Hey Dom,

The only limitations is if we can get the wood. In cases where the wood was hard to obtain we went with a a veneer and a substrate wood which is either complementary or totally contrasting, which ever wood look the best.

For the most part, maple seems to be the wood of choice, which works well with almost any veneer over it. You only see the substrate wood when looking directly down from the top.

As far as making the amp sound different/better....highly doubtful in my opinion.

Zygi

I have a purpleheart fingerboard on a fretless bass I have made by luthier Steve Wishovsky (Wishbass). The bass body itself is persimmon and the neck is a sandwich of maple, purplewood and mahogany that though it has a flat fingerboard is otherwise shaped a lot like the neck of contrabass violin. Odd looking but really expressive (has one pickup and a volume control only, you really have to work to make the sounds yourself).

Purpleheart is really nice as a fingerboard.

I'm a big fan of wood as well. On my mother's side I come from a long line of cabinet makers and other wood workers, the ultimate one of which may have been my great-great-great-great-great grandfather, organ builder David Tannenberg. My grandfather never made a living working in wood, but he worked in wood all his spare time as his father had taught him making grandfather clocks, pool tables, and many more things, including a "scooter" for me that was out of this world (when I was 8!).

Interesting what wood can do for guitars. I have a mahogany Stratocaster that sounds like no other Strat I've ever played, deep and warm in great measure. A truly original sound compared to the standard strat.

I have great respect for master welders! I spent my first working decade assembling machinery and otherwise working with metal. Not for sissies.