Hagström II/III what body wood was used????

[ohm-men]

Hi All,

I'm still in the process of reviving the "Hag-Master" (Hagström II/III meets jazzmaster parts). The thing is, I have no idea what body wood was used. Wood has a pretty dense grain, but not the "flame" usually associated with Alder. It's light, so Ash perhaps?

Anyone know for fact what Hagström used? I know from one point they imported wood from the US (which was suposed to be Alder?)
I'd like to know since my other project (a late 60's, early 70's Rumanian made Tele copy seams to have the same body wood, although weighs a ton)

[jgs61]

If you've found a definitive answer to this, then I'd like to know. Hagstrom obviously experimented a lot during production, which shows in how every model has lots of variations. I know they used alder a lot, but they also made some HIINs in mahogany. I think they even used ash and maple on some solidbodies. I have the Hagstrom book, but unfortunately it's mainly in Swedish. Anybody know the Swedish word for alder???

[mynameisjonas]

alder is "al" in swedish. i think i have a hagström book lying around at home somewhere, i'll try to dig it up and see if i can shed some light on this.

they definitely seemed to mix wood types a lot. i've had HIINs with mahogany bodies and maple necks, as well as all mahogany ones, one of which had a maple laminate on the face of the headstock. i also had a Partner with maple neck and a mahogany body with maple front and back. one of my bandmates had a sunburst HIIN with maple neck and what appeared to be alder body, and his brother currently has one which appears to be the same woods.

[jgs61]

Gotcha... I was looking at the word "alldeles" on the page about the Hagstrom 12. Some Swedish words look similar to their English counterpart (and vice versa) so I thought that might be it... guess not. I actually got an all-mahogany HIINOT recently and it is one of the best sounding guitars ever! Gotta love the Hags!

[mynameisjonas]

hmm, i can't seem to find the book. it might be at my parents' house... buried deeply in the big pile of stuff i left when i moved out

[ohm-men]

Having taken another close look at the presumably "65-66 Hagström II/III body I'm leaning to Maple...It has a really close grain and it's a pretty dense wood. I don't think it's hard rock maple. Could be Alder as well, but then with an extremely close grain. Body is a least 6 pieces and looks like a wood chop board from IKEA. For some reason I think it's made from the same wood as well.....

Anyway, I'll go ahead and restore it to some former glory, though with a modren twitch as I only have the body and no other original parts. For the moment it will probably transform to a HagBlaster. 25.5 scale neck with JM tailpiece (though blocked trem) and bridge and two toaster pu's (humbuckers) . Will go with Sonic/Dapne blue with matching headstock as I plan to enlarge the headstock on the neck I got and this particular Hag was originally a light blue colored body....

[jgs61]

Post some pics when you're finished! I'd like to see it.

[jazzblasted]

My friend is a Hagstrom expert.  I'll ask him tomorrow.

[ohm-men]

Thanks, let us know what they used back then. I still can't figure it out. Still lean towards maple. (Although of a soft kind, but the grain looks too dense for Alder...Beech migh also be a possibility, but the grain looks nothing like it....)

Making progress on the guitar itself. Enlarge the headstock and made it fir the body. Went for a large CBS headstock and I must say it looks good. Balances out quiet nice.

[mynameisjonas]

i don't think it's beech, swedish beech is usually very pink and would not likely be mistaken for maple. i think linden/lime (same family as basswood) is a more likely candidate, it resembles maple visually, but is much softer.