baze7 Posted July 22, 2004 Report Share Posted July 22, 2004 I need some advice. I have some mahogany that is about 3/4" thick. I am planning on putting a maple top on top of the mahagany; my question is how thick a typical back is. I know it varies, but like on a Tele or Les Paul. The place I got the mahogany from has some that is about 2" thick, would I be better off getting that, or possibly gluing 2 pieces of the 3/4" together, I think if I did that, you could see a seam. Thanks for the info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www Posted July 22, 2004 Report Share Posted July 22, 2004 Find a 3/4" piece of maple for your top. Or use a thicker piece of mahogany. I think the thick piece of maple would look fine though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primal Posted July 22, 2004 Report Share Posted July 22, 2004 The "standard" body thickness is 1.75". I would suggest after you get your maple top to go to the place you got your mahogany from and have them plane the 2" stuff down so that with the maple top it will equal 1.75". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krazyderek Posted July 23, 2004 Report Share Posted July 23, 2004 tele's and les pauls are fairly different in thickness as i remember, with the les paul being a bit thicker... something like 1.75" + a 1/4" maple top? can't remember exactly. You're probably better off swapping for the 2" peice of wood. Alwasy good to have to much then not enough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maiden69 Posted July 23, 2004 Report Share Posted July 23, 2004 If you check some of hyunsus threads you will see that the cap he uses ia almost 1" thick, I think he goes 50% each type of wood, and most people here praise the looks of his woods, so is up to your tasste, you can get a 1" maple top, and carve it or sell the piece that you have and get a 1.5" mah and a 1/4 maple top. I will suggest that you get 2 maple caps of 1/2" and put the better one in front and the other one in the back, if I don't recall wrong there are LP and SG supreme that are like this... Somebody correcme if I'm wrong... EDITED: I found the LP, is here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsilver Posted July 23, 2004 Report Share Posted July 23, 2004 What basic style guitar do you want to make? In Melvyn Hiscock's book, he gives typical body thicknesses as: Tele and Strat 1 3/4" LP 2 1/4" center, 2" edge SG 1 1/2" PRS 1 3/4" center, 1 1/2" edge A maple top for a Tele, Strat or SG doesn't need to be very thick, so your mahogany would be thicker. But a carved top like LP or PRS needs to be much thicker, so you would need less mahogany. I think best bet would be to buy 6/4 rough stock from your supplier (cheaper than 8/4, or 2") and have them mill it to whatever thickness you need taking into account the thickness of your maple top. If you need more thickness, go with the 8/4. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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