"Butcher block" strat bodies- what's your take on 'em?

[thinskin57]

so, we all know fender uses 3 and 4 pieces of wood on strats costing up to two grand these days, right? (my clapton strat is a 3-piece) This bothers me, as it should you, from an economic standpoint. Why? well, for 2G's it is my feeling that you should get a two-piece body. (cost-cutting w/out passing any savings along to the consumer!!) 3 and 4 chunks of wood for a body is just fine for a Squier series or whatever, but a higher end instrument? My MAIN QUESTION is though- can anyone out there actually HEAR the difference between a 2-piece and a 3 or 4 piece body? i guess that's the more important question, because if there is no difference in sound, who cares if they use 4 pieces of wood. one could argue that more pieces of wood make for a stronger, more rigid block of wood. also, it is easier to properly dry smaller chunks of wood in the case of the 3 and 4 pieces. so what do you all think out there?

 

[JohnDNJ]

i would never spend more then 200 bucks on a strat..there is no difference between a 200 dollar strat
and a 2k strat other then slightly less shitty pickups and tuners, certainly not 1800 worth.


fender is garbage...you want a 2-3k high end strat? buy a tyler, or a suhr or any of the other high end
custom strat makers out there that fender couldn't touch on it's best day.

 

[thinskin57]

i would never spend more then 200 bucks on a strat..there is no difference between a 200 dollar strat
and a 2k strat other then slightly less sh!t pickups and tuners, certainly not 1800 worth.


fender is garbage...you want a 2-3k high end strat? buy a tyler, or a suhr or any of the other high end
custom strat makers out there that fender couldn't touch on it's best day.

stick to the question sunshine. :wink:

 

[RJ2213]

this is exactly why if i get strat-tpye guitar ill get an anderson, either that or a Suhr but the anderson is a more natural feeling neck shape to me. eitherway, if im spending that much money on a guitar it had better be one soild piece of wood at the very least.

 

[lockbody]

I think the amount of pieces used has to do more with supply and demand of quality pieces of ash and alder at any given moment in time. So they have three options:

1. Build guitars with the available woods for the price point they need to sell the guitar.
2. Pay the going price for the larger pieces of wood and price the guitars accordingly.
3. Don't build guitars.

While the boutique builders all choose option 2, Fender and Gibson generally choose option 1 for everything except the priciest custom shop guitars, as option 3 isn't, well, an option.

My '08 AmStd is two piece, I doubt I could tell a difference in sound over a similarly equipped one with a three piece body.

 

[thinskin57]

this is exactly why if i get strat-tpye guitar ill get an anderson, either that or a Suhr but the anderson is a more natural feeling neck shape to me. eitherway, if im spending that much money on a guitar it had better be one soild piece of wood at the very least.

i actually chose my EC strat over an Anderson. and about 16 other guitars that i tried out that day. i'm not a fan of clapton OR fender, but on that day in my local music store the EC strat crushed all competition. having said that, i've played other clapton strats that have left me flat. guess i got a good one. i've had boutique guitars in the past only to have some poor kid w/a crappy old peavey guitar show up to jam that plays and sounds better than my high end piece. go figure. more dollars or less wood doesn't guarantee superior tone i'm beginning to realize. sure it's nice to have perfectly rounded fret ends that shine like polished chrome, a perfectly applied thin finish, but wood being organic and radically different from piece to piece you never know what you're going to get regardless of price it seems.

 

[MrMarkIII]

i would never spend more then 200 bucks on a strat..there is no difference between a 200 dollar strat
and a 2k strat other then slightly less sh!t pickups and tuners, certainly not 1800 worth.


fender is garbage...you want a 2-3k high end strat? buy a tyler, or a suhr or any of the other high end
custom strat makers out there that fender couldn't touch on it's best day.

stick to the question sunshine. :wink:

+1
It's the labor (USA vs. Mexico, Korea, etc.), not the parts.
P.S. There's some guy makes bodies out of nothing but butcher blocks. Gets 'em from Ikea, I think. And yes, he charges an arm and a leg. Hey, it's "Boo-teek", man.

 

[Nitrobattery]

i would never spend more then 200 bucks on a strat..there is no difference between a 200 dollar strat
and a 2k strat other then slightly less sh!t pickups and tuners, certainly not 1800 worth.

:roll:

 

[fishyfishfish]

All I know is that in the circles I used to run in guys would swear there is a difference when Fender went from a two piece to three piece body (Pass the bong please). All kinds of things can be argued about Strats, from the golden age to the transition era to CBS, to the Tokai custom shop Strats and on and on. My point being that they are hugely overpriced by people keep paying for them ( Me included) and you just have to shop around for a good one. The last good Strat I got to play everyday was a '56 with a bat for a neck and super skinny frets, but when it got lit up through my old Marshall it sounded like a monster crawling through the speakers. Thats my benchmark for Strats.

