I always find that bolt ons have much more of that inyourface factor very often. A bigger sound, more aggressive, less smooth. No matter what woods are used, I feel it's always the case. But of course who would not want the neck through heel and upper frets access.
I thought about a different bolt through design, where the body and neck would be assembled seperately and the hell carved later on, as a neck through guitar would usually be assembled. It'd involve a lot more routing of course.
The idea is to have the body in one piece as in slab bolt on guitars, but half of the thickness from the back is removed for the length of the neck.
The black block at the end corresponds to the full body thickness on the actual neck, for those who like the looks of the neck through wood differences.
The only problem I can think of for this would be if the guitar is designed with a tremolo. Routing for the cavity would take away too much thickness and there wouldn't be enough grip, if any, to bolt through.
The bolts could be countersunk so that they don't poke through, and then covered with plastic rubber covers or whatever other solution. The grip should be similar if not better to a standard big heel bolt on system, and allow carving of the heel the neck through way.
That's just a basic idea, I didn't do drawings or anything. I want to build a guitar with a Floyd so I couldn't do the prototype this summer as I'd have hoped, but if anyone has any experience with bolt through designs, I'd be VERY interested in whatever you built or experimented with.
Here's a theoretical cutoff at the center of the neck:
I hope you guys get the picture.
It could prove to not be too stable though.
Anyway, tell me what you think. I bet I'm not the first to have thought of this so if anyone tried it, let me know! Thanks