Poll - Laminate Or Solid Neck?

[Archie]

Laminated or a solid neck?

What's your preference:
1 piece necks or laminated?
If solid which wood do you prefer?
If laminated, how much lamination do you prefer?

I like laminated necks and I like more laminations for aesthetic reasons regardless of function.

Interested to see the results and reasons why.

[sgosnell]

I think laminated necks are more stable, as long as they're properly done. I have no particular preferences for number of lams. Three is fine, but more is acceptable. At some point it becomes too much, but I'm not sure where that point is.

[Gabor]

It would be a surprize if solid neck get more votes. Old baseball necks are gone. Besides of durability, I think it is cool to see the elegant lamination on the back of a neck.

[GNAPPI]

I was around in the 60's when Gibson was pushing laminated / volute necks, I don't have hard copy, but here's sort of what I read (and believed) about the two subjects... paraphrased, note lack of quotes :-)

Laminated necks use three or more pieces of wood using opposing grains or wood varieties, this helps assure that an inadvertent shock will not follow a grain line and separate a location on the neck.

The volute is added in an area not felt by the player and adds structure to the area where the truss rod nut recess is which also adds strength to the head area.

Why players believed the former and raised such a ruckus about the latter always baffled me, thankfully other makers did not cave in to players whining about volutes.

It's been opined that volutes and multiple piece necks do not and did not prevent ALL heads from breaking off, and that's true, but... after working closely with the drop test lab (my main job was in development not test) in what was a major computer manufacturer I CAN say this with complete confidence and any packaging engineer would have difficulty debating...

Strengthen one area and if a shock is sufficiently strong, the newly reinforced area or the next weakest area WILL fail. Remember the weakest link in the chain saying?

[Litterick]

I have never given it a moment's thought.

[gitman]

When I was comparing several ES-335/345 models from the 60's and early 70's I noticed a distinct difference in tone and resonance (played unplugged): the earlier models with the one-piece mahogany necks had a sweeter sound with more lower mids and bass. The guitars with the 3-piece maple necks had much less of the typical semi-hollowbody character, had a bit more sustain and brilliance.
On my archtops I do not notice any major difference between a one-piece and a 2 or 3-piece maple neck. My Super-400 has a 3-piece neck with is absolutely stable, my Victor Baker and the Trenier both have one-piece maple necks that do not move around. I think the quality of the (ebony) fingerboard, the precision of the lamination and the the tight fit of the trussrod all play a big part in how the neck behaves re stability. I do not know in which way these factors determine the
overall quality of the tone - I've played several top-quality guitars that had clearly audible dead-spots and/or certain frequencies that were extremely prone to feedback - IMHO this can happen to all guitars, regardless of who built them.

[jim777]

I guess I've always felt that one piece necks might vibrate differently than multi piece necks, though it's tough to argue multi-piece necks being weaker strength wise. It's all about how the neck feels in my hand at the end of the day though, honestly. That said, I think three pieces of maple with 2 walnut stringers between them would look hysterical on a Tele

[John A.]

I have never given it a moment's thought.

I've given it precisely 1.7 moments' thought, and reached the scientific conclusion that this has a DIIK * coefficient of .9973 out of a possible 1.0 .


* Damned if I know.

[vinnyv1k]

My favorite is 3 piece.

[Longways to Go]

I'm a big fan of solid mahogany necks. I think they contribute to the sound.
But I have had problem necks on a couple of guitars, so there's that.
My best sounding guitars have mahogany necks -- all Gibsons -- go figure.

For Fenders, I'm good with Maple.

[Archie]

My favorite is 3 piece.

Vinny I thought you might be the solid, candy stick, maple guy!

I think you've hit the sweet spot on the laminated necks. Three is the magic number after all.

[bluejaybill]

gotta love those volutes!

Just like mine, but does that dark piece go all the way through?

Otherwise Mark's necks are just split, so the maple doesn't run in opposite directions. So no increased stability due too two directions.

But Mark told me there wasn't any real difference in stability between the one and three piece when I was ordering; good maple is good maple, aged properly.

Having said that I like the look of the stripe!

[John A.]

Got 5 pieces and a volute on my Seventy-Seven. It fits with the overall look of this guitar, which is pretty busy. No idea what difference it makes functionally vs. simpler construction, but I'm happy with it.

[Stefan Eff]

Guild M-75 Aristocrat:
Mahogany/Maple/Mahogany.

[jads57]

One of the main factors that has changed are graphite rods. So laminates aren't as needed thi g any longer.
But living in Minnesota were the climate is volatile, I still defer to multi laminate construction on an archtop maple neck.

[Archie]

One of the main factors that has changed are graphite rods. So laminates aren't as needed thi g any longer.
But living in Minnesota were the climate is volatile, I still defer to multi laminate construction on an archtop maple neck.

Depending on how you build, laminates offer quite an easy neck construction as you can jigsaw the neck and headstock angle out in one very accurately.

I'm sure solid neck builders have jigs to help them speed up stock removal work.

[Marcel_A]

Whatever Ibanez is using.