Epi LP Custom KOA and Wildcat KOA

[Supersonic]

They look pretty tasty!

http://www.epiphone.com/News/Features/2016/koa-lp-and-wildkat.aspx?platform=hootsuite

 

[Imerkat]

I think i need that wildkat in my life...

 

[MarkB]

I think i need that wildkat in my life...

Great minds...

 

[Paruwi]

looks like the 3-4-piece body is not veneered on the back...

 

[elephantrider]

koa veneer on the top ? either way, i love that look on the lp.

 

[Paruwi]

koa veneer on the top ?

what else than veneer ?

don't think it is massive Koa

 

[elephantrider]

yeah, i figured not. like i said, love the lp flavor either way. right now i'm working
on picking up a 55 custom before anything else, though.

 

[Supersonic]

looks like the 3-4-piece body is not veneered on the back...

I noticed that too. For some reason I think it looks cool like that

 

[Davis Sharp]

Those are gorgeous. How expensive are they? In Hawaii, Koa is highly protected. The tree pretty much has to die from old age before the wood can be used.

[EDIT} OK. I sort of answered my own question. The WIldcat is near the bottom of the price range for Archtops and the LP is in the lower half of the Ltd Edition when they are sorted high to low price.

 

[CR]

Those are some amazing looking guitars. I've wanted a Koa Taylor acoustic guitar forever but one of these might have to slip into the collection first. @Davis Sharp , where did you see those prices?

 

[Davis Sharp]

Those are some amazing looking guitars. I've wanted a Koa Taylor acoustic guitar forever but one of these might have to slip into the collection first. @Davis Sharp , where did you see those prices?

It doesn't seem like Guitar Center or Sweetwater have these yet, so I didn't find actual prices. But I went to the Epi website and sorted by price. Then you have to go back to a dealer website and estimate the price from the two guitars that bracket the KOAs on the Epi site (too much work for me). Here are the sortable Epi pages:

Les Paul: http://www.epiphone.com/Products/Electrics/Les-Paul.aspx

Wildkat: http://www.epiphone.com/Products/Electrics/Archtop.aspx

And, as mentioned above, only the tops are Koa, which keeps the prices down.

 

[CR]

Good detective work. Somewhere in the $500-600 range, it's looking like. Time to see what can be sold off around here...

 

[MarkB]

koa veneer on the top ? either way, i love that look on the lp.

Epi lists them as...

Top Material: Figured KOA
Body Material: Mahogany

... so it sounds like it's not a Koa veneer on top of a Mahogany top?

 

[Paruwi]

Epi lists them as...

Top Material: Figured KOA
Body Material: Mahogany

... so it sounds like it's not a Koa veneer on top of a Mahogany top?

in the usual Epiphone marketing-language it sure is a veneer....

just like a 'flame maple top' is just a veneer

 

[MarkB]

in the usual Epiphone marketing-language it sure is a veneer....

just like a 'flame maple top' is just a veneer

Ok. I interpret a veneer as a paper thin sheet stuck on to the top. As such an Epi Standard would be Mahogany back, Plain Maple top, figured/flame veneer. (The economy here being that you can use any piece of plain wood for the top, and slice up your more sought after figured wood for veneers instead of carving a mass of it into sawdust) So with these is it a paper thin sheet of Koa one top of two pieces of mahogany? I'm presuming here that it is not solid mahogany but 2 piece with some weight relief in the back. Again, I'm presuming because Epi make no mention of a maple top that it isn't Mahogany back, Maple top, Koa veneer.

 

[Paruwi]

IIRC Epi calls it a 'carved maple top' or 'hard maple cap' if it really is a cap similar to Gibson

all others mostly are multi pieces of 'asian' mahogany with a veneer in whatever is needed.

Even the 'plain' colors like Ebony, pelham blue or silver are made with those veneers

look closely at the pics and you'll see the grain

 

[MarkB]

Ok thanks, that's helpful. I thought they still used the same construction but just a cheaper/plain piece of Maple, covered with a figured veneer for cosmetics. So effectively these guitars are multi-piece Mahogany with a sheet of Koa veneer on the top surface. Still, they look nice.

 

[DPaulCustom]

If you put a $1000 dress on a 50 yr old whore, it's still a 50 yr old whore.
I don't agree with this. From a marketing standpoint, it sure does sell, but at some point,
the consumer is gonna get wise (I hope).
This is the problem today. Uneducated people, buying anything that manufacturers throw out on the market, with a spin.
At this point, they (the manufacturers) can say KOA, Flamed Maple, Tiger Maple, Cedar, Mahogany.... ,& basically drive up the price of guitars, even though they (the guitars) are basically shvt.
Too much hype is put on the wood that electric guitars are made of.
The original Les Paul (or, I should say, the most sought after/famous) was made of Honduran Mahogany, & a maple cap.
After a point, sales weren't good, so they stopped making them. Now because of the overplayed hype, if you want a Les Paul, it better have a flamed maple cap, & a mahogany back.

A bad set of pickups will make a '59 Les Paul sound like shvt.
A good set of pickups will make a basswood strat sound like heaven.

Wake up people, it's an ELECTRIC guitar......


It may not sound GREAT, but it's made of STONE

Really, REALLY

 

[KOOKMON]

IMO , Everything I have played from a ukulele to a dreadnought guitar made from Koa has sounded very good. It even made an Ovation sound good.
However the electric guitar may not benefit from it as much. I still want to play one though

 

[CR]

If you put a $1000 dress on a 50 yr old whore, it's still a 50 yr old whore.
I don't agree with this. From a marketing standpoint, it sure does sell, but at some point,
the consumer is gonna get wise (I hope).
This is the problem today. Uneducated people, buying anything that manufacturers throw out on the market, with a spin.
At this point, they (the manufacturers) can say KOA, Flamed Maple, Tiger Maple, Cedar, Mahogany.... ,& basically drive up the price of guitars, even though they (the guitars) are basically shvt.
Too much hype is put on the wood that electric guitars are made of.
The original Les Paul (or, I should say, the most sought after/famous) was made of Honduran Mahogany, & a maple cap.
After a point, sales weren't good, so they stopped making them. Now because of the overplayed hype, if you want a Les Paul, it better have a flamed maple cap, & a mahogany back.

A bad set of pickups will make a '59 Les Paul sound like shvt.
A good set of pickups will make a basswood strat sound like heaven.

Wake up people, it's an ELECTRIC guitar......


It may not sound GREAT, but it's made of STONE

Really, REALLY

The way I would look at them, at this point, is more like guitars with a limited edition paint job. If I liked the way that a standard Wildkat/Les Paul Custom played, I can't imagine that my opinion of these would be significantly different. I can see how the marketing is misleading to call them Koa models if there is truly only a paper-thin veneer but I don't doubt that they will be quality guitars. Hard to say if they are a marketing ploy/ripoff until we know exactly where they will be priced.