Precisely! :Originally Posted by Bloozcat
Most American Fenders are 2-4 pieces of wood and MIM (depending on construction period) may by up to 7!
I also heard (from a very reliable source) about a certain American Fender Richie Sambora signature, made of no less than 11 different pieces of wood!!!
Very nicely said!As to the tone, I've played multi-piece bodies that resonated beautifully, and I've played one and two piece bodies that were bricks. It's just the nature of wood, and the number of pieces isn't always the determining factor in tone.
Edit to add: A solid body guitar just means that it's solid throughout the thickness of the body, excepting such things as pickup and control cavities. Non solid bodies would be like the hollow jazz boxes, semi-hollow, or chambered bodies that have thin but solid tops, sides, and backs, but are hollow or semi-hollow inside. A solid alder body, would mean that the body is solid and the wood used is all alder, regardless of the number of pieces. This is why you have to be careful when you hear terms like, "solid body, solid wood construction". That could mean any kind of wood even plywood at a stretch because it's made of "solid wood" (although IMO, all that glue that holds plywood together is hardly wood).
I should add that, in my perspective, "solid" means "not made of particle board". This may seem astonishing to some of the youngsters in here but most of us old geeks (going into our forties at least), used to have a cheap, Asian made particle board guitar as our first electric. Mine was a Hondo, still have it in fact!
At some point then, it used to mean "made of quality wood", if that is something more than marketing mojo is something I don't really wish to elaborate.
Note: A guitar made of plywood or similar, is usually heavier than a solid wood guitar, due to all that glue inside!