tell me about agathis

[theboatcandream]

Sapele is a reasonably priced relative of Mahogany, but you make it sound like it's a cheap substitute akin to Meranti. Sapele is a great tonewood in it's own right, and used on many high end guitars, so I doubt it's made from Sapele. At my local timber yard, Sapele costs almost double what Limba does and costs a bit more than Ash.

Ok, but my understanding was that Epiphone makes their guitars out of sapele whenever they advertise it as mahogany? Either way it isn't agathis.

[MikeS]

Cheap Asian pine. Prone to knots. Very soft, works more like basswood than pine (very soft, very fine powder when sanded, soaks up a ton of finish). Most agathis bodies contain many pieces but it’s not plywood. The farmed trees are smaller in size (yields smaller pieces) and not very dense. Makes for a very light weight body.

Just how good is it? IMO, by Ibanez body sounded better with the 1/16”-3/32” plastic-like shell finish on it than it did once I stripped it. The agathis I’ve got experience with is the most sonically dead piece of lumber I’ve ever heard. Tonally, though, I’d place its EQ somewhere between mahogany and basswood.

As far as Epiphone is concerned... AFAIK, Sapele is an African tree, and it's not a cheap wood. I thought that Epiphone was using alder and basswood in their cheaper instruments, then using mahogany in some of the upper end models.

[Bezmotivnik]

It seems to me that agathis is not as popular in guitar manufacturing as it was a few years ago, when it was everywhere.

Some very nice Cor-Tek contract instruments had agathis bodies (including the late, lamented DeArmonds), but I've seen some really dreadful agathis bodies in Asian-built guitars which were of such poor quality that they developed cracks and other fatal flaws.

As has been pointed out, it's the quality of the wood, not the species that really matters, and the true species is often misrepresented in any case.

[Robert Delahunt]

As has been pointed out, it's the quality of the wood, not the species that really matters, and the true species is often misrepresented in any case.

Well first off, usually agathis is in low-end guitars, hence cheaper specimens of less quality, I would think. Something to consider, however, is the species. In my opinion, no matter how high and prestigious a sample of agathis they will find / make / mill, it will still be agathis, hence it will still not be as good a wood as others. For example, you could get the most premium birdseye maple, but it's still going to be bright, and expecting it to compete with the tonal qualities of mahogany isn't going to be logical.

I don't mind people hunting for more wood species to try out in electric guitar. Hell, I'd help out trying them all! However, in my opinion, certain species will be limited to their natural abilities.

The cool thing, to me, about woods, is what makes them different from each other. If they could all be perfect, then guitar stuff would be a lot more boring, in my opinion.

[shredaholic]

Ok, but my understanding was that Epiphone makes their guitars out of sapele whenever they advertise it as mahogany? Either way it isn't agathis.

I've never seen an Epiphone with Sapele, I'd imagine they'd use Alder before Sapele. I have however, seen epiphones made with Meranti every time they've been supposed to have been made with Mahogany - presumably they get away with it because some people call Meranti 'Philippine Mahogany'.

Coincidentally, if Epiphone ever did make a guitar out of Sapele, it'd be heavier than all the Gibson equivalents unless they weight relieved it, and even then it would be about the same weight as a guitar made with quality Honduran Mahogany. Every Epiphone I've ever held has been pretty light.

[Bezmotivnik]

Well first off, usually agathis is in low-end guitars, hence cheaper specimens of less quality, I would think.

Not always. It was used in some decent mid-range Asian-built instruments a few years ago and may still be, I'm not sure.

Likewise with basswood: It's in Music Man Axis guitars, which certainly are not cheapies.

Basswood seems to have overtaken agathis in current low-end production, but good quality basswood sounds fine to me, plus it typically doesn't weigh a whole lot.

Ultimately, it's the tonal qualities of the individual blank that matters, not the species. The species is of course suggestive, but not conclusive -- there's a lot of overlap between differing grades of differing species, which are often misrepresented anyway. "Mahogany," as an example, has lost almost all meaning. Technically, if it doesn't come from the Americas, it's not actual mahogany, but most "mahogany" guitars and furniture are from many different botanic species and different continents. They just look somewhat similar to true mahogany. Same with "poplar" and other woods. The taxonomy is pretty arbitrary and it seems that there are no penalties for manufacturers calling wood whatever they want.

[Lake Placid Blues]

Since agathis is a conifer, it's a very different wood from basswood, alder, ash .....ect....

Basswood , alder, poplar, and so forth, are hardwood trees, meaning that the trees are large, tall, trees with large leafy canopy's, and they have leafs that they shed every autum. Agathis would be a soft wood type of pine tree.

I don't know how it sounds in comparison to the more standard hardwoods, but it's coming from a completely different general type of tree species, and would have a quite different cellar structure.

[jmh151]

I've never seen an Epiphone with Sapele, I'd imagine they'd use Alder before Sapele. I have however, seen epiphones made with Meranti every time they've been supposed to have been made with Mahogany - presumably they get away with it because some people call Meranti 'Philippine Mahogany'.

