Official Luthiers Forum!

hey folks, i am new to this forum but an old hand from ANZLF and i thought i might ask where the best place to buy larger quantities of red spruce in dred sizes to ship back to Australia may be. i was hoping that some of you may have had good experience with a vendor who is likely to look after you for price with buying multiple sets (20+) i know there are a swag of places listed as sponsors but i would like your opinions. Much appreciated Xray

Good Morning Xray,
Welcome to the forum.
RC Tonewoods would be the first stop on your shopping trip.


Steve

Yeah BobC is good value and so too is Steve Roberson of Colonial Tonewoods, both are vendors here at the OLF and I have been looked after very well by the pair of them.

Cheers

Kim

I bought some wood from Terry Newman at Musical Forests - http://www.tonewood.ca - very nice guy and he has some really nice eastern spruce tops.

cheers, Christian

thanks fellas, ive checked out some links and well i guess i have found out im a tight a@#e. Im tossing up between red spruce and engleman now. I have used red spruce and i was simply amazed at just how much tap tone an unbraced piece of timber could have. Im asuming Engleman is the lower grade as far as spruce goes or is it just more available? not sure your help greatly appreciated

G'day Xray

Engelmann is by no means the poorer cousin and depending on what you want to do with it will out peform Red or Adirondack Spruce.

There is a heap of variation within the species of Spruce so it really is a matter of how you choose to deal with the individulal top sets that you have, and what you want to achieve in the way that you build with that piece of wood.

Historically Red Spruce was used in the pre-war Martins so it's associated with the great dreadnoughts of that era.

It is possible to build a nice fingerstyle guitar from Sitka, Engelmann, Red or Euro. It is also possible to build a nice flatpicking instrument from the same that someone will beat the clappers out of.

You'll get fine wood from Uncle Bob at RC tonewoods or Steve Roberson at Colonial as the other blokes have mentioned.

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Bob Connor
Geelong, Australia

Also, if I am not mistaken, John Hall at Blues Creek carries Red Spruce.

Mike

I would recommend most sponsors here. Bob at RCTonewoods and Steve at Colonial carry great stuff.

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

Another well-regarded source of "red spruce" (not an OLF sponsor, though) is
Old Standard Wood, who do business on the web at adirondackspruce.com

I purchased a big box of bracewood from them a few years ago and I've
been extremely happy with it. No experience with their tops, though I've been tempted
to try some of their 4-piece sets. They claim to be the supplier to Collings, among
others.

If you want to look into Engelmann, look for Simeon Chambers on the web or ebay.
He primarily sells violin family tonewood, but also cuts guitar top sets and bracing.
Most of his wood is described as coming from long-standing (40-60 years) dead trees.

Good luck,

Eric

The C grade German spruce tops from Martin Guhl @ besteurospruce are good enough for a tight aXXjOOe like me.

I would strongly recommend that you contact Tom Thiel if Northwind Tonewood ( www.northwindtimber.com/ ) as he lives in Red Spruce territory and has access to the highest quality of Red Spruce. I recently bought some sets from him and the taptones of those sets were exceptionally good. The reason is that Tom is an ex-luthier who has made a few hundred instruments and knows how to and is willing to select woods with good taptones for you. For your info, he specializes in Red Spruce and supplies the same to a few big guitar manufacturers. Also, like the established tonewood dealers, I find him to be very knowledgeable in tonewoods ( especially Red Spruce ) and professional and honest in business dealings.

Anyone looking for good ( I mean really GOOD ) Red Spruce should contact Tom.