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Particle Board Casino?


DizzyFingers

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According to the specs on Musician's Friend:

 

Standard Casino

Top Wood: Laminated maple

Back and Sides: Laminated Maple

 

IBJL Casino

Body: 5-ply maple/birch

Top: 5-ply maple

 

Elitist Casino

5-ply maple back, sides, and top

 

1965 Casino

Body wood: 5-layer maple/birch ply

Spruce top contour bracing, original spacing, and depths

 

Revolution Casino

5-ply maple'/birch body

5-ply maple top

Lennon Natural finish

 

Dizzy's wood sample was from a Standard Ebony Casino, I believe. So it would appear that despite the color differences, this is supposed to be an all maple laminate:

P1020422.jpg

I don't know why, but I'm having a hard time believing it...

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Irregardless of what wood is in my Casino I'm keeping it...I love the sound but am too curious as to the type of wood used...! I'm just one of those guys "that has to know"...

 

I'm modding another ebony Casino soon and will go thru this procedure again...will see if the wood is the same in both Casino's...:-

 

Dizzy

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Now the thing that bothers me is that the reddish Mahogany looking layer is what you would see through the f-hole, am I right in my interpretation of the photos??? How many Casino owners see mahogany when they look through the f-hole??? I've had two MIKs, a Revolution, an Elitist, two Gibson ES-330s and two Matsumokus and every one was maple. I never saw anything vaguely looking like mahogany through the f-hole.

 

We have three ebony Casino's all made in Korea at the Peerless plant in my family....Everyone has this reddish color to them....I will check others out when I'm at my local dealer next time...

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I'm modding another ebony Casino soon and will go thru this procedure again...will see if the wood is the same in both Casino's...:-

 

Dizzy

Ooooh...send me another sample so I can photograph them side by side.

 

This is getting interesting....

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According to the specs on Musician's Friend:

 

Standard Casino

Top Wood: Laminated maple

Back and Sides: Laminated Maple

 

IBJL Casino

Body: 5-ply maple/birch

Top: 5-ply maple

 

Elitist Casino

5-ply maple back' date=' sides, and top

 

[b']1965 Casino[/b]

Body wood: 5-layer maple/birch ply

Spruce top contour bracing, original spacing, and depths

 

Revolution Casino

5-ply maple'/birch body

5-ply maple top

Lennon Natural finish

 

Dizzy's wood sample was from a Standard Ebony Casino, I believe. So it would appear that despite the color differences, this is supposed to be an all maple laminate:

P1020422.jpg

I don't know why, but I'm having a hard time believing it...

 

It appears to me to be a very thin veneer on top/light colored filler/thin veneer in the middle/dark colored filler/thin veneer on the bottom...

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OK, but "veneer" is defined as:

 

In woodworking, veneer refers to thin slices of wood, usually thinner than 3 mm (1/8 inch), that are typically glued onto core panels (typically, wood, particle board or medium-density fiberboard) to produce flat panels such as doors, tops and panels for cabinets, parquet floors and parts of furniture.

 

So not to put too fine a point on it, but the stuff you see is "veneer", the stuff you don't see is "core".

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veneer_(wood)

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It's entirely possible, in fact probable, that the veneer layer directly under the black finish (the good face of the sheet) is maple. That's the one layer you can't see well enough to define.

 

If that face of the sheet was maple veneer (which makes sense as it's perfect for finishing, especially compared to mahogany) then Epi could rightly say the guitar is a 5-ply Maple.

 

In the industry, plywood is typically named by the face veneer, not the core materials, so....... in this case Epi could be exactly right and what we're looking at in the pic's is a 5 Ply Maple with black Poly finish (that some maniac cut out of the back of a guitar).

 

One more thing to think about, and I don't intend to start a "fake maple" thread - there are numerous Asian Maple species - not all of which look exactly like good old Big Leaf Canadian Maple, I would be willing to bet Epi's maple doesn't come from Northern Canada (Like Rickenbacker's does, for example).

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In the industry' date=' plywood is typically named by the face veneer, not the core materials, so....... in this case Epi could be exactly right and what we're looking at in the pic's is a 5 Ply Maple with black Poly finish (that some maniac cut out of the back of a guitar).[/quote']

Good to know, keep those industry tidbits coming.

 

BTW, the "maniac" is DizzyFingers who was kind enough to send me the sample so I could post the photos and keep this extremely interesting thread going. We're talking about a $600 USD street price guitar (new) here, so I for one am not crying any tears over it.

 

It's all in the name of science anyway, right?

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You're not looking at filler - those 2 thicker layers are thicker veneers and you're looking at the end grain of those 2 layers - end grain which has been chewed by a saw or similar tool.

 

You'd get a better view if the edge of that piece was cut smooth and sanded - right now it looks like it was cut with a chainsaw which is why it's being confused with "filler"

 

For the sake of argument, all the layers of plywood are referred to as "veneers", regardless of thickness and typical plywood use layers of varying thickness, exactly as pictured.

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Cool.

