The body

The condition of the body is for the playing and sound of the guitar not that important, at least if it doesn’t have big cracks in it.

The material used is important, mahogany, elder, basswood are widely used tonewoods, each with it’ s own tonal characteristics.

A lot of the old cheapo’s used to be made of plywood , even MDF is used for guitars.

This is not as common anymore as in the 70’s, plywood doesn’t has to be a negative thing , plywood is there in a lot of different quality’s.

There are also guitars made of alluminium and acryl these guitars are overall very heavy.

A normal wooden body is preferred by the most people.

Sometimes you can see if the guitar is made by plywood by looking at the side of the body , and let the light play over the surface you sometimes can see the different layers of the plywood.

Can’t you see such lines mostly your okay than.

But even i made some mistakes here, there is also very heavy plywood and in combination with a thick finish you can be mistaken and think the guitar is made of mahogany.

When you got a small screwdriver you better unscrew the coverplate from the control cavity, so you know for sure

When you can’t find anything wrong with it it’s time to test the guitar, i often buy guitars at fleamarkets/carboot sales and testing the guitar is not possible there.

a important thing at such a moment is how the guitar sounds unplugged, is that good plugged in it will be okay too in the most cases.

At least you got a good base when the electronics are bad.

How does the guitar feel, no fretbuzz, no strange ratling sounds, try to locate this sounds.

ratling sounds from the neck can give bigger problems than from the body.

A lot of the more expensive guitars have a top on the body made of a different kind of wood, the thickness of the top variates, from very thin to more than 5mm (older guitars).

At this time the art of making a fineer is better than in the early days that’s why the tops are getting thinner, but still the more expensive brands use thick tops.

Cheaper guitars sometimes have a top too, but in the most cases this is a photo top, it’s difficult to see the difference between real and photo.

A real top influences the sound, the resonance of the body changes, which cause the guitar to sound different.

There are endless different body shapes available, but it all comes down on the three basic body types, these are, solid body, semihollow and hollow body.

Solid body like the name says solid, the most of the electric guitars are made this way.

Semi hollow, looks like a hollow body but the center is a sustainbar, or like in my thinline tele model are only for the half hollow so the guitar is solid at that point.

Or like on a telecaster thinline from which is one side of the body hollowed out.

Semi’s and hollow bodied guitars are recogniseable bij the F slots in the body.

hollow bodys are completely hollow mostly used by jazzboxes and the body is in the most cases thicker than that of a semi.

To discover of a guitar a hollow or a semi is , is only notable by their weight difference and by tapping on the body.

hollow body guitars are not suitable for highgain rock etc due too the enormous feedback you get .

Semi’s are not suitable for that too but the feedback will be not that bad as on a hollow body.

That’s one of the reasons the most guitars are solidbody’s, suitable for any kind of music.

At last you have guitars whith a chambered body, wich makes them sound louder than normal for a solidbody guitar.

you can’t see it, sometimes discover it by tapping on the body or when you take the guitar apart.

A lot of the 70’s and 80’s  les paul clones are chambered they have a arched plywood top over a slab body.