I have a 5120 with a more pronounced wood grain showing through the orange stain than my 6120 DSW. Don't get me wrong, I love the DSW, and it does have some grain showing through, but in my case, more money didn't buy a wood grain better than the 5120. Anyone else have examples similar to this?

2007 G5120

2011 G6120DSW

When I worked there ('74 - '76) they were trying different stains on different woods, and the ill-fated SuperAxe was being considered with variouscolors, including a cool black wood stain and a Cad Green wood stain finish, and I saw several beauts come to Cincy from the Booneville R & D Dept (OK, ... Dean Porter). Don't know if any of them ever made it out of Booneville.

2006 5120.

I owned a wood working business a while back. I built custom furniture and wood kite reels. ONe thing I can tell you is that the straighter grained woods are far more stable than the fancy burled woods etc. . When things start expanding and contracting over time, you never really know exactly what the wilder figure or grain is going to do. Sometimes it is nice to know that the straight grained wood is going to be far more likely to remain stable than the wildly figured stuff. While I like to look at wildly grained wood and I think it is beautiful, the straighter grained variety is almost always a safer bet.

I should add that the grains shown above are mild compared to the radical swirls and whorls found in the highly figured stuff. You guys know what I am talking about I am sure.

Umm...PRS?

Yes, some grains are a bit much for my taste. I think Gretsch grains have a very natural beauty to them. Some, more subtle, or pronounced, than others.

I think your top is very "Gretsch" and very attractive! Nice flat sawn open grain like they used in the old days.

I would guess they aren't spending much time picking the wood for your guitar unless it's a custom shop. Chances are they look for wood w/o defects & send it into the press. I'm sure they'll throw the best of the sheets on top, press it, cut it & call it a day. If you get a fancy top or back, Its probably luck as much as anything else

2007 5120 with very nice wood grain and even a little flame on the top.

Can't see it real well in this photo... but I owned a 5120 for a short time. I got it because it had some intense flame-grain on the back and neck, which I have not since before or since on others.

Oops... just found a better shot of it from the original Ebay auction.

Nice! Probably never see that again.

Yep, that's what I'm talkin' 'bout. That's a beautiful wood on a guitar on the south side of $1000.

Yep, that's what I'm talkin' 'bout. That's a beautiful wood on a guitar on the south side of $1000.

+1

My current 5120 has prettier wood than either of my Pro-Line 6120s. It's all laminated stuff so sometimes you just get lucky as I've seen some killer wood on some Pro-Lines.

Guitar Emporium had a basic 6120 in their showroom last year that had some beautiful quilted maple on the back.

I think I got the thing for $550.

my g400 has a little more going on visually than my annie because someone smeared a bunch of green paint over her.

i need to take better photos of these someday.

Mine's the dark walnut color. The grain is nice and straight, but you have to have the right light. In some light it really comes through, but in others, you don't see it. I'll have to see if I can get a pic where you can see the grain.

It's not the best of pictures but my 6192 maple Club has a nice grain.

(edit) And a better pic.

OK, Here it is. My walnut colored G5120

At least in my case when I went looking for a T-Rose I couldn't find one that grain pattern that I liked on both front and back. Either the top was not to my liking or the back was. The one I finally chose has a grain that is so tight you have to get very up close and personal to see it. But it's the same front and back and I like that.

The wood grain showing on Gretsch guitars is pretty much irrelevant as that's just the outer veneer of either a 3-ply or 5-ply laminate construction, so the stabiilty of the wood isn't do much of an issue. There are numerous budget archtop guitars that look a lot nicer than Grestch guitars, such as the Samick/Greg Bennett LaSelle JZ series with all the flame maple. What is being referred to now as "flame maple" I always thought was really "tiger maple" because it looks striped in appearance. It's the all solid wood custom archtops and acoustics wih the bautiful wood grain and awesome tone that really need to be look after . With the exception of the G6120TM most Grestch guitars just look simply like stained maple.

The one main exception is the Gretsch 6130 knotty pine Round Up, both vintage and reissue, where the bookmatched pine top was very much a feature of the guitar both visually and in terms of tone.

Of course, if you want to make guitars and not worry about the wood grain too much, you simply paint them solid colours like white, Cadillac Green, Bamboo Yellow, Jaguar Tan, Copper Mist , Pelham Blue, and so on.

I believe that in the future as good tone woods become even more scarce and very, very expensive, that guitar manufaturers will turn to the use of composite materials with the sonic and acoustic properties similar to wood. The Chinese company SX aka Essex made a series of banjos and resonator guitars from what they decsribe as "malapoka". It's not wood at all but a composite of some sort. The makers of the re-issue Hagstrom guitars also use a composite material for their fretboards. Just as the Chinese have done with their SX range, the composite can be given the appearance of any wood grain finish. It's a bit like the fake woodgrain dashboards found on English cars of the 1950s and 1960s - eg, the Humber Hawk.

Being more of a Les Paul guy until recently I'm a bit over the 'flame' thing. I love my standerd LP with no flame, just true grain that shows the top is carved. When I saw the dead straight grain on a 335 I went 'eeew'. When I bought my 6120 with the birdseye maple I fell in love with it. I'm not big on fancy grains but this was subtle enough to be pretty where I find a lot of the quilts/flames gaudy....same reason I couldn't buy a Falcon lol - I can play well enough to have such an out-there instrument :P My 2c.