5 piece wings

[Ronen Tat]

Hi Ken,
I was wondering, when adding the two thin laminates on the 5 piece wings, does it come on the account of the top & back or the body core?

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Ronen Tat

Hi Ken,
I was wondering, when adding the two thin laminates on the 5 piece wings, does it come on the account of the top & back or the body core?

I am not sure I understand your question. It is a sandwich. A 3 piece is a hamburger in a bun, bread on both sides, right? Put a slice of cheese on top and under the burger and close it. Now you have a 5 piece sandwich, right?

So, the burger is the core. The Bun is the top and back and the cheese is/are the laminates.

Was that the question? Close?..

In wood, your food looks like this;

Rear view;

Do not confuse the body laminates in the sandwich with the 'feature' stripes between the neck section and body wings.

Also, here are some side views of both 3 and 5 piece body wing sandwiches so you can see the differences between them. Left to right, the first two are 3pc without a contrasting laminate. The other two show the contrasting wood laminate making it a 5pc.;

[Ronen Tat]

Obviously I was not clear enough, I hope this makes more sense:
Providing the total body thickness is the same no matter how laminates it contains, my question is which (top/back or core) needs to be cut thinner when you add more laminates.
Looking at your pictures it seems to me that with 3 piece wings the body core piece is thicker than it is in a 5 piece wings... while the top & back stay the same. Is that right?
Yes, my bass has the 5 piece body wings option...

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Ronen Tat

Obviously I was not clear enough, I hope this makes more sense:
Providing the total body thickness is the same no matter how laminates it contains, my question is which (top/back or core) needs to be cut thinner when you add more laminates.
Looking at your pictures it seems to me that with 3 piece wings the body core piece is thicker than it is in a 5 piece wings... while the top & back stay the same. Is that right?
Yes, my bass has the 5 piece body wings option...

The way we make it is the correct way in our world!

[Ronen Tat]

Originally Posted by Ken Smith

The way we make it is the correct way in our world!

No argue about that!

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Ronen Tat

No argue about that!

Really though, there is no exact measurement foe the laminations. The Core is the thickest and then the Top and Back, and last the laminates. Some woods need to, or come out thinner in the top woods. Sometimes the core comes out thinner when leveling before gluing. All woods vary in sound, weight, and other factors within the same species so we don't go crazy in getting exact lamination thicknesses bass to bass. Just that the top woods are all exact to each other and the laminates as well within themselves. The Core is a single piece per side so it doesn't have to match other layers.

Sometimes we have a beautiful piece of figured Top wood and it comes out thin in the end because it started a bit thin. In that case we build the rest of the body (core and laminates) around that. For the most part, we make them fairly consistent to specific numbers unless something in nature changes. Heavier woods like Ebony and Cocobolo are kept to a maximum in thickness for the Top/outer plates due to their weight and density for the tone. Maple and Walnut are the lighter Top woods so they have more leeway in thickness. Like I said, not an exact science but a guesstimate as to what we think will work for the sound. So far, our 'batting average' is quite high!

[Ronen Tat]

Completely answers my question. I guess having it all done by yourself in house allows for that flexibility. Great, thanks for explaining.

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Ronen Tat

Completely answers my question. I guess having it all done by yourself in house allows for that flexibility. Great, thanks for explaining.

Yes, it is SO ALL done that even the laminates are made from wood 10-15 years old just like the Top plates and most Core woods are.

Many years ago when we were doing 5pc body wings on all the basses we were buying flitches of maple and walnut veneers. This is a set of wood sliced in some method with all of the slices from the same piece of lumber. Every time the wood came in it was a different thickness. If you look at basses made before 1998 you will see that the laminates are much thinner, a 1/6th inch or less. We would have to cut the matched 4 pieces of veneer and square it up to be the same size length and width all 4 pieces. Then, we would run the pieces thru the thickness sander to make them all a uniform thickness. If it were to be a 7pc body with both maple and walnut veneers, we would have to make all 8/eight pieces a uniform thickness as the two species were never available the same thickness so we would size them down to the thinnest set to match them together.

I moved out to Pennsylvania with Family in mid 1995. I had been making weekly trips for 1-2 days a week for the previous 3 years and trying to see what they were doing in the shop that was different than what we did in the old days in NY but the models were so different, there wasn't all that much to alter. I did however find a few things that I wanted to change but we had so much advance work in progress we barely had the time to do new things.

I asked my foreman about making all the headcaps and veneers as well as feature strings (body-to-neck strips) from wood we were not using for tops. The headcaps were all phenolic using pre-cut/ordered 5"x8" sheets. m,aming them out of wood seemed more work at first but using wood glue over Cyano' (crazy glue) was much easier to glue with and less expensive. The Phenolic was also troublesome in finishing from time to time.

Having so much wood from cut-offs as well as Top woods that were not figured made it a no brainer. The wood was virtually free as we made all the parts (headcaps, body features and Laminates instead of veneers) from paid for wood that we had little or no use for. Also, at that time ALL the cores were Mahogany. Prior to that we had used Maple and some Walnut on occasion but the standard became Mahogany.

So, by about 1998 we were using old wood that didn't pass figure grade for tops for laminates, body features and body cores as well as using cut-offs matching the body Tops for headstock laminates in single and bookmatches pieces.

Around 1998-1999 I was contacted by a wood supplier that sold mainly as a broker to instrument companies. I said great, I need some Lumber in this, this and that species. He said "Ken, NO one buys Lumber anymore. You are the olnly one I know that does. The pther all but cut pieces for Bodies and neck parts".

Wow, so were were the ONLY ones that knew what the Lumber looked like BEFORE cutting up parts from is and sorting out the defects. So with the new way of buying, a 1-1.5" thick blank for a neck MIGHT have been cut down for a warped 2" piece and then sold as straight wood. This is possible. In MY shop, if the wood has a twist or warp, we NEVER use it for Neck stock, Never!! That wood will creep over time and be like the average instrument you buy in a store or from a builder that bought this 'super cut' wood ready to go so we stay far away from the supply n go method of building. We cut most everything from rough lumber. Only a small portion of body woods have come in in block form which we have then stacked and aged before using.

The White Tiger Elite models are cut from highly figured tiger maple blocks bought from 1999-2000. Some of the 25th model maple tops are from 1991 stock. We also have some 1996 lumber that we have not even touched the pile yet and might not in my lifetime.

So, if you have ever been in the Shop, you would see a lifetime supply of most of the main species of woods we use in our basses. In this way, we can give you the best wood possible per model in every bass.