 

[thinskin57]

i would never spend more then 200 bucks on a strat..there is no difference between a 200 dollar strat
and a 2k strat other then slightly less sh!t pickups and tuners, certainly not 1800 worth.


fender is garbage...you want a 2-3k high end strat? buy a tyler, or a suhr or any of the other high end
custom strat makers out there that fender couldn't touch on it's best day.

first off, a 200 dollar strat does not exist unless you're talking about a squire series. but there is a HUGE difference. namely the hardware, pickups, and fretwork. not that the fretwork on an american standard is anything to write home about. just look at the trem block on an import strat vs. a vintage series. the tuning machines? higher quality on the domestics. i will agree that these things don't justify an additional 1800 dollars, but they DO make quite a difference in tone. oh yeah- the nuts on the imports are usually poorly cut plastic and the hardware is usually all white metal (pot metal) crap. lousy pots and switches too. should i continue? there IS a difference.

 

[RJ2213]

yeah, a guitar is more than looks and basic features. the effects on tone, tuning stability, and longevity is where the price difference usually comes in. the softness of the metal the bridge is made from is a big issue, so is the quality of the nut material and the cut of the nut. visually and soundwise two guitars can be very similar, but if you add 7yrs they may be like night and day.

for instance, look at floyd rose bridges, an ibanez lo-trs2 and a lo-pro are mostly different in the metal theyre made from, same thing that makes a stock floyd on a low end jackson different from a schalller floyd rose like was comes on a Caparison.

also why a squire has a crappy bridge in comparison to a wilkenson that would be used on a suhr/anderson/moore.

 

[MrMarkIII]

first off, a 200 dollar strat does not exist unless you're talking about a squire series. but there is a HUGE difference. namely the hardware, pickups, and fretwork. not that the fretwork on an american standard is anything to write home about. just look at the trem block on an import strat vs. a vintage series. the tuning machines? higher quality on the domestics. i will agree that these things don't justify an additional 1800 dollars, but they DO make quite a difference in tone. oh yeah- the nuts on the imports are usually poorly cut plastic and the hardware is usually all white metal (pot metal) crap. lousy pots and switches too. should i continue? there IS a difference.

Once again, it ain't the parts, it's the labor that's the $1800 difference.
A $200 guitar made in the USA would cost $600 to build.

 

[thinskin57]

first off, a 200 dollar strat does not exist unless you're talking about a squire series. but there is a HUGE difference. namely the hardware, pickups, and fretwork. not that the fretwork on an american standard is anything to write home about. just look at the trem block on an import strat vs. a vintage series. the tuning machines? higher quality on the domestics. i will agree that these things don't justify an additional 1800 dollars, but they DO make quite a difference in tone. oh yeah- the nuts on the imports are usually poorly cut plastic and the hardware is usually all white metal (pot metal) crap. lousy pots and switches too. should i continue? there IS a difference.

Once again, it ain't the parts, it's the labor that's the $1800 difference.
A $200 guitar made in the USA would cost $600 to build.

i think what you MEANT to say was, "it aint JUST the parts, it's the labor that's the 1800 dollar difference" pot metal, plain and simple, sucks tone. and there's certainly a difference in the american pickups vs. the imports. but yes, obviously the u.s. labor rate plays in here too.

 

[plumptone]

I've been a strat player for almost 30 years. Over this time I've owned several. I never really noticed an appreciable difference in sound or feel that I attributed to the number of pieces of wood used to make the body. I have three right now: a 1989 strat plus that has a 3-piece body with the so-called swimming pool route (that sounds great despite what everyone says about the effects of that routing); a 2001 American deluxe with a 2-piece alder body and a custom shop strat that I had built to my specs also with a 2-piece alder body.

Here's the thing with strats - and I think this is pretty much widely accepted at this point - you have to play a lot of them to find the one that's right for you. When I was younger I got to play an old '64. That was my benchmark strat. Unbelieveable instrument. The ones I have picked up over the years have all been worth every penny. I've played the Andersons, the Suhrs, even a D'Pergo, and agree that those are all really cool instruments. When I was presented with the opportunity to have a custom shop strat made to my specs, I was hopeful that it would live up to the hype, and would be worth the investment. It is. I love my stock USA strats, but I would put the one from the custom shop up against any strat-type boutique guitar out there. This thing is the real deal. It's very hard to figure out exactly what it is that makes it so good, but I think it's all about the details. It's put together remarkably well, and the balance, feel, tone, and overall build quaility is about as good as it gets. I really don't see how it could be any better, and what seals the deal for me is that it's a Fender. Not someone else's attempt at trying to out-Fender the Strat. To each his own and all that, but for me, there is a HUGE difference between even a $1200 strat and a one-off custom shop.

