Tonewoods and expansion concerns.

skogkatt007

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I bought a couple of cheap electric guitars. 1 is by all accounts extremely well made, or at least made with high quality materials, checks nearly all the boxes. The other is very basic. It's a Glarry. Don't any of you dare laugh at me! There's nothing terribly wrong with it, it just needs a lot of new components LOL and setup. For the money it's ... acceptable? But ymmv. The basic structure of a guitar is there, maple, basswood. Crappy hardware but you get what you pay for.

Anyway it's a Strat copy. I like the s body, but lean towards a deeper, harder sound (not metal exactly, but some of that stuff is enticing, I had my metal phase 40 years ago, have no clue what any of the stuff I hear lately is). So I want to change it into a super-Strat. Dual humbuckers, probably change out the tremolo, etc. I know Glarry/Ktaxon/? has models like that, barely have to break a 50 to get one. But the components will still be crap. So I'll do what I have to with this I figure.

So here's the question. Since I'll wind up tossing the pick guard, what I want to do is fill in that cavity (and the middle pickups cavity) with blocks of wood. I know a lot of fuss when I can just buy something to cover all that up. Oh and fill in the rear cavity with wood also, as I won't be needing that once I replace the bridge. Glarry claims the body is basswood, and clearly an Asian variety. So would pieces of local (?) pine be suitable? I've had pine laying around the house for years. I would imagine it's dry enough. Question is will the guitar's (basswood) and (local pine) expand with the weather at similar rates and not cause problems?

This may sound like a lot of worry for nothing. But over a year ago I took an interest in MUCH older stringed instruments, lute, gittern, citole, etc. And eventually want to make my own. Learning a bit about wood now , which I know next to nothing about, wouldn't hurt.

What about glues? Would silicone be a better bonding agent as it seems it's more flexible then Elmer's wood glue (if that's even acceptable).
 
I’ll jump in here as I build both electric and acoustic guitars.
Re filling the cavities in your electric, I would not concern yourself with any future expansion issues. I don’t know what you have for cutting tools but would recommend you try and recut the current pockets to a common depth. Make the plug before cutting the hole for it. Use the plug as a template. Also, square up the openings. Leave a bit of space for glue. 5-10 thou if you can. Leave the plug a bit high and sand after dry. Keep silicone far away from any guitar project. The residue is nearly impossible to remove and it will give you huge problems when finishing. Straight up white carpenters glue is more than fine for this.
I assume you are going to repaint? Do you know what the finish is? Allot of cheaper guitars are some type of polyester. Tough as nails but hard to repair and refinish. You might consider removing the entire finish and recoat the whole body. I expect you will eventually see slight witless lines around the plugs after the finish completely drys. Regarding the wood, I would go for a species a bit harder, more dense than pine,
You could also make a complete top out of some nice exotic wood and laminate it to the current body. You would need to shim the neck pocket to get that alignment correct but that is easy. Attached are just a few that I have made. The tremolo unit is my own design the I machined.
Good luck
 

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Damn I actually find a luthier on this list. Well pleased to meet you. And that's good news.

But can you recommend a specific wood? As I said the China made Glarry is supposed to be basswood. Pine is harder afaik. I do want to strip the body first. Yes I figured I'd have to clean up the cavities, make them more square or whatever to be able to prepare a sufficient plug. Anything I used would have to be dried out I suspect

With the addition of hallway decent humbuckers (Wilkinson?) and a new bridge, I figured I'd be most of the way there.
 
Damn I actually find a luthier on this list. Well pleased to meet you. And that's good news.

But can you recommend a specific wood? As I said the China made Glarry is supposed to be basswood. Pine is harder afaik. I do want to strip the body first. Yes I figured I'd have to clean up the cavities, make them more square or whatever to be able to prepare a sufficient plug. Anything I used would have to be dried out I suspect

With the addition of hallway decent humbuckers (Wilkinson?) and a new bridge, I figured I'd be most of the way there.
For what you are doing,pine would work. Look for a tight grained piece, quarter sawn if possible. Pine can been very pitchy so tight grained would be best. Home Depot or similar has a selection that you could get a small piece from as they sell different hardwoods as well. If I was doing it, I would just go with a chunk of maple or even oak, the stuff is pretty hard and machines well. Will hold screws better than soft wood. Are you staying with a string thru term or going with something different like a bigsby. If you are anchoring the trem just on the body surface, I would use hardwood. Decent quality hardware and pickups/electronics make a huge difference. Hell, put good stuff on a 2’ x4” and it will sound good. Google Les Paul’s “log”.
 
I'm not sure what it is you're asking. But I will wander around HD and Lowes and see what they have.

The other guitar I bought, Westcreek JX-20, has a mahogany body and roasted maple neck. It may require work to get it set up, but the only cool feature it's missing, according to what I've learned, is stainless steel ball end frets. It weighs twice as much as the Glarry. Due to coupons and discounts, I spent less then 150$ on both guitars.
 
Maple if you can, shouldn’t be much and maybe you have a local hardwood supplier with offcuts.

I built a couple of bass guitars back in the day and prefer maple or mahogany of the easily available species.

John
 
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