Grateful Dead Music Forum

dleonard wrote:I'm surprised that dude let that guitar you posted look like that. Does anyone else think those look like birthmarks?

Spalted wood may not be for everybody but that is a beautiful guitar. It's a natural process caused by fungus, somewhat similar to rotting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spalting

PD, I am working the Rice guys to have a guitar built. Mine will be semi-hollow. One thing they mentioned to be is that when you chamber and open up the top the resonant frequencies of the instrument start to change. It's above me how/why/good/bad but they do change significantly.

I'd suggest talking with SW and asking about that and help that to shape your conversation.

I've got about 6 hours into discussions around the interplay between tone, resonant frequencies, feel and design.

Those could be my tops, but it's wide open for me, could also go with a nice curly maple top with a tiger-eye stain, a redwood top (he has access to some great redwood), burl, anything. I just have to decide on the woods fairly quickly as it's just about build time.

Scott says that the chambered guitars sound a little more "open" and resonant than the solid body guitars. He's not sure how much difference the F-hole really makes, he was quick to say that the guitar is not going to be like a Languedoc that will feedback readily if you want it to because it's chambered, although he is building a new hollowbody model. Since my Tiger is about as heavy a block of wood as anyone would cast around their shoulders at a gig, something a little lighter is appealing.

This is redwood top (not one of Scotts', it's a Nik Huber instrument, but Nik gets his wood from Scott's guy):



Another Huber:

I can only see the tele, but man, that tiger maple is fantastic. What depth! I'd pick that over either of the two spalted examples if it were my guitar... since you're asking for opinions...


Another note on weight reduction - both purpleheart and maple are heavy, both noticeably heavier than mahogany.