Local Poplar For Guitar Body ?

[alysum]

G'day,

For my first instrument, I was planning to use a Mahogany with a flamed maple top for a guitar which will be inspired on Muse's Matt Bellamy's guitars with Rio Grand pickups.

But because south american Mahogany is difficult to get and expensive, I am leaning towards using poplar instead.

Some of Matt's guitars have a poplar body (e.g. the one covered with silver plates). So I was wondering whether poplar sounds good with a flamed maple top ? And do they glue well together ?

Also is a 2 piece poplar body strong enough ? I'm asking because I know poplar is a very soft wood. I plan to just dye the wood all around but just the top will show the maple texture.

Poplar is so much easier to get and it would be nice to get some from where I come from (in south France). Should local poplar be OK ? What wood properties should I look for for a good sound ?

Oh yeah and poplar is easier to work with isn't it, and would be lighter for my back problems

Cheers,

[prs man]

poplar will be fine And they glue well together with no trouble.

be sure you have a good clean glue surface. if this is going to be a painted then the color of the wood is not a problem. if your going for a clear finish one thing I would look for is poplar that is all the same color.

poplar has a tendency to have different colors running through it. green and purple dark streaks.

[GregP]

Off the top of my head, I don't know enough about woods to answer all your questions with authority, so just take these as a starting point because I'm the only one online right now [edit: or not! cross-posted with prs man, but I'll leave my post intact] ... more knowledgable people should be along soon. ;-) Here are a few things to consider:

- is your "local" poplar properly dried? You can't just use any given wood for an instrument and have it be stable. There are some tolerances for moisture content that should be met. If your dealer is selling it specifically for the building of instruments, and they're a reputable dealer, it should be fine.

- a 2-piece body is just as strong as a one-piece. One-piece bodies are fairly rare, actually. If the 2 pieces are jointed and glued properly, the joint will be stronger than the wood.

- maple and poplar-- I don't actually know if they glue well together because I've never heard of anyone using this combination! It would be interesting to find out. I've always assumed that ANY woods can be joined together, but I can't say with expert authority that such is the case.

- poplar is softer than mahogany, but mahogany can be pretty porous and "spongey", too, so a hard piece of poplar can at least approach the relative density of a soft piece of mahogany.

Honestly, it's a very interesting question to me, though... I've never heard of anyone using poplar in place of mahogany because despite my last above point, they're very different woods with very different applications. I can't recall poplar being used for much except inexpensive non-topped guitars. You'd be the first person on Project Guitar that I'm aware of who ever matched a maple top to a poplar body. I may not know much about wood, and I AM curious to find out what experts would say, but the informal evidence suggests that it's probably not a great idea or more people would do it. It doesn't mean "necessarily" that it's a bad idea, but I think it was a good idea to solicit opinions.

Greg

[MP63]

Jackson made ALL their thru-the-neck guitars with poplar sides and a maple center piece.

The Charvel's were poplar bodies with maple bolt-on necks.

For sure that was during 1984-1986.

I personally like the green and grey streaks in the wood.

It'll work.

[tubab0y]

it's not that overwhelmingly difficult to find poplar without mineral streaks- and if you can, it's amazing looking wood. i'm building a doubleneck next, and i'm using poplar with a top of some sort, not sure what yet. poplar is definitely harder than basswood, though.

[alysum]

Thanks for all the feedback. I'm surprised you say not many people use poplar on the forum; oh well I'd be happy to be the first and maybe I could win the guitat of the month

So dried musical poplar quarter sawn with the grain vertical and parrallel thats it !