Letter: Poplar in Dan Electro Necks

by Ron Lira

Originally published in American Lutherie #20, 1989

Dear Guild Staff,

I’m still alive and working too hard and reading your magazine!

I believe there is an error in the identification of the wood used in Danelectro necks and current production solid body electric guitars in Bruce Harvie’s “Stalking Northwest Tonewoods” in AL#18. Lombardy Poplar (Populus nigra) is a member of the cottonwood family in which many members and their lumber are called poplar. The poplar used in the Danelectros and currently in use in many factories is yellow poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera.) The cottonwood family of woods has a rancid smell when being worked, mostly all cream colored to white wood, and warps and checks horribly in drying. (I know, I’ve cut and dried some cottonwood and Lombardy poplar.) The yellow poplar has a mostly cream to gray colored sapwood with a green tinted heartwood. It works easily, dries easily, has a pleasant smell, is inexpensive to buy, available in wide and long pieces and makes an ideal paint grade wood. I’ve seen it in Danelectro necks, Jackson electrics, Fender electrics (inexpensive old ones and any of the newer domestic and imported), Charvel electrics, and many imported instruments both high and low quality. Various types of cottonwood trees including aspens grow over much of the US. Yellow poplar grows only in the eastern half of the US with its most commercial areas in the east.

Thank you ◆

Editor’s Note: Bruce Harvie agrees, the wood used in the Danelectro necks is yellow poplar. However, it is Lombardy poplar that he wants for fiddle making. He also mentions that Danelectro necks break very easily, and that he wishes to purchase some. Got any, Ron?

The yellow poplar in question is the wood of the tulip tree, an enormous thing with distinctive four-lobed leaves, which happens to be the state tree of Indiana. Don’t confuse it with the magnolia tree, whose flowers closely resemble tulips.