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We have a huge Norway Spruce tree on our property that appears to be dying and may have to come down.

It is about 3 feet wide at the base.

Would this be a possibility for tops?

Neil

It could... If by Norway spruce you mean picea abies (common European spruce), that is of course what most stringed instruments over here have used for tops for centuries. However, growing condition, soil etc matter, and you won't know how nice the wood is until it is cut, split and resawn. If it is indeed 3' wide is should be big enough for guitar tops. Read up on splitting billets and quartersawing, Shane Niefer did a few super tutorials right here on OLF a couple of years ago, you should be able to find it with the search engine.

Here's a bolt of Norwegian 'Norway' spruce (we just call them 'spruce') that was a bit smaller than yours that I got earlier this year. I didn't cut any guitar wood from it but I got some nice mandolin tops. The stuff in the back came from another (larger) bolt, which unfortunately wasn't as nice as the other one and thus became firewood. That can happen.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Try to cut it in Winter when the sap flows down! Now its really sappy.

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Here is what a Parlor Guitar is for!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEa8PkjO6_I

Neil,
I am willing to bet that you can easily make a guitar from that tree. It is quite likely though that the growth rings will be spaced quite far apart as the tree would have been introduced and the 3 foot diametre trees that I see are 400 years old, that would be an average of 16 grains per inch which is not likely on your tree as the middle will be a lot wider than that. But still, I would process some top sets and see how stiff they are once they are dried. And then see again how stiff they are after they have been laying around for a couple of years. It would be awesome to make guitars from a tree that you can tell to whole story about! Let me know if you more advice on assessing, harvesting or processing the tree should you need to take it down.

Oh ya, one other thing about "yard trees", watch out for NAILS!!

Shane

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Canada