Since the wood that is chosen to make the guitar has an important role related to its durability, style, and tonal properties, selection should be made after good research. Wood improves tonal qualities with age. There is a wide range of guitar body wood species perfectly suitable for making guitar body blanks. It differs with people and their taste in music. Let’s check out 10 amazing body blanks for your guitar.
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Maple
The Maple guitar body wood is very hard and possesses exquisite tonal abilities when used as a guitar body blank. The low resonance frequency will not sustain for a longer time and the top end gets more highlight while playing in a band. This helps in getting more highlights to the individual notes played. The birds eye and quilted maple wood blanks are exotic species for making beautiful guitar body blanks.
Mahogany
Reports say that there are almost 49 Mahogany species, but unfortunately, most of them are just memories now due to overexploitation. However, when compared to rosewood, they are much cheaper and enticing. They have a warm, bright, and vibrant tone just like the Beatles recordings from the 60s and 70s. Mahogany guitar body wood blanks are suitable for fingerpicking guitarists.
Rosewood
Brazilian rosewood is famous for its rich color and high resonance tonal properties. But due to the wide exploitation of the wood, they are now very rare and are enlisted as endangered. Hence the Indian rosewood, which has a lot of resemblance with Brazilian rosewood gained popularity. The warm tones are produced due to the presence of pores on the surface of the wood. The downsides of the rosewood are, they are heavy, costly, and need good maintenance.
Cocobolo
This central American hardwood is rare and has deeper tones. They have a striking appearance due to the wide range of colors like red, orange, yellow with darker streaks on them. The natural oils present in the wood protects it from decay and insect attacks. Cocobolo body blanks help the guitar to sustain the sound at the same time they can easily make quick attacks.
Basswood
Basswood guitar body blanks are very popular among luthiers due to their softness and easy workability. They have a pale color which is not a wooden signature texture and hence require opaque paintings on the guitar body once made. They have a low body weight which is stable and are widely available in the market at a considerable rate.
Koa
Koa woods are not so common in the market and hence are on the costlier list of guitar body wood blanks. Like Mahogany, they have a golden brown rich color with wavy or interlocked wood structure. The sound is balanced and solid but soft. Koa wood allows good fingerpicking, which makes it better for a single person’s performance inside a small group of people.
Alder
The vintage popularity of Alder is well known. The exotic wood grain pattern, lightweight, and reddish-brown color make this wood a great choice for guitar body blanks. They have a wide range for tones at highs and less bass at mid. Alder guitar body woods possess good stability.
Sitka Spruce
They are very popular in the guitar world. Sitka Spruce has a distinct range of tones that can handle a variety of playing styles which makes it suitable for guitarists with different styles. The wood is lightweight and stable. They are good for strumming and fingerpicking.
Cedar
One of the best choices for making classical guitars. Cedarwood has a warmer tone with good bass response. The reddish-brown body is often associated with random dark streaks which adds beauty to the guitar. Cedar guitar wood is widely available in the market and is considered to be highly durable against decay and insects.
Swamp Ash
They are actually not a specific species but are known to be a variant of ash wood that is lightweight in nature. They have a bright tone with good sustain. Swamp ash guitar body woods need perfect fillers for smooth finishing due to their open grain nature.
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