I have some curly maple.....good HARD stuff, but with havey, dark grain lines mixed with the curl. Not necessarily show quality flaming as we expect, but still very cool stuff. It hink it would make a gorgeous body, and I have several spruce top sets to choose from. Most are darker and pinker than what we typically expect of spruce, but I think this is a part of what gives my unusually designed guitars the "breathy" quality I have described. Some is the laminated bracing, some is the sound hole location, but I believe the spruce also contributes, which would actually compliment a maple bodied guitar.
I spoke iwth Mr. Bacorn several years ago when I first got started. I remember enough of his finishing schedule to be dangerous, but think I can replicate the look with a bit of testing. The question I have is regarding the neck. In most maple bodied guitars, the neck is maple too. Here's the problem. I want a 12 string. Ihave a 12 string neck already. I have been tempted to make a 12 string out of padauk...I have a top and back set already braced, and the sides bent, but I am leaning towards saveing the neck for the maple. Would it be unusual or uncouth to put a mahogany neck on a maple body? I think the finish woudl be wild enough to somewhat hide the material differences. I will be building this with my newer designs....sound hole off to the side, sound port on the treble side, but I doubt this will be a cutaway....it is a typical martin symmetrical heeled neck, as opposed to the "d" shaped heel that fits the side in a cutaway....Which I like far better. I will keep the guitar symmetrical, and look forward to the tremendous bass I woudl expect from all that soundboard surface area. I will more than likely use standard spruce for bracing as opposed to laminating. I will also more closely mirror the typical bracing pattern with few variations, but oddly enough, my biggest concern is a mahogany neck on a maple body. Weird, I know, but is there an aesthetic reason not do do this?
