bluescreek wrote:
It is common to see maple and mahogany used quartered or flat and any combination. They are able to be used without as much trouble as other woods. I have seen them used on Martins and Gibsons.
Granted this is often used on lesser quality guitars. As a repair guy I don't see many maple guitars in the shop . I am not grouping maple with mahogany just stating a fact that these 2 woods are of the few that can be used in guitars on or off quarter. Maple being a wood of choice on Violins.
Granted this is often used on lesser quality guitars. As a repair guy I don't see many maple guitars in the shop . I am not grouping maple with mahogany just stating a fact that these 2 woods are of the few that can be used in guitars on or off quarter. Maple being a wood of choice on Violins.
Why is flatsawn maple OK but not other woods? Flatsawn maple moves more with changes in RH than any other species commonly used in guitars.
If it's movement that's the concern, flatsawn cocobolo (for one) moves less with humidity changes than quartersawn maple. And it moves dramatically less than flatsawn maple. And that's bigleaf (western) maple which has a smaller differential of movement between radial and tangential orientations than other species.
One benchmark I look at when deciding whether a particular cut is OK to use for a back is the stability of quartersawn spruce. Not only are tops more prone to splitting due to the stress concentrations at the bridge and fingerboard, movement with humidity changes effect the action. So if the stability of quartered spruce is OK for a top, wood of similar stability should be more than adequate for a back.
Totally flatsawn cocobolo, BRW, and many other riftsawn species meet that level of stability.
Another thing to consider is how split prone a species is in certain orientations. For instance, there is nothing I've seen that splits as easily as quartered BRW. If a buyer was hyper-concerned about splitting, I'd steer them to just about anything over classic straight-grained, quartered BRW.
If stiffness is the criteria, then quartered is often better but that's not usually an issue for backs. If it was, flatsawn maple would certainly be ruled out.
As mentioned, quartered wood generally stays flatter when side bending but even that isn't always true. And again, if that's the issue then forget that quilted maple.
So in my book, there's a lot more to it than quartered vs off-quarter. Relative stability, beauty, rarity, and tendency to split play a part in my decisions. And as much as I hate to tempt fate, in more than 15 years, I have yet to have a guitar come back with a split.
