Electric Guitar Wood

Here are some of the most popular stores to buy guitar wood on EBay:

Doeringer Guitars

Fraser Valley Woods

Buzzsaw International Hardwoods

Burl.Quilt (seller)

WoodBay

EBay search for other luthiery supplies

There are many exotic woods available to use for building your own guitars. You have the option of using a solid body blank, or using one piece for the body core and then using a laminate top from the best guitar tonewoods available.

Laminate tops vary in price and appearance. Highly figured woods will cost much more than woods with little to no figure. Figure grading is based on a 5A scale. A 5A quilted maple top will look much better, and cost much more, than a 2A top. Also, thicker woods will cost more too.

The following is a brief description of some of the most popular choices for luthiery. This info is paraphrased from Warmoth, and is specific to electric guitar wood (although some of the woods can also be used for acoustics).

Alder- Great wood used for guitar bodies. It is fairly light and soft, and has a great tone (mid between warm and bright).

Ash- This is another popular choice for bodies. It is hard and lightweight, and great for natural finishes.

Bubinga- This is a great choice for both necks, tops, and bodies. It is very hard and heavy, so you may want to use it sparingly. Bright tone with great lows.

Mahogany- One of the most popular choices for both necks and bodies. It is midweight to heavy and has a warm tone. Can be used for every part but fingerboards.

Maple- Popular for every part of a guitar. Hard maple can be used for necks, fingerboards, and bodies, while soft maple is usually used for tops (quilted, flamed, birdseye, and burl).

Poplar- Another choice for solid bodies. Lightweight and fairly soft. Good wood with nice mids, but fairly plain lookings, so it is good for solid color finishes.

Rosewood- This is very heavy and hard. Usually used for fingerboards, but it could also be used as a top. Warm tone.

Walnut- Open grained, fairly hard and heavy. Great for oil finishes. Has a fairly bright tone. A nice choice for bodies, tops, and necks.

If you want to buy a quilted maple guitar, or another exotic topped instrument, there really aren't a great benefits of doing so, other than appearance. Some people believe that the brightness of a maple top coupled with the warmth of a mahogany core will make an awesome tone. While I do agree and love this combination, it is possible to get a great tone with other woods as well.

The main benefit of exotic tops is that they look beautiful! Quilted maple stained blue will look like the ocean, and flamed maple with a cherry burst stain is amazing! I also am a big fan of natural spalted maple finishes.

If you want a fancy guitar, there are many options available, and many companies make fairly reasonably priced guitars with maple tops. PRS and Gibson seem to be the most popular choices with the highest quality, but they are also the most expensive. PRS Private Stock guitars seem to be the ultimate maple topped guitars, and it is nice just to look at those pictures!

Fender, Ibanez, Jackson, and most of the major companies now have exotic topped guitars too, and at much more affordable prices. If you want to buy a new guitar, one option is to find a local guitar store and try out the guitars you are considering.

If you want to buy online though, there are many places to look. Music123 and Musician's Friend are two of the most popular sites for shopping for musical instruments. EBay is another popular choice though. If you don't mind getting a used guitar, sometimes you can find a great deal on EBay. Check it out if you get the chance!

The spalted maple Fender Telecaster is a very popular guitar right now. Instead of those boring solid colors, Fender has finally started to appeal to all use natural finish fanatics out there. Here are the specs on the spalted maple telecaster, taken straight from Musician's Friend:

Body: Mahogany/ bound top
Neck: 1-Piece Mahogany slim"C" Shape bound set (Polyurethane Finish)
Fingerboard: Rosewood 15.75" Radius
Frets: 22-Jumbo
Scale Length: 25.5"
Nut: 1.625" (42 mm)
Hardware: Chrome
Machine Heads: Standard Style Tuning Machines
Bridge: Hardtail
Pickguard: None
Pickups: 1 Seymour Duncan® SHPGP-1B Pearly Gates Plus Pickup (Bridge) 1 Seymour Duncan® SH-1N RP 59 Reverse Polarity Pickup (Neck )
Pickup Switching: 3-Position Toggle Position 1. Bridge Pickup Position 2. Bridge and Neck Pickup Position 3. Neck Pickup
Controls: Master Volume Master Tone/ coil splitting
Strings: Fender Super 250L Nickel Plated Steel (.009 to .042) p/n 073-0250-003
Unique Features: Set neck slim body carved top Spalted top Seymour Duncan pickups push/pull coil tap bound neck and body

Out of 26 reviews on Musician's Friend, this guitar has an overall rating of 4.5 out of 5. So you can see this is a great guitar! Also, it only costs $800, and that is really nothing compared to some of the other exotic guitars out there.

Click Here To Go To Musician's Friend!

Guitars have changed in appearance over the years. The first electric guitar was not much more than a modified acoustic. Then solid design experiments got popular. Leo Fender and Les Paul are two of the most famous men noted for the history of guitars.

At first all guitars were made with cheaper woods, and received a solid color finish. After the electric design was basically complete, other companies began using natural finishes on their guitars. Personal preference is the key factor in deciding what kind of guitar to get, but fashion also plays a role. Look at 80's hair metal bands and you will see mostly radical shaped guitars with solid colors.

Over the last 5 years though, natural finishes have become much more popular. PRS, Gibson, Fender, and all the major companies now have regular lines of guitars with either a natural finish or stained a certain color instead of the usual solid finish. A carved top quilted maple guitar will cost quite a bit of money, but prices are always being lowered to be more competitive. Ibanez and other companies now have some exotic wood guitars that are very reasonably priced!