Mahogany Tone Block on the Petrucci Models?

[Attica!]

I've been looking into this and after a short time researching, I found out exactly what it is. By descriptions and diagrams I can see it's simply a Basswood or Alder Body (depending on whether its the Xi or 12) with a rectangle cut out of the body from the neck to just behind the trem, filled in with Mahogany. And then a maple top added on.

The thing that now confuses me is that I thought the Mahogany went right through to the back of of the body, so the main body was to say a U shape, with the Toneblock slotted in, and a Maple-top to cover.

Now, I've just finished off watching a video of the production of Petrucci's guitar, and it showed it being sanded by the machine from the back view of the guitar. Thing is, it shows 1 piece of wood (the same colour, style, etc) which leads me to ask, is the Toneblock actually only a thin piece of Mahogany that's slotted in between the Basswood/Alder and Maple-top, as to it going straight through to the back of the body?

Also what are the actual benifits of a toneblock?

[WezV]

the idea is that you get the tone of mahogany in a much lighter package.  the theory is sound, but since wood varies so bloody much the actual results are not perfect

it is just a mahogany insert.  i am not actually sure how deep it goes but i believe bridge studs are purely in mahogany and dont make it down to the alder section underneath.



the process would be to get your block of alder/basswood, route out a big pocket for mahogany tone block, add the maple cap.   the only question is how deep to make the mahogany block, you could get it as deep as 2mm from the back of the body with no real problems.   this is much easier than the U-shape construction idea

[Attica!]

Cheers for that. I'm just really curious about it.

[FELINEGUITARS]

Can you give us a link to the video?

[Attica!]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eerIO5bDCqM&feature=related

[WezV]

well that video shows the tone block being inserted at 1.30ish  looks to be about 1" thick


here is the demo pic of the 25th anniversary musicman tone block

[Attica!]

I can't believe I didn't see that bit. That more or less answers the question for me haha. At least I know how thick, what shape, and how deep it goes now. Cheers for pointing it out.