A little while back, we spoke to Bob Taylor about the use of laminated wood in guitars as opposed to solid wood. Taylor pointed out that, with good workmanship, you can get guitars that sound good using laminate. This is, of course, true of solid wood guitars. Taylor said that there is a "sameness" in guitars with laminate tops. They tend to sound all the same and lack the "magic" you can get from solid wood since no piece of solid wood is identical to another.

We next wanted to talk to some people who fix and maintain guitars. How does laminate last? How easy is it to repair. We contacted Chris Eudy of Third Coast Guitars in Chicago and Billy Harden of Harden Engineering. Harden also makes guitars.

"In my opinion laminate sounds great for archtop guitars, many Gibson guitars are laminate, People seem to look down on it but good quality hardwood laminate is not cheap," says Harden. "For flattop acoustics its not a good idea. It depends on the sound your looking for."

Eudy says that solid wood just sounds better, in general, acoustically.

"Whatever frequency range you are looking to accentuate, solid wood makes that happen in a fuller, louder way." says Eudy. "The disadvantage to solid wood is that it is more expensive and it has a tendency to make guitars feed back when amplified. Laminate is much cheaper, but tends to reduce the frequency response and volume of guitars. There is less sustain and clarity to notes. It does, however, work well when amplified as laminate is more stiff and less boomy."

But what about repairing solid wood versus laminate?

"It is also easier to repair if the wood is damaged. It will crack through or across the grain usually, and that makes gluing up easier," says Eudy. "Laminate is pretty difficult to repair if cracked or smashed. The particles inside of the laminate splinter and crack and make gluing up very difficult."

Harden has a bit of a different opinion.

"Remember that laminate is wood. Its just cross sections glued together," he says. "One advantage is it doesnt crack nearly as much as solid wood and can withstand temperature/humidity changes better I would say repairing them is about the same."

We will continue this discussion with some real like testing of a variety of guitars that use laminate and similarly priced guitars using solid wood. It is not terribly fair to compare a $400 guitar to a $2,800 one! Stay tuned.