Maple Top or Not Really?

DinoMikeSr

DinoMikeSr

I have the box
I’m watching this guy strip a Epiphone and he just sands through the maple top. I have one LP copy that advertised a 5/8 maple cap and you see it when you pull the pickup. Do Epiphones have a paper thin veneer? This person hasn’t answered me or won’t answer.

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The lower models just have a veneer as far as I know. I expect no better at that price point.

I nice top is mostly a visual thing anyways (either you like the sound of the guitar, or you don't) and grain "depth" has nothing to do with the thickness of the wood.
 
Where that marketing crap gets sketchy…..



5/8” Maple cap… not solid flame maple cap :wink:


They skirt it by putting a solid cap and then a veneer on top.
 
I thought there was a common practice to use a photo of the top grain and finish over it.
So, no real top at all.

However, I can’t seem to get my Google fu to come up with an example.
 
baimun said:
Where that marketing crap gets sketchy…..
5/8” Maple cap… not solid flame maple cap :wink:
They skirt it by putting a solid cap and then a veneer on top.
Click to expand...

or they do like fender did and put a "foto-fake-flame" on it, that IS literally paper thin.
 
mongooz said:
or they do like fender did and put a "foto-fake-flame" on it, that IS literally paper thin.
Click to expand...

Both are technically veneers.... one is an image of a flame maple top applied to a thin veneer... the other is a real piece of flamed maple... they just cut a thick top into dozens of 0.5 - 0.6mm pieces so they can be glued on top of a thicker solid piece.

The best way to tell if you have a full thickness figured maple cap (especially if you don't have unpainted edges to look like binding like PRS does) is to take one of the pickups out and look at where the top and body meet in the pickup cavity. The top will be at it's thickest point there, and if they've painted in the pickup cavity (often times it's the black conductive paint) you can scrape away a little bit of paint and look for the flamed maple. It's a spot that's out of sight when the pickups are put back in, so you can leave it, or just touch it up with a black paint marker.

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It's funny where this example points to "no veneer!" because it's difficult to tell on the upper and lower edge of the cavity. The sides where it's rounded out for the pickup springs is easier to see the top grain repeating all the way through the thickness of the wood.
 
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Or there are guitars like the new PRS SE 594 that have 'flamed tops'. The flame maple is a veneer, over a real plain maple top. I think the maple top on my SE is thicker than the maple top on my 594 S2, though that is flame maple whole way through and no veneer on top.
 
PRS is very upfront regarding the veneer tops on the SE series. Whether that's company policy towards transparency to/for customers or to avoid pissing off folks when they find out it's a veneer is unclear.

The coolest thing for me about this, is how thin the veneer sheets are...it's thinner than poster board and even oak tag. Just thick enough to show grain and hold a stain/finish. I've always wondered how much the glue layer affects things, but I know that it's likely a thinner layer than a lot of poly finishes, especially those from the '70s -'90s.
 
When Tradition guitars were being made they advertised 5/8 inch maple caps. I didn’t know that until after I got it and picked up a brochure at the same time .
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