I have been collecting the wood for a five string fretless, with the neck to consist of five pieces of maple and purpleheart. I have been toying with the idea of putting a veneer of ebony between each lamination. An old luthier friend of mine states that excessive glue layers will kill the sustain.

What do you guys think? A little part of me thinks this may look too crowded or "busy", but I am still interested in exploring the combination.

Thanks a ton!

I think what you really want is an Alembic...seriously though look at some of the custom Alembics because they use similar wood combinations a lot and are usually neck-through. If that's what you want then do it!

If done properly, such glue joints won't be an issue with sustain. My 5er is a 7-piece lam neck-thru, and sustain is quite good.

"Done properly" means the lams are uniform thickness, the surfaces are planed cleanly, the glue-up is done in a glue press with good distribution of clamping pressure, there are no gaps in the joints, there are no joints with too much glue, and you use a good glue (Titebond original or gorilla glue).

I'd say go for it...Most of the stuff I am doing have 7 piece lam necks, and never have a sustain problem.

The 6 string is a straight 7 piece, and the 4 is a 7 piece with Sapele veneers. If done properly you will get all the sustain you desire, and a really nice look.

Kubickis had 27 lams in their necks, and sustained quite nicely. I think you'll be ok

Best of Luck to you.

Ok ...I'll hijack this thread just a little bit.

Is there a max number of laminates that I should limited to per number of strings? I'm building a 11 laminated neck for a 4 strings (read this as necks wide). Is that too many laminates for such neck?

Ok ...I'll hijack this thread just a little bit.

Is there a max number of laminates that I should limited to per number of strings? I'm building a 11 laminated neck for a 4 strings (read this as necks wide). Is that too many laminates for such neck?
This is all a matter of personal taste, plus various largely unfounded personal opinions.

Like I said, Kubicki did 27 lams for a 4 string, so 11 isn't too many....LOL depending on taste

Ok-it's a Bolt on,BUT

In the early 1990's B.C.Rich did some guitar and bass necks like this BCR neck

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y146/190968/100piece.jpg

They were called 100 piece necks,although a friend of mine,who is a woodwork teacher and owns a pointy Headstocked neck with this multi lamination,counted them and came up with the figure 127 seperate pieces of wood.
This guy says,that although it's a Bolt on,it sustains for ages and the neck is so much stronger and less liable to twist or warp,because of all the different directions the wood is traveling in:)

The thing with lamination and sustain is to use a hard and stiff enough glue - and thin joints.
If you get a thickish joint with PVa glue, it will damp some frequences very effectively. Just as a thin hide glue joint will not affect the sonics at all. Then there are other reasons to go for different glues but basically: thin joint and aliphatic glue would be good enough to laminate the entire width of the neck from .5mm decoration veneers. You get a wood reinforced aliphatic resin neck, of course, but still...

Well....too many thin lams, and you have OSB....as much glue as wood.

I think the only thing to be aware of is to make the outermost lams wide enough so that when you taper the neck, you don't cut through into the next one.

Then again, you could taper all your lams right off the top. Tricky, but it can look pretty cool.

Then again, you could taper all your lams right off the top. Tricky, but it can look pretty cool.

Warmoth had a neck back in the early 90's that had tapered laminates. 7 piece I think, 3 Mahogany and 4 maple....something like that. Looked really cool to me at least...LOL:D

some people still do that. I know I've seen some roscoe's with tapered lams.

IMO Tim Barber had the ultimate tapered lam bass. Too bad he stopped building and his site is down.

I was thinking about this very idea while driving home from work this am....taper the center piece of wood and laminate out from there. I envisioned a transition from maple to the ebony veneer and back to the maple at the 12th fret, with the purpleheart "core".

Does anyone have any pics of such a thing?

And thaks again for the input...this is just the type of thang that I joined this forum for.

Found some. Hope the link works. http://www.roscoeguitars.com/Wedge_Neck_Blanks.htm