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Explorer Dimensions?


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Does anyone happen to have the dimensions of the Gibson Explorer guitar? If you drew a box around the shape of it, excluding the neck, what would the width and length be? I want to call a hardwoods dealer around me and I need an estimate on the size of wood I'm going to need. I'm assuming that the width of the guitar is 1.75".

Also, is there a big difference between Honduran and African Mahogany?

Edited by RamboMadCow
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Does anyone happen to have the dimensions of the Gibson Explorer guitar? If you drew a box around the shape of it, excluding the neck, what would the width and length be? I want to call a hardwoods dealer around me and I need an estimate on the size of wood I'm going to need. I'm assuming that the width of the guitar is 1.75".

Also, is there a big difference between Honduran and African Mahogany?

24" in length, 19" wide. That's approx what I measured on my explorer project.

Diff between Honduran and African is that generally, Honduran is a little lighter with slightly bigger pores and the colour isn't exactly the same. What does that mean in terms of tone? A little livelier tone from Honduran. Depending on the piece of wood, you may not hear the difference.

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You might want to recheck your body thickness on the Explorer, I believe it is 1.5", the same as on a Flying V.

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Is there a difference in the sound when you add more wood like that? Obviously there's a difference in weight but is the possible increase to the tone and sound worth the increase in weight?

Increase in tone is relative. Which tones/frequencies are affected? I don't know. I just like the feel of a hefty guitar. With the right combination of woods, it could be made to be failry lightweight.

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Well the right combination of woods is a moot point for me haha. I'm planning to make it all mahogany except with an ebony finger board. I'm planning to get the 58 explorer template from guitarbuildingtemplates.com in about a week and I'm going to be calling my wood shop tomorrow to get a price for the wood.

Since you have experience with a 1.9" guitar, is it obstructive in anyway? Specifically does it feel like the thickness gets in the way of your hand to any degree?

Edit: And when I said tone I think I meant to say sustain. Does sustain get effected with more wood present to vibrate?

Edited by RamboMadCow
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Well the right combination of woods is a moot point for me haha. I'm planning to make it all mahogany except with an ebony finger board. I'm planning to get the 58 explorer template from guitarbuildingtemplates.com in about a week and I'm going to be calling my wood shop tomorrow to get a price for the wood.

Since you have experience with a 1.9" guitar, is it obstructive in anyway? Specifically does it feel like the thickness gets in the way of your hand to any degree?

Edit: And when I said tone I think I meant to say sustain. Does sustain get effected with more wood present to vibrate?

Not sure on sustain vs body thickness. I think its more the resonance of the wood that makes a difference, which is why I prefer Honduran Mahogany.

Of course, beyond a certain thickness, the effects on tone/sustain are probably negligible. I think that at 1.9", there's little diff with 1.75". This is an electric guitar, so the body doesn't vibrate as much as a hollow body or acoustic guitar.

Sustain will be affected more by the neck wood and quality of the neck/body join.

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Ahh, that makes sense. I'm planning to modify the templates to allow me to build this explorer as a neck thru. It seems a little more complicated but I haven't seen a neck thru explorer and I wanted to see how it would play.

And to get another opinion from you, I've been reading that when possible I should get quartersawn wood. I'm assuming this is very important for the neck but should I put the same importance for the wings of the body as well?

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  • 2 months later...
You might want to recheck your body thickness on the Explorer, I believe it is 1.5", the same as on a Flying V.

You can make the thickness anything you want. I made mine 1.9" thick

When I ordered the Mahogany for the body of my upcoming/eventual set-neck King V build, I got it from Marc at Gilmer (mainly because he was cool with me when I got some student-quality wood for my quasi-in-progress-semi-hollow). Anyway, I said I just wanted it thick so I could get pseudo-Les Paul relatively thick/round tones. He said that was a bad idea because the Explorer and Flying V shape (he was talking about the Gibson, but I would think any Flying V since they are all roughly the same) would lose bass frequencies if you made them too thick, something due to how the wood vibrates over the large surface area (of the face or wings, respectively) and too thick of a guitar body would mess that up somehow. I was kind of surprised and did not ask him if he had any further info on the optimal thickness or how he knew that. Has anybody heard of that, or know what if any optimal thickness there is for these designs?

-Cheers

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You might want to recheck your body thickness on the Explorer, I believe it is 1.5", the same as on a Flying V.

You can make the thickness anything you want. I made mine 1.9" thick

snip...

Anyway, I said I just wanted it thick so I could get pseudo-Les Paul relatively thick/round tones. He said that was a bad idea because the Explorer and Flying V shape ...snip... would lose bass frequencies if you made them too thick, something due to how the wood vibrates over the large surface area (of the face or wings, respectively) and too thick of a guitar body would mess that up somehow.

Well... both explorers I built were 1.9" thick and they have the most bass response of all my guitars, and that includes a Les Paul Custom.

Everytime I plug 'em in, I surprised at the richness of the lower frequencies. :D

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