New project: What if EVH never painted Franky red?

GilmourD

GilmourD

Eater of Worlds
Staff member
Getting started.

I'm thinking it's basswood. What do you guys think?

f48ae177b4ae3b601ff48faee00a1569.jpg


Sent from my Moto X 2014 using Tapatalk
 
basswood is pretty soft, you can dent it very easily. If you barely push a screwdriver into the wood and it doesn't resist, it is basswood. The poplar I have seen usually has a little greenish hue to it but that grain looks like poplar.
 
Here's a pic of the front.
d800dfe2e0abe4dd4fd437d85fe14422.jpg


It smells a bit soapy, which basswood does when worked. Never worked with poplar, though, so I'm not sure.

Sent from my Moto X 2014 using Tapatalk
 
The greenish tint in the pics, which might totally be camera artifact, kind of reminds me of poplar. Of course, it is really hard to tell what the wood is on a wood body. I should start a side company identifying guitar wood by DNA PCR analysis.
 
FWIW, my one basswood guitar has wood so soft you can run your thumbnail across the unfinished surface and leave a dent. I can't do that on poplar. So, that might give you some clue on what it might be. Basswood is insanely soft.
 
Also, I love the idea of an unfinished frankestrat concept. Just sand down where you need to reshape things, and leave the rest painted. It should look awesome.
 
Tiltsta said:
FWIW, my one basswood guitar has wood so soft you can run your thumbnail across the unfinished surface and leave a dent. I can't do that on poplar. So, that might give you some clue on what it might be. Basswood is insanely soft.
Click to expand...
It is kinda soft. I'm upstairs right now, but when I go down to finish the sides I'll check. I have definitely left some marks scraping it, but that is with a metal scraper and a heat gun.
realtree71 said:
is it a future non red franky? Is it heavy or light?
Click to expand...
It's really light, actually.
Tiltsta said:
Also, I love the idea of an unfinished frankestrat concept. Just sand down where you need to reshape things, and leave the rest painted. It should look awesome.
Click to expand...
I'm sanding it down so I can lay a properly thin black coat under the white. No red is going over that but I'm going to drop a Floyd on it.

Sent from my Moto X 2014 using Tapatalk
 
For those of you who have worked with poplar could you do that to poplar.

Sent from my Moto X 2014 using Tapatalk
 
Poplar and Basswood will both ding and scratch easily. They are great tone would but really just seem like thick balsa wood.
 
Scott_Abene said:
Poplar and Basswood will both ding and scratch easily. They are great tone would but really just seem like thick balsa wood.
Click to expand...
Would poplar be soft enough for the strap peg to have pushed in the wood a few millimeters on the butt end? Seems the previous owner of this body did that.
 
Scott_Abene said:
If I installed it then yes!
Click to expand...
LOL

I know I'm going to have to dowel that little impropriety there and probably use some light bondo to fix some gouges I made scraping the paint off (which oddly didn't come off in huge flakes but rather softened, making it easier to remove, and bubbled and burnt only the color coat in some spots, leaving the clear undercoat intact).

This body was supposed to be an MIM Standard body from the mid '90s when my cousin bought it. However, the routes are slightly differen than my '94 MIM Standard and the black was really a MEGA dark green when light actually shown on it, which my '94 is not light. Plus the finish was significantly thinner than what Fender was doing at the time (compared to the large chip I have in the body of mine). So, I was figuring it was some sort of import, probably basswood, but a well-made one because the neck pocket was never painted (most of the shitty ones paint the pocket).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top