MAHOGANY/REDWOOD

Lightweight wood bodies sound really nice in the mid-range frequencies, but often, either dull in the trebles, or muddy in the bass frequencies. But light Redwood is good for humbucker sound, I use Sipo blanks for rock and heavy guitars, or Sapele if the weight is not so important. The sound is fat and beefy, perfect for rhythm and heavy riffs played with alot of distortion. Redwood bodies with Maple tops are classic, the Maple top gives a good proportion of brightness to the fat, warm tone and helps to compact the bass frequencies. Maple is also very decorative.

Redwood bodies with Morera top are a little bit less bright, with a nice warm treble and mid-range tone, ideal for singing overdriven lead sound. Morera also looks beautiful with an oil finish.

Our Redwood blanks are also available with a Maple middlestripe, giving a nice look and adding a bit of brightness to the sound. Redwood needs to be sealed before finished.

ALDER

Alder still is THE vintage wood for the Strat sound. It is medium light and works perfectly with single coils; the brightness is dominant. Alder has no visible grains. It looks good colour dyed tobacco or sunburst and glossy finished. No sealer required.

Ash or Swamp Ash are also mainly used on Strats because it works very well with single coils; the tone is bright and transparent. Nice optic if it is dyed with transparent, glossy finish.

Ash is also medium lightweight. No sealer required.

MAPLE

There are several different types of Maple wood used for building guitars. It is dense, quite heavy and it sounds very bright without much bottom, not normally used for solid electric guitars, but it is perfect for semi acoustic guitars. It is very attractive as a top on Mahogany (Redwood) bodies, the classical combination. Personally I prefer plain Maple; it does not have the optical properties like flamed, curled, quilted, birdseye or spalted Maple, but the sound is great.

Maple top on Morera body is a very unique tone, one of my favorite combinations.

EXOTIC WOOD AND OLD WOOD

There are two main reasons why I prefer to use old wood which for a long period of time has been used for something else. Firstly, the sound is very special when the wood has had a `busy´ life, meaning that I very much believe that the sound develops differently depending on the conditions of the wood ageing process. The sweetness of the well played, vintage, `jewel´ of the golden 50´s and 60's is unique because they have been played constantly. The resin in the micro cells drys and settles down differently because of the vibrations of the strings.

And secondly, as a guitar builder, I use tropical wood as well as local grown types. Today, wood is a mostly fast growing product; good quality is rare because of fast business. Tropical wood mainly comes from Africa or South America, which is disasterous for the rainforests. I feel happier knowing that the wood I use is not depleting `Mother Earth´ of her last natural resources! At the time the old wood was cut, this was not an issue.

Kaiguitars are made to order therefore I respect the customers choice of beautiful exotic wood, but, for me, the sound is THE most important thing. The most beautiful models are not always the best sounding ones!