screw hole with super glue and let it dry to give a little more strength to the threading. I'd probably pass on a trem equiped Paulownia body though.

Minwax wood hardner works very well and penetrates deep into the grain, if you happen to have a can of the stuff. It's not worth getting a whole can for screw holes, so water-thin CA is the ticket, as you mention.

 

[Dismalhead]

I did a few parts guitars with pre-painted paulownia bodies from GFS. Super lightweight, but you can easily take your fingernail and stick a permanent dent in it without much effort. It's a tradeoff, and it's up to you as to whether it's worth it for the weight savings.

 

[Wayne Alexander]

I built a partscaster with a One Piece Paulownia 2 lb 10 oz MJT Aged Nitro VTT Guitar Body w/ Strat contours, by USA Custom Guitars Carthage. Even with a bigsby it came out as 6.5 pounds, which to me is a very good thing. I had no issues at all with installing the hardware. I didn't need to do anything special to allow the screws to hold normally.

 

[jvin248]

.

Remember they use Paulownia for starter guitars with trems that kids buy and bash and abuse.

If you are older than 20 you'll be fine.

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