Coincidentally, if Epiphone ever did make a guitar out of Sapele, it'd be heavier than all the Gibson equivalents unless they weight relieved it, and even then it would be about the same weight as a guitar made with quality Honduran Mahogany. Every Epiphone I've ever held has been pretty light.

Sapele has been used by Ibanez- Ibanez has called it Mahogany in the past. It's a very heavy wood, and they've used it on their S series and RG series guitars with mahogany bodies- you can tell by the weight. It's not a cheap wood.

Phillipine mahogany is junk used to made cigar boxes out of... Up until the 70's, most wooden boat hulls were made completely out of Honduras Mahogany as it was recognized as the best, strongest, resistent to warp, rot and lasted forever in outdoor conditions. Problem is due to the inclement weather, the paint and varnish would quickly wear off the boats, and they had to be repainted every 2 years. Then boat hulls were made of fiberglass, which required no painting since they had a gelcoat.

I accidentally got some phillipine mahogany from the lumbar yard once to do some repairs on a yacht (I used to be a marine carpenter). Phillipine mahogany is 1/4 the weight of Honduran Mahogany and looks like bleached Honduran mahogany. It's too soft to be used for anything but cigar boxes and must be treated with chemicals to prevent dry rot.... it is not something I'd consider making a guitar out of...

[Bezmotivnik]

Basswood , alder, poplar, and so forth, are hardwood trees, meaning that the trees are large, tall, trees with large leafy canopy's, and they have leafs that they shed every autum. Agathis would be a soft wood type of pine tree.

Agathis is generally a little harder than basswood (in my experience) and at least some so-called poplars. Simply being a deciduous tree is no assurance that it will produce really hard lumber. I've seen some very soft alleged "mahogany" used in guitars as well.

Of course, there are a lot of different agathis species, and who knows which one produced the lumber from which your coffee table or guitar was made?

[Robert Delahunt]

Not always. It was used in some decent mid-range Asian-built instruments a few years ago and may still be, I'm not sure.

Likewise with basswood: It's in Music Man Axis guitars, which certainly are not cheapies.

Basswood seems to have overtaken agathis in current low-end production, but good quality basswood sounds fine to me, plus it typically doesn't weigh a whole lot.

Ultimately, it's the tonal qualities of the individual blank that matters, not the species. The species is of course suggestive, but not conclusive -- there's a lot of overlap between differing grades of differing species, which are often misrepresented anyway. "Mahogany," as an example, has lost almost all meaning. Technically, if it doesn't come from the Americas, it's not actual mahogany, but most "mahogany" guitars and furniture are from many different botanic species and different continents. They just look somewhat similar to true mahogany. Same with "poplar" and other woods. The taxonomy is pretty arbitrary and it seems that there are no penalties for manufacturers calling wood whatever they want.

That's not what I meant. What I meant was, no matter how rare and resonant / beautiful a piece, it will still be agathis, and would pale in comparison with the best example of mahogany / swamp ash. Still, for what it's worth, beauty is in the ear of the one who's listening.

And mahogany hasn't lost meaning. It's either Khaya ivorensis, African Mahogany, or else it's a different mahogany. If you're going to say "mahogany", there might be several woods called mahogany, but African mahogany, Khaya ivorensis, is African Mahogany.

[Bezmotivnik]

That's not what I meant. What I meant was, no matter how rare and resonant / beautiful a piece, it will still be agathis, and would pale in comparison with the best example of mahogany / swamp ash.

I personally don't believe this is an absolute from a tonal standpoint with solid-body electrics. From an aesthetic standpoint, of course it's true; if you want the spalted maple look, you'll never get it from basswood.

Still, for what it's worth, beauty is in the ear of the one who's listening.

Yes, and there are far too many other factors involved ever to be sure how much of your golden tone (which of course someone else may hate) is attributable the species of your body blank. In a finished guitar there's just no way of knowing. In the custom shops they thump raw blanks like melons to grade their potential qualities, but we can't -- and I am extremely skeptical that any "expert" could get more than a tiny fraction of the right answers in an extensive blind test of species by listening to someone thump a roomful of rough Telecaster body blanks of ten or twelve species of tonewoods anyway.

mahogany hasn't lost meaning. It's either Khaya ivorensis, African Mahogany, or else it's a different mahogany. If you're going to say "mahogany", there might be several woods called mahogany, but African mahogany, Khaya ivorensis, is African Mahogany.

Technically, in purely botanical terms, Khaya's not mahogany at all (which is limited to the genus Swietenia), but in any case it's relatively rare to see that degree of specificity. It's more like, "BEAUTIFUL MAHOGANY BODY!" which may literally turn out to be Thai palletwood or anything tropical with some open grain that the lumber brokers got cheaply that week. The only thing you can be sure of is that it's not any Swietenia species, all of which now supposedly have tight controls on them as endangered species, with the expected rise in price.

