Weight Relieved

While the combination of a mahogany body and maple top has been time tested to deliver superb tonal balance, often this resulted in a solidbody guitar weighing as much as 12 pounds – or more! That’s because mahogany can be an exceptionally dense material. So manufacturers may actually remove up to nine shot glass-sized chunks of the mahogany from the body, which can lighten the body up by several pounds, before putting on the maple top. Weight-relieved bodies are different than chambered bodies, which tend to have much more mahogany removed, with the “chambers” or holes left being designed to improve the acoustic response and resonance of the instrument.