I built these babies as good as I know how. using nice maple for the neck and body. The top was koa from Hawaii. I used fairly good tuners. and did a nice job of finishing. (6 coats of blond shellac I mixed myself from chips. then steel wooled and polished with finest rock polishing compound mixed with parafin oil, then waxed with a hard non-finger-marking wax, then polished with a soft cloth) So when I strung it up it sounded pretty good....Until I played a 3 string strumstick my son made, which was his first,( I have made 14 so far)and guess what? his sounded better than mine. So I looked at them both closely and discovered some major differences. My bridges were closer to the hole. The hole in mine was smaller than his. He used a soft mahogany wood for the neck and I used maple. He used soft mahogany plywood top. MIne had solid koa. So I have to wonder, was it worth all my work and expense ? What do you think about this ?
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Don't beat yourself up. Define better. Maybe it just sounded better to your ears. Another person, comparing them, may hear it differently, and fall in love. You, amongst all the people in the world who could have, fell in love with your wife; same thing happens with guitars (just ask all the secretly or openly jealous wives and girlfriends of guitar players the world over!;-) ). I don't know how many times I've been guitar shopping, and have tried dozens of acoustic and electric boxes, all made in the same factory by the same people, made from the same materials with both CNC tolerances and expert handwork, and only one or two of 'em spoke to me. Sometimes, the cheapest ones do it to me, other times, the legendary, out-of-my-bank-account's-range models do.
Maybe your box needs a different tuning, or different string gauges. These things respond amazingly to seemingly insignificant changes. I will say, that all your careful finishing and polish probably did change minutely the resonance characteristics of the box, and maple and Koa will naturally lend themselves to a brighter, more brittle tone. What you hear as "better" in your son's build may actually be the warmer, rounder tones mahogany is noted for. Maybe your ears secretly prefer that tone. Maybe your box will shine when plugged in. The difference between a Strat and a Les Paul, played through a Fender or Marshall stack, can be huge. Lots of reasons for the difference.
Take pride in both your work, and in your son's accomplishment. Keep building. If you don't like the comparison, do something about it. Stop comparing (I know - impossible). Cut off your son's allowance (I know - impossible). Sell the offending beauty box for 3 times the cost to a drooling friend or neighbor. Or just build Number 15' 16, ad infinitum, differently. I can guarantee you that Bob Taylor, Jim Collings, and other premier builders of commercial axes have tone favorites among their builds. This one may be somebody else's, is all, just not yours.
Hey thanks for the very detailed, positive and uplifting comments. And you are right, I obvious like the warmer rounder sound better. OK, I will do as you suggest. No more comparison. But I still would like to know what affect the wood type for a neck has to do with the sound.
ps; I can't cut off his allowance he is over 45. Dan
No worries. Can't cut off his allowance, cut him outta the will ;-). Seriously, though, the neck wood has a secondary effect on tone. Both maple and mahogany are stiff; it's just that they transmit slightly different frequencies. The major effect on tone is the soundboard, specifically for acoustics, the thickness and stiffness of the soundboard. I'd bet his mahogany plywood soundboard is a tad thinner than your Koa one?
I am only guessing here, but wouldn't the softer wood (ply) be better than a hard wood for the top? Like spruce topped acoustics. Or is Koa a soft wood? So many variable with these things. The different tuning suggestion is a good one, my brother hated the CBG he built it just didn't sound like mine, we backed off the tuning and it got louder and warmer. Now he likes it. I think Jr. just got lucky with his first combination, good for him.