You still occasionally see "Honduras mahogany" in specs for upscale guitars, and that's a rare, meaningful claim of an actual species, Swietenia macrophylla, of actual mahogany. We can hope that that's what it really is -- and, more importantly, hope that it's a good example of it.

[Robert Delahunt]

Yes, and there are far too many other factors involved ever to be sure how much of your golden tone (which of course someone else may hate) is attributable the species of your body blank. In a finished guitar there's just no way of knowing. In the custom shops they thump raw blanks like melons to grade their potential qualities, but we can't -- and I am extremely skeptical that any "expert" could get more than a tiny fraction of the right answers in an extensive blind test of species by listening to someone thump a roomful of rough Telecaster body blanks of ten or twelve species of tonewoods anyway.


Technically, in purely botanical terms, Khaya's not mahogany at all (which is limited to the genus Swietenia), but in any case it's relatively rare to see that degree of specificity. It's more like, "BEAUTIFUL MAHOGANY BODY!" which may literally turn out to be Thai palletwood or anything tropical with some open grain that the lumber brokers got cheaply that week. The only thing you can be sure of is that it's not any Swietenia species, all of which now supposedly have tight controls on them as endangered species, with the expected rise in price.

You still occasionally see "Honduras mahogany" in specs for upscale guitars, and that's a rare, meaningful claim of an actual species, Swietenia macrophylla, of actual mahogany. We can hope that that's what it really is -- and, more importantly, hope that it's a good example of it.

As for the thumping of guitar bodies, they might claim this helps select from among them, but ultimately the only way would be to run vibrational analysis on them all, which would be a pain in the rear. Even if we used pickups that tend to be transparent to the body wood (Alnico II Pro series, anyone? ), yes, there's still the amp, the strings, etc.

However, thanks for bringing this to my attention: I'll be asking for Honduras Mahogany (that's the original "mahogany", right?).

[Fender_Punk]

For example, you could get the most premium birdseye maple, but it's still going to be bright, and expecting it to compete with the tonal qualities of mahogany isn't going to be logical.

I would use ANY species of maple over ANY species of Mohagony. Mohagony is one of my least favourite species. As for claims of it being really soft, my Agathis bodied Strat has been with me since July 2003. I've given it a beating. There's one gouge in the back when I got really pissed and thre it really hard, but it didn't break as a basswood body definately would've. I find my piece of Agathis to be fairly strng, though Maple, Ash and Alder are definately harder.

[Danglin' Fury]

I had a LTD F-100 FM and it was the most sonically dead piece of boat anchor turd burger I have ever played. The only thing that made it remotely playable was the EMG 81 and 85 I threw in it. That fiddle has long gone to the Pawn Shop. Minus the EMG's.

P.S. If you notice, it's pretty apparant that the LTD agathis selection is sub-par.

[theboatcandream]

I would use ANY species of maple over ANY species of Mohagony. Mohagony is one of my least favourite species. As for claims of it being really soft, my Agathis bodied Strat has been with me since July 2003. I've given it a beating. There's one gouge in the back when I got really pissed and thre it really hard, but it didn't break as a basswood body definately would've. I find my piece of Agathis to be fairly strng, though Maple, Ash and Alder are definately harder.

I bet you scoop your mids.

[Helldogg]

Its the new plywood, sounds awful.

[MikeS]

I would use ANY species of maple over ANY species of Mohagony. Mohagony is one of my least favourite species. As for claims of it being really soft, my Agathis bodied Strat has been with me since July 2003. I've given it a beating. There's one gouge in the back when I got really pissed and thre it really hard, but it didn't break as a basswood body definately would've. I find my piece of Agathis to be fairly strng, though Maple, Ash and Alder are definately harder.

That's because the Agathis is protected by a 3/32" layer of what amounts to a plastic shell. Take the finish off and it works and sands a lot like basswood. It's a little harder than basswood, but certainly not as dense or strong as conventional tone woods.

[shredaholic]

However, thanks for bringing this to my attention: I'll be asking for Honduras Mahogany (that's the original "mahogany", right?).

The original used in guitars, yeah. Gibson still use it in Historics since it was used in original 50's Lesters, last time I heard about them buying it they paid 4 times the market value for it since it was from a sustainable plantation in Honduras.

The other type of well known genuine (ie. from South America) Mahogany is swietenia mahogani, aka 'Cuban' or 'Spanish' Mahognay. That's the first type of Mahogany we started harvesting in the late 16th century, since it's even better quality than Honduran Mahogany for furniture but unfortunately it was so aggressively pursued that since the early 1900's, it now only exists in the wild as a shrub. There's still some native trees growing in Florida actually, but they don't reach more than 70ft in the USA. Anyway, this has never been used on electric guitars commercially to my knowledge, and it probably wouldn't be as good for them as Honduran anyway since it's more dense/heavy.