 

PS' date=' get your blades sharpened in the interim, OK?[/quote']

 

Nothing stopping you from smoothing out the cut on the piece I sent you...? Would a dremel finish the edge on that piece? Just thought that we could save some time if you could finish the edge on that piece...[biggrin]

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Freshly smoothed and sanded:

 

P1020472.jpg

P1020477.jpg

P1020474.jpg

P1020476.jpg

P1020475.jpg

P1020479.jpg

 

Just a guess, but it looks like:

1. Finish/primer/grain filler

2. Mahogany veneer

3. Maple core

4. Mahogany laminate

5. Mahogany core

6. Mahogany veneer

 

I use the term "Mahogany" loosely to mean any of the African/Asian species (Sapele?) that turn up in Epiphone guitars.

 

Mahogany Botanical Name: Swietenia Macrophylla

Family: Juglandaceae

Specific Gravity: .64

Origin: Honduras

General Information: Honduras Mahogany normally comes defect free and in good widths.

 

Sapele, also African Mahogany

Botanical Name: Entandrophragma Cylindricum

Family: Meliaceae

Specific Gravity: .62

Origin: Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Cameroon

General Information: Sapele or otherwise known as African mahogany is a reddish-brown wood that in many ways is very similar to mahogany.

 

Sapele: Entandrophragma Cylindricum

African Mahogany: Kyaya Ivorensis

 

From Professor Gene Wengert, Sawing and Drying forum technical advisor:

The furniture and wood items made from African mahogany is not sapele. African mahogany is from the genus and species Khaya ivorensis. Sapele is from Entandrophragma cylindricum. So they are not related.

 

A note about common names for wood. If you are importing a wood species into the USA, you can give it any common name that you want today, as there is no commonly accepted naming procedure.

 

The Latin names are fixed, however. So, we see all sorts of new names given for species that look similar to an older species, even though there is no genetic relationship. It is perhaps called creative marketing. One of the earlier examples is the use of the name Philippine mahogany for a group of species from the Philippines that does not even look like true mahogany.

 

Another more recent example is jatoba, which has recently been called Brazilian cherry. In some cases, a common name refers to many species, such as with red oak in the USA or Spanish cedar in Central and South America. So, some years ago, if you had a species with a common name of sapele, you might find that you can sell it better in the USA if you rename it to Sapele African mahogany... and then hope that the first word gets dropped and the price increases and so on. So today, we do see sapele being called African mahogany by some sellers of wood, but this is recent and is not really what was called African mahogany in the past.

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Great pic's - the layer under the black poly is probably Maple, it's the thinnest layer (typical for the good face of the material) is perfect for finishing and would allow Epi to say it's a maple ply. The balance is Asian Mahogany, regardless of color - you can see the end grain of both thick layers are the same material, just different colors - the thick white layer is not maple - not even an Asian Maple.

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Interesting.

 

Is that determination due to the air voids you can see? That would make sense because all the maple I've ever worked with was solid as a rock. (Probably why they call some species Rock Maple).

 

This is as close as I can get:

 

P1020482800x400.jpg

 

It almost looks like there are two veneer layers on the bottom. That would mean it's really a 6-ply back.

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Interesting.

 

Is that determination due to the air voids you can see? That would make sense because all the maple I've ever worked with was solid as a rock. (Probably why they call some species Rock Maple).

 

This is as close as I can get:

 

P1020482800x400.jpg

 

It almost looks like there are two veneer layers on the bottom. That would mean it's really a 6-ply back.

 

Very nice pictures,

 

IMO both thick layers have the same grain structure,pores, etc... more importantly when pressing veneers into plywood you need balance between layers to prevent warping/twisting, which means that with regard to the core, you need to use the same thickness and species for opposing layers.

 

Regarding the two outside faces, they need to be balanced for thickness but using different species does not generally cause problems and plenty of plywood is sold with different a species on each face.

 

Taking all that into account, and considering (1) that this is only 1 sample from guitar and I guarantee if anyone posted a sample from another the layers would look different (2) that I've seen mountains of Asian mahogany veneers and solids, in every color from pale white to deep red... My money's on that plywood being all Mahogany except the good face under the paint.

 

Which brings us around to the good face of that plywood, we haven't figured out if that is Maple for sure or not. If you sand through the paint (on half the sample) down to but not through the good face, we'd be able to ID it and see if Epi can call this a "Maple" plywood...

 

My money's on the good face being Maple though, it makes perfect sense - Epi calls it Maple ply and Maple is best for finishing.

 

At this point I forget which model of guitar we're talking about, but if it comes in a natural or stained Maple finish I think the quest is over, they'd all be made the same, the ones with good grain go natural or get stained / ugly grain gets painted a solid color...

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....Which brings us around to the good face of that plywood' date=' we haven't figured out if that is Maple for sure or not. If you sand through the paint (on half the sample) down to but not through the good face, we'd be able to ID it and see if Epi can call this a "Maple" plywood...

 

...At this point I forget which model of guitar we're talking about, but if it comes in a natural or stained Maple finish I think the quest is over, they'd all be made the same, the ones with good grain go natural or get stained / ugly grain gets painted a solid color...[/quote']

 

I'll try to sand it down this weekend and post. The sample is only about an inch square, so I'll probably have to sand the finish completely off (no belt sander in my shop). I believe Dizzy said this was from one of three standard Korean Casinos in his family...

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