Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Body wood weight differences. I suppose this makes a big difference to some and none to others. For me it depends on the guitar. With Rickenbacker guitars. I notice that some of the Dealers list guitar weights. The 660 for example or 620 seem to weigh 7.5 to 8 lbs in Jetglo and MB. In Maple or Fireglo while they can surely weigh that much most weigh a good pound less in the grainy colors. I also noticed this with my 620. I have no idea what it weighs but it's a fireglo. My friend has a Jetglo and by comparison definitely his feels a fair bit heavier. It seems like I fight to keep the body resting on my knee when sitting.
My question : When it comes to different colors. I know it's better looking, but is it a better chunk of wood all the way around.
When you run into a Jetglo 660 that weighs just 6 1/2 lbs. Did they just use a better chunk of the wood than what would be normal for that color? I can't help but notice at the site I'm looking on. All the JG and MB weigh 7lbs 13 oz average. The FG and MG weigh 6lbs 10 oz on average.

Normally a 1 lb weight difference isn't crucial. In the 660 and 620 series it seems to play some importance in balancing the guitar when sitting. The heavier ones seem body heavy due to the smaller neck.

Any thoughts ? Or is this to dumb of a subject. I'm asking because I'd really like a Jetglo 660 at some-point. If it's rare to find a 6lb one maybe I need to jump on it.

I did see a comment from J Hall as follows in the Official Forum.

Actually, we approach this the other way 'round. We buy premium wood with the hope that every instrument would be suitable for the Mapleglo finish. Of course, it never is, so we select the ones that aren't attractive enough to be solid colors, i.e Jetglo or Midnight.

As it happens, the numbers rarely match up perfectly, so quite often some solid color is applied over gorgeous wood. But conversely, we have the chance to select the best of the best for Mapleglo and Fireglo.

Various woodworking sources list the weight of hard maple at 39 to as much as 41-42 lbs. per cubic foot, but very few of them bother to specify what the moisture content was of the sample, which would make a difference. If we figure it at 40 lbs, that would be about 3.33 lbs. per board foot (12"x12"x1"). I have a big hunk of figured maple that I measured out to be 4.28 board feet and it weighs 13.75 lbs. That figures out to about 3.2 lbs. per board foot. Given that I don't know what the moisture content is in my sample either, I would suspect that the difference between any old hunk of hard maple and a really flamed piece probably aren't dramatic. I suspected that the flamed stuff might actually be noticably heavier, because of all the strange stuff going on with the grain, but it doesn't seem to be. There are certainly differences in density between different pieces of the same type of wood, but I'm not sure whether flame or no flame makes a big one.

For solid body guitars, I would think it might make a subtle difference in tone or sustain to have two of the same model with identical components and woods of different densities, but I suspect the density difference would need to be pretty dramatic (like two different species of wood) for most people to really hear or feel it. If in doubt, I always buy the one that I like the looks of best.

The big hunk.....now the question is what to do with it?

Coffee table.

Weight varies by region as well. I've noticed that 381s made from Pacific NW(?) maple weigh less and sound more resonant unplugged than some of the Canadian, highly figured Bird's Eye Maple my 381s are made from.

Pacifc coast maple is actually a different species and indeed weighs less, as well as being rather plain looking. For the weight reason alone, the only production guitars with pacific maple were the 200 and 200 series some years ago.

Canadian maple has only been used recently and quite sparingly, as available. Almost all of the maple we've used has been sourced from Michigan, with some of the more charactered versions coming from the New England states.

Weight related to wood is a bit of a science...

First of all is it winter or summer harvested? That means a lot to the amount of water left within the wood - which again means a lot to the weight of the kiln dried wood - because of the size of the space created within the wood by the water pressure. Also the location on an actual piece of wood on the tree will influence the weight of the piece of wood when dried. That's because he pressure inside a tree is much highter in the bottom of the tree close to the earth than in the top - whichs mean as well, that the water vapouring during the kiln drying process is leaving much more space (air) inside the wood among the cell diaphragms. Wood known as for instance swamp ash can be cut from the same tree as heavier pieces as the swamp wood comes from the lower part of the three. Finally there can be different subtypes of wood within the same basic wood specie and some wood may also have been growing in colder climate zones than other - also changing the weight.

So two 100% identical guitars, made of wood from even the same tree may actually and most likely end up having different weights.