Beautiful '59 - Is This an Ash Body

[Marc]

Lovely '59 Sunburst..... is the body Ash or Alder?

http://www.gbase.com/Stores/Gear/GearDe ... em=1642102

[djetz]

Looks like ash to me. Alder tends to have less obvious grain.

Gorgeous, whatever it is.

Though I note that the selector switch is yellowed but all the other white plastic looks new. Leads me to suspect it ain't all original. Not that I care, but to some folks that's a deal breaker. The price seems rather high for a non-virginal JM, even one as pretty as that.

[mcjt]

the selector switch is in bakelite- it was always that colour. the guitar might be original.

[zhivago]

I thought that Ash was used only on Blonde guitars... 

[eggwheat]

Nice but...is it me or does that burst look weird? The way the reds sprayed looks amateur to me...refin??

[mezcalhead]

Yeah, I took a second look at the sunburst too .. it does look a little odd to me, but not necessarily non-original. Fender stopped using ash for sunbursts in '56 or thereabouts, before JMs were regularly produced anyway, so it shouldn't be ash. It does have a pronounced grain for alder though.

The colours of the switch tip and the rest of the plastic look just fine to me, as mcjt says.

[Marc]

Some sunbursts are not perfect - I like that 

Well I suppose it's perfectly feasible an Ash body was sprayed sunburst in 'error'....

[Jay]

The grain on my '65 looks very similar to this albeit a bit more washed out, probably due to the different finishing process.  So I think it's probably alder.

[PorkyPrimeCut]

Agreed about the dodgy burst. Above & to the right of the roller-switches looks botched. As does the red part kinda 7 o'clock on the body....kind like it though.

[fullerplast]

It all looks pretty much OK to me. The red often "disappears" in spots like that.

The plastic on the earlier ones doesn't seem to yellow as much, but I don't exactly know why.

The wood looks looks like alder to me. Alder can have some prominent grain, but it doesn't "waver" like ash (the spiky ups and downs, if you know what I mean). They picked the better stuff for sunburst, since it's translucent.

I think it's OK, just MO.

Edit: I say this with the caveat that I still would NOT drop that kind of coin on it without an in-hand  personal inspection...

[thewizardofaz]

That's alder and a very nice piece of alder. The grain is way too straight for swamp ash.

[Marc]

Thanks for clearing this up - alder it is.

[mynameisjonas]

that grain looks almost identical to my sunburst MIJ. i always thought it was basswood, then i saw a piece of basswood and realized it couldn´t be, and i was told that with that much grain it must be ash, but now it turns out it´s probably alder

[Orang Goreng]

i was told that with that much grain it must be ash, but now it turns out it´s probably alder

I had the same experience with my '86/'87 jag. Heavy as sin and very pronounced grain, so for years I thought it was ash until someone mentioned ash was never used. Of course, "alder" is a name applied to many different kinds of wood (as there are several alder species), and I'm pretty sure the type used on those Japanese ones is a different one from the ones used for the old Fenders (which IIRC is Alnus glutinosus).

[thewizardofaz]

Fender USA used swamp as very often for bursts and blondes because of the pronounced grain. Alder and it's many cousins is much closer grained and usually pretty straight. Swamp ash has swirlies and curves and all that. There is an easy way to enhance the grain on alder so it's pronounced like yours is. You have to apply brown stain, usually dark brown or tobacco, and then sand it back to white body as it's called. The wood, well, all woods, have areas where some is soft, some is harder. The darker area is softer and absorbs more stain, and remains darker when sanded back to white body. This method is really effective on swamp ash, and all varieties of maple. Quilt can be made to appear to literally ripple and move when it's done right.