Ash guitar necks, why are there none?

Yeah! You could have an all-Ash guitar, like George Harrisons 'all-rosewood' Telecaster! -[right sorry, not mahogany]-I'm not a schooled luthier, but it seems that builders have mostly standardized the wood species types for making instruments. There are 70 species of Ash, 17 types are in North America; but only 2 or 3 are usable. The Ash tree is never located in bunches, but is widely distributed among other trees. It's also suseptable to fungal and beetle attack. Because of it's high sap content, it's not considered a durable wood this way; therefore expensive to manufacture. Ash does have the best strength-to-weight ratio, but there are other stronger woods. Ash is mostly known for it's great bending capabilities. This is perfect for canoe paddles and hockey sticks, but maybe not as good for guitar necks. Ash is 'ring-porous', so you need to use a pore-filler to finish it; also need to sand it carefully to avoid cross-grain scratching. Because of Ash woods long fibres, splintering can be a problem when turning on a lathe, and joining edges. I bet an Ash-neck guitar would have a nice mid-range tone to it though!

1

Hello there,

There is a big reason Leo used swamp ash instead of northern ash. If you put a northern ash neck on a guitar that did not have a northern ash body, you will need to hang onto the neck. Let go of it and the neck is headed for the floor. The balance would be terrible.

I saw a Tele style body that someone made using northern ash, they had to put a Strat style pickguard on it to cover the large cavity they had to route out just to lighten the weight to something very heavy.

That is the reason Leo used swamp ash instead of northern ash. Northern ash is far too heavy. Swamp ash is heavy, much heavier than alder. But swamp ash is a lot lighter than northern ash.

Later,

Hello again,

The answer that posted while I was writing is correct. George Harrison was given a rosewood Telecaster by Fender. Fender made two special all rosewood Telecasters and gave one to George. The rosewood Tele replaced Rocky has his guitar. You can see the rosewood Tele in the videos of the roof top concert. George was playing it that day.

Most of the parts are probably from parted bullet strats, or knockoff strats... so the guitar you build will be just as poor quality. Finding a decent Fender body and neck is still going to run you around $300. Anything less and you're looking at Squier bodies, or damaged/scratched bodies or a neck that has bad fretwear. $50 for a preloaded pickguard..... not likely... at least not for good pickups/electronics. A decent preloaded setup is gonna run between $230 and $350 for something decent, like Lace Sensor, EMG, etc. Decent hardware is going to run a little bit too. A floyd rose, I've seen them for maybe $80 on ebay. Tuners, maybe $40 to $50.... not to mention the Output jack and strap locks or buttons, electronics cavity cover, and tremolo backplate. So really, you're looking at around $600 to $800 depending on if you can find a deal on used stuff.... and this is for semi decent quality... not cheap parts, because then you're getting a piece of crap guitar. What about installing all the parts? You gonna do it yourself? If you've never done it before it can be a little challenging getting the neck on perfectly, adjusting the truss-rod, setting up the bridge (especially if it's a tremolo bridge where you have to get the height perfect). If you take all this to a guitar tech, you'll end up spending anywhere from $100 to $200. A decent used Fender strat, because there are SO many of them around, will probably end up running you around the same price, or less. For instance, a used Fender strat MIJ, made in Japan during the 1980's is actually a VERY good guitar. They're increasing in value, but can be had for $400 to $600 easily. Drop in your own pickups for $150 to $250 and you've got a great guitar.

Guitar Neck Wood

it probably have to do with build cost,

but it also might have to do with strength,

ash is a very expensive wood compared to maple,

and it might have to do with that maple is a very strong wood,

Leo fender him self had a Stratocaster layed up between two chairs one time,

and he was standing and jumping on the guitar neck just to show how strong

maple is, it never broke, this was the time when they went from maple to rosewood

fretboards in the 60, people didn't like that they stopped to have a skunk stripe on their guitars,

it wasn't really neccesary on a rosewood fretboard because the trussrod i layed in under the rosewood and not as before when they had to drill upp a long hole on the back of the neck.

this was about he making a point, but he had to give in and now days we can see the skunk stripe on rosewood necks even not neccesary, totally useless, just eye candy:)

Not sure about ash necks, other neck woods like mahogany require filler. too.

George's telecaster was rosewood, not mahogany, bought by Ed Begly Jr,

see http://www.feelnumb.com/?p=5854

I thought I remembered it was rosewood so I looked it up.