 

[gonzo]

what i learned in my research on building a project guitar


yeah, i know, it's blahblahblahblah..
but i thought i'd share for anyone who is interested in building project guitars..


in my years of playing, and building the odd project here and there, the one thing that i consistently saw, was that if it sounded spanky without being plugged in, it'd sound spanky plugged in.

and if it sounded dead sitting in the shop, and if i plugged it in, dead.

(now, this is not to be confused with lots of gain, and radical tone shaping, and all that...
just the basic pure sound of the guitar amplified, versus acoustically playing it)

and i've switched out bridges and electronics, even nuts, and they all did do a little something....

but i think the magic comes from the 'tone' of the neck, and the 'tone' of the body.

and then the mojo is, marrying the two together.


when i researched and built my project strat (see past thread on 'project strat'), my luthier and i, had at our disposal, 5 strats in house, for sell or repairs or work....
3 fender strats of various vintage and country of origin....
and 2 brand new american made strats.

plus, we had a few other strat wannabes-- Godin, Ibanez, the odd project guitar..

we did, at various points in the discovery process, take apart most of them.

one thing i noticed, was that certain 'necks' would not pass the 'tap test'.

what the tap test was, was simply hanging the neck (with all hardware off of it) from a hanger thru a machine head hole, and 'tapping' on the wood with the finger.

you could rap the back of the neck with your knuckle, and you could hear a distinct 'ring' or 'tone' in the wood.
every single neck was different.
some were solid maple, some maple with maple caps, some with rosewood caps....

all different.
as you would expect.

but some were dead sounding, and some were very lively.

needless to say, the 'lively' sounding necks, sounded the best on the bodies.

the bodies, a similar thing.
when i asked for my strat body, i decided on alder, and i specifically asked for the 'lightest 2-piece alder body' they had...

why 2 piece?
i don't know, i guess cuz the nicest body i found in the test, was a lightweight, 2 piece body that had a nitro finish on it, so that's what i patterned after.

i also had read a lot of articles on pros that had vintage strats, and that seemed to be a common thread.

when i got my alder body, while it was still raw, it had that 'tap tone'.

now when we experimented with various pieces at hand, you could hear the difference in the overall sound of the guitar (plugged in or not) when switching the necks out with different bodies.

also, the necks that had vintage style truss rods (one of the reasons i went with the USACG necks over the warmoth necks) was another big 'aha'.

it seems that, the way the wood is cut, and how the truss rod was installed, made the biggest difference of all, over wood types and fingerboard selection...

i took a maple/rosewood warmoth neck, with a gibson conversion scale, the double expanding truss rod thingy (which really makes the neck heavier and somewhat dead sounding) and a/b'd it against my freshly minted USACG neck with rock maple neck and pau ferro fretboard, basically the same neck as the usacg, except for the truss rod and the fret wood.

no contest.

my neck had the 'tap tone', and the warmoth did not.
plain and simple.....

i was absolutely convinced.

another difference BETWEEN my neck and the warmoth i compared to, in particular was the construction of the 'tiltback' headstock.
the usacg uses a volute construction...
the warmoth used scarf joint.
that seems to have some bearing as well.

moral of the story....
it's gotta be the wood.

--------------------------------------------
the first body, was perfect.
1st body, i said....



i had asked for the lightest piece of alder they had....
and tommy at USACG hand picked the body.

when i got it, i did the 'tap test', and it was very toneful.
i did the rough sand, luthier did the fine sand, sealer, primer, topcoat, and after it was dry, we started putting it all together...

when we got the trem posts in, and put the trem on...and put the springs in to tension... it developed a crack right at one of the posts!
seems that there was a hairline fracture in the body, that cut right across the center of one of the trem post holes....
we didnt' see it while we were working on the body, but it was obvious once the crack occurred.

we called USACG, and they did me right.

they sent me ANOTHER body gratis...... let me keep the one that we had almost finished!
so the luthier, kept the body for himself, glued the crack, set it up just like mine, and voila! clone guitar!!!

the 2nd body, was absolutely wonderful.
that was the only issue we had. the neck pocket was super tight (another request on my part) and the tolerances were all as close as you can get a CNC machine to give you!
story about their bodies, on the USACG site....

 

[MrMarkIII]

Well, it's a Tele, but it is an actual butcher block, from Ikea, I believe.
http://www.zacharyguitars.com/070209pics.htm