Veneer or cap???

[Crawldaddy]

Hmm.

Considering that there are so many guitars out there which have that 'maple' look on the face of the guitar's body.. and loads of them have body binding.. how do you tell whether those with the binding have a maple CAP or just a VENEER?

I've tried plenty of Epiphone LPs.. some sound un-LP-like.. whereas others do have that certain LP sound... obviously the sound is the one thing which allows us to 'see-through' the finish and wood, but any other factors out there besides sound..?

I'm talking abt guitars with body binding, btw.

 

[MrE]

correct me if i'm wrong but because Maple is a dense wood, you can probably tell by the weight of the guitar whether the maple cap is really a cap or just a veneer

 

[ShredCow]

Well, if the rest of the body wood is of a lighter density..... How to measure by weight? It will be inconsistant.

We need a pro here....

 

[Guest]

X-ray vision.

 

[bin4christ]

smash it ...

 

[mero]

The best indicator would prolly be the price........

After all, no one's gonna slap a real flame or quilt maple cap on a $500 or $600 guitar, and even upwards of 1k there are still lots of guitars which have veneers instead of real caps. From what I know, most Epiphone guitars with figured maple caps are veneers, except for the higher priced Elitist series, though there are some with actual unfigured maple caps, but unfigured maple is much cheaper than figured maple. All schecters, except the exotic and custom shop ones, come with veneers, and I think it's safe to say all sub-$1k and non-prestige Ibanezes with figured maple are veneers. There are Prestige Ibanezes with actual figured maple caps but those are much pricier than your entry or mid-level guitar.

Bottom line, look at the price, if it's sub $1k and comes with a figured maple top, chances are it's a veneer, if it's expensive, then it's probably a real cap. Unless the manufacturer shoots himself in the foot and puts an expensive figured maple cap on a guitar and sells it for $300 of course :lol:

 

[unsane]

mero beat me to it: PRICE. either that or advertising, if a guitar comes with a real 1/4" maple cap you can be sure the manufacturers will advertise the hell out of it.

 

[theblueark]

The TS7 and the new TS808 is almost exactly the same internally, just maybe 50cents worth of component difference. The latter costs about $100-$200 more.

Price sometimes means nothing in terms of quality and everything in terms of marketability.

Subversion once mentioned that you can see the thickness of the top by removing the pickups and looking at the cavity. I'm no wood expert myself but that would probably work quite well.

 

[Lifehouse]

Reason it doesnt sound like a LP is because, it doesnt use a nitro finish. Also, its maple on alder while a real gibson in always maple on honduras mahogany.

 

[subversion]

the sure way to know is to remove the pickup from its cavity, the tell-tale layer of a true maple cap will be visible there.

then again, which guitar store is willing to let you do this?

 

[six-string]

on some guitars with a some sort of recession under their knobs, you can tell if its a veneer or maple top.

for example


on this esp ltd guitar, it has a thin flamed maple veneer. At the knob recessions, the flame doesnt continue, but shows the mahogany underneath
http://www.espguitars.ru/ltd/bigpictures/h400.jpg

and on this higher end esp guitars, the quilted/flamed maple top is probably a full top, coz the figuring continues into the knob recession.
http://www.espguitars.ru/esp/bigpictures/horizonnt2fm.jpg
http://www.espguitars.ru/esp/bigpictures/horizonnt2.jpg

 

[Wjt]

the burny lp got real maple cap? thats what i saw on their website

 

[ciel21]

To look inside the pickup cavity is the only way to tell for sure how thick your maple cap is.

Epiphones bodies are a alder maghogny sandwich with a thin later of maple cap, if it has figured top its a veneer. A Gibson's maple cap is at least as thick as the binding and is on a magohny body not a sandwch.

Generally Epiphones dun have the low end thump as a gibson which may or may not be a good thing since some ppl cant stand the low end boom of a gibson les paul. And hondouras magahony has not been used to a long time since it has been decalred an endangered species of wood, any wood that is honduras you can find now is old stock and is only used on the most high end of Les Pauls. The standard production les paul now is not honduras magahony and most of them now dun use nitro finish already.

Only the early 60s 50s Les Paul would have the nitro finish and honduras magahony and the the old ones had brazallian rosewood fretboards which some ppl say sound better than the indian rosewood we have now.