Is this a solid spruce top or a laminate/spruce

adorshki

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Does the poplar, larch, alder or soft maple part of the laminate "age" like tone wood?
Just realized I walked by this initially, but "tone wood" is generally taken to mean the back and sides, because that wood colors the sound according to the frequencies it reflects the best.
Maple being very hard has a reputation for being bright or too treble at the expense of bass response, Mahogany's regarded as "warm" and a good overall balance between bass, treble and midrange, and Rosewood is said to enhance bass the best.
An individual guitar's construction can enhance or degrade those characteristics. Archbacks make maple sound warm, for example, and most Guilds with maple bodies are archbacks.
The issue with the back and sides is, it doesn't matter so much if they're laminated, because their primary job is to reflect, not resonate. So whatever wood's on the surface layer will do what it's supposed to do regardless of what's underneath it.
 

Christopher Cozad

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..."tone wood" is generally taken to mean the back and sides, because that wood colors the sound according to the frequencies it reflects the best....
I am no "General Lee" ;~}, but I would suggest an expanded definition of tonewood, one where Backs and Sides are a sub-category, along with Tops, Braces, Fingerboards, Bridges, Bridgeplates, Headplates, etc.

Under the right circumstances, all wood can generate "tone", but some woods are naturally more resonant than others (they "ring" more when excited). In the circles I frequent, these are the woods that are most often referred to as tonewood. Amongst these woods, an even smaller group of woods sound truly "musical", all by themselves. These are commonly referred to as "true" tonewood. The materials that comprise a Sitka Spruce or Cedar soundboard are rightfully considered tonewood, where the Balsa wood bracing in the model airplane or the Basswood slats of the mini blinds in the window are not. A tonewood has less dampening and more resonance than a non-tonewood. Laminating more than one tonewood together results in laminated tonewood, not plywood. :tongue-new:

For laminate fun, research the latest trend in so-called "double tops", in which a honeycomb Nomex core is sandwiched between two uber-thin layers of tonewood (Spruce, Cedar, Redwood, etc).

A discussion about tonewood, with examples
 
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adorshki

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I am no "General Lee" ;~}
And I think we all like you just the way you are. :friendly_wink:
@Chris/Aoxoa:
There are some folks here who actually get their hands dirty making and/or repairing guitars and Mr. Cozad is one of them.
When in doubt, believe him.
I'm just relieved he didn't need to make any outright corrections of my "generalisms".
:friendly_wink:
 

AoxoA

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....you could certainly do worse for a learning guitar, nice gift! And you're definitely in the right place to see buying opportunities when the time comes.

That's good to know. It also sounds like I have a campfire guitar---which can't be a bad thing.
 

mario1956

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Probably too late but laminate it is. I've owned a bunch of those Alvarez, Aria, and Ibanez guitars from that period that were lammie also. I've dismantled a few of them just to see what they were made of and I've observed that the inner layer looked a lot like lauan. I think that is a cousin of mahogany?? I remember taking apart an old Alvarez the had the Brazilian lammie back/sides and spruce top and the layers were very thin. The bridge had pulled off the guitar and you could see where the top layer of spruce had come completely off the top.
The only guitar maker that used laminates that had more traditional tonewood was Gibson. I had a couple of late 60's Heritages that were Brazilian, Maple, Brazilian. I had taken out the end pin and one the neck and could clearly see the very light color of the maple. The Gibsons tended to have thinner layers also.
 
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