The Steel Guitar Forum

Is The High Tec Maple Die Board more resistant to warp over Hard Rock Maple?
Is their a big difference in the Tone/Sound
of the Steel. I think GFI & Maybe Derby(not sure)are using this.
Any Feed back would be appriciated.
Thanks

GFI does, Derby doesn't.

Yes it is more resistant to warpage.

A prominent steel builder told me that maple die board sounds better.

plywood is plywood..no matter what you call it.

regards,

Patrick

Patrick, whats your point? fred

Well here's my point: If a stale Zesta made out of plywood is good enough for Bud Issacs, then it's good enough for me.

I have 2 MSAs, one diebord/mica, and one maple/lacquer. They sound different, due in part to the fact that they have different pickups. As I posted elsewhere, my mica guitar has been retrofitted with the Sierra interchangable pickup system, and eventually I'll get the same pickup for it that I have in my maple guitar. Until that point, I can't really say for sure how the different material affects the tone.

But I can say that I like the sound of both guitars. I prefer the maple guitar because it's mechanically in better condition, but they both sound just fine. I've recorded with both, and listening to the tapes, I can hear a difference, but I can't say one is better than the other.

I've heard die board guitars that I thought sounded wonderful, and die board guitars that I thought sounded like brown material. The same holds true with maple guitars. One has to consider the player and the amp settings when we make judge the tone of a guitar. (Recently somebody came over to my house with a guitar whose tone I always thought was thin and weak, but we plugged it into my mixing board, using the same settings I normally use on my MSA, and I thought it sounded really good.)

The bottom line is that no two guitars sound exactly alike anyway (The new MSAs might be an exception to this) and if you're looking to buy a guitar, you should play a lot of different ones and see which simply appeals to you. If you find one that you really like, buy that one and don't worry about what it's made out of.

Ever play an acoustic guitar with a plywood top? Compare it to a Martin or Gibson, etc. with a solid spruce top. That's the point. Plywood has it's uses, however musicial instrument construction is not one of them.

Regards, Patrick

Plywood is assembled from several thin sheets of wood. Each sheet is laid so that its grain is at right-angles to the sheets either side of it. This gives the finished article much more strength than conventional wood, but, historically, less resonance, making it unsuitable for musical instruments.

A "flat top" verses steel is really not a good argument...we have no "sound board" on the steel. We do want a dense and consistant platform to build on though...can cast alumunum or extrusion and mica be more consistant than a high quality ply? I dont' think so...as far as musical uses, what are high quaily drums made of? Plywood birch and maple from what I hear...

Anyhoo, I've heard some great sounds come from GFI steels...maybe the player didn't know that it was plywood

Tom Jordan

No one is more opposed to plywood than me. However, die board is not to be confused with regular plywood. Many kinds of die board are available. The only one I use in our Pro Model is all maple, meaning every ply is maple. It is stronger, more stable and more resonant than solid maple. It is also more consistent from piece to piece. If you like one, you'll like them all. In test after test, the die board had better tone and more sustain. It also responds very well above the 12th fret.
With a price range of $110.00 for a 4'x6' sheet, I would not use it if it did not prove superior.
The only other manufacturers to use die board to my knowledge was Pedalmaster and CMC. The old MSA used birch plywood in some instruments, a good material, but not in the class of all maple die board.

THANK YOU, Gene! Me happy.

Thank you, Gene. I got my GFI from you last summer and I play it every day. I'm pleased with the playability, sound, and quality of construction.

Mr. Fields, you are a genious.

Gene is definitely the man and knows whereof he speaks! Jerry Fessenden uses maple dieboard on some of his guitars too, with excellant results.

You go, Gene! An important thing about die board is the glue that holds the maple plys together. This is probably some kind of epoxy, but I don't really know. At any rate, what is happening is that some of the wood, which is a natural material with inconsistencies and not perfect hardness, is being replaced with the glue, which is very strong and hard (and resistent to temperature changes). Think of how great it might be to have an entire steel guitar body made of epoxy. So the die board is a mixed product that has hardness and rigidity somewhere between rock maple and solid epoxy. That ain't plywood, and it sounds very good to me, theoretically and in reality.

Plywood is made out of junk pine (a soft wood). Good acoustic guitar tops are made out of spruce or cedar, also soft woods. Neither of these would make a good solid body guitar, steel or any other. So the plywood acoustic guitar analogy is silly.

The GFIs I played this past summer at Bobbe Seymour's sounded as good as anything he had except an old Emmons push/pull (and who knows, maybe that was the pickup?). And the GFIs played smoother and were lighter than anything else. I'm thinking of getting me a 12 string keyless. That's about as high tech as you can get without taking out a second mortgage on your house and buying an MSA Millenium (and they don't make a keyless).

One thing I'm curious about, Gene, is the relationship between resonance, dieboard thickness, and tone. A thinner board might give more resonance, but a thicker one might be more solid and give better sustain. Have you done any experiments with this, Gene?<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by David Doggett on 16 October 2002 at 09:40 PM.]</p></FONT><FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by David Doggett on 16 October 2002 at 09:41 PM.]</p></FONT>

Gene Fields: Thanks for your Reply on this Maple Die Board. I know the tone & sustain
you are getting from the GFI are causing a lot of people to take a second look.

David Doggett: I agree with you & I plan
on owning a GFI in the (near) Future also.
Thanks for ever one who has responded.

The Pakkawood that Dekley used is in a way similar to the composition of maple dieboard. Pakkawood is made of layers of wood with epoxy-type resin injected under extreme heat and pressure, replacing any air and moisture in the wood. As such, it is much harder than any wood and must be machined with carbon tipped machine tools.

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Jim Smith jimsmith94@attbi.com
-=Dekley D-12 10&12=-
-=Fessenden D-12 (coming soon)=-