Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello friends
i hope u all are fine
i tried to search spruce in india but not got good musical grade stock
while i got one source for Douglas fir.
so i searched in internet and found that it as stiiff as sitka and can used for guitar soundboards and bracing
i want to know that any of u ever used it?
and suitable for classical or acoustic and what thickness should be used?
waiting for ur reply

I think if you use the search function within this web site you will find archives of previous discussions for Douglas fir that may answer all of your questions. Good luck.

doug fir is crap. don't try it. i guarantee you i am no "tonewood" snob, but i built a solid body out of it and a few other things and in my opinion is is garbage. it splits and splinters like crazy, it is full of pitch, it is coarse grained, and the difference in hardness between the grains(xylem and phloem? i forget) is dramatic, so even careful tooling/leveling will leave marks, where the soft wood is abraded more than the hard.
or, maybe i just got crummy pieces

I live where the best fir comes from. Fir is all over the map.. It can be very wide grained, hard, and difficult to work with or.. It can be very tight grained, soft like cedar, and a joy to carve.

I have no idea about its sonic properties..

Cheers Michael

I ever replaced the top with the Fir (wide grain= and that wood from former lumber container ) and that have a bad sound for it ... the sound is not crisp
maybe that wood is not the good quality like this one on this website: Oregon Wild Wood
http://www.oregonwildwood.com/category/ ... woods.html

I was at the Healdsburg Guitar Festival a couple of years ago and played many guitars of magical quality from all over the world. There was one, though that stood out far above the rest. To this day it haunts me to remember the sound that this one was capable of. I was teuly stunned vy this guitat. I kept going back to it over and over. It was built by A.J. Lucas, a British luthier who told me the top was Douglas Fir. It kind of blew my mind because I always had an opinion of Douglas Fir as an inferior tonewood ( as all of you above). I no longer think this, however it most certainly could be that the quality is inconsistent and all over the map.....my 2 sense.

Here's a discussion over at AGF you might find interesting...

http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/foru ... p?t=217121

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Douglas Fir...Rahoul wants to know about Douglas Fir. Ok here goes...

Well to them that say dis dat and da udder about Douglas Fir, all me gotta say is ..ya right!

See is like dis Rahoul...

North America
Pseudotsuga macrocarpa (Vasey) Mayr – Bigcone Douglas-fir
Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco Douglas-fir
Pseudotsuga menziesii var. glauca (Beissn.) Franco – Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir
Pseudotsuga menziesii var. menziesii – Coast Douglas-fir
Pseudotsuga lindleyana (Roezl) Carrière – Mexican Douglas-fir

Asia
Pseudotsuga brevifolia W.C.Cheng & L.K.Fu – Short-leaf Chinese Douglas-fir
Pseudotsuga forrestii Craib – Yunnan Douglas-fir
Pseudotsuga japonica (Shiras.) Beissn. – Japanese Douglas-fir
Pseudotsuga sinensis Dode – Chinese Douglas-fir
Pseudotsuga sinensis var. sinensis Douglas-fir
Pseudotsuga sinensis var. wilsoniana – Taiwan Douglas-fir


And thats only 11 main species of Douglas Fir ~ yes there is more. but me ain't gonna list them all.

Dude makes one or two axes with some thing, someone said was DF and then praises all DF or disses it depending if it met the dudes fancy or not...and ya the dude spends rest of life with this "educated" opinion of DF as a tone wood.

However .... all the different things said in this thread by the members about DF be true but not uniformly across the board. No way!

There are at least 3 different species of Dougles Fir growing all around me... for hundreds of miles...all of it makes great lumber for construction and ain't bad fire wood ether...however when it comes to looferin around , me ain't ever seen two pieces of wood from the top and bottom of the same tree have exactly the same qualities, forget about two exact same species of DF, that grew up side by side together having the same properties and qualities...No way!

About the only quality that seems to be some what consistent is the tendency for it to splinter...but then not always.

Listen up Rahoul... is like this...you like the looks of the wood, the feel, the smell, how she bends...then use it. Its just that simple.


blessings
Padma


Ps: and yes I have used it a lot...for tops and backs and ribs and bracing and necks...that right ...necks too!
......
Neck, ribs and staved carved bowl back
from Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir.

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Audiences and dispensations on Thursdays ~ by appointment only.


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In my opinion Doug fir can make an excellent soundboard. We have cut and sold many sets over the years.
Grain lines so tight that you would need a magnifying glass to count them. So stiff that you couldn't flex in either direction until sanded down to .080-.090 and sustain that seemed to last forever. I say give it a try.

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

I'm currently building with it in the newb challenge. And quite by accident. However, I wouldn't judge the validity of doug fir on my number one!
http://luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10134&t=38823

+1 d . fir for tenor uke tops.

Padma:
You have been missed, or maybe I have just missed your comments for the last couple years.

Bob

Thanks friends for ur advice.
another doubt
can we use it for back and sides for flamenco guitars?

Yes. Neck too. Would it produce a high quality guitar? Try it and tell us?

If I were using some of the very tight grained DF for a top, I'd probably go with something more construction grade looking for the back and sides (pronounced, wider angular growth rings) just for visual contrast.

You've piqued my interest now, because I have all that stuff sitting in the woodpile. No...must...finish...half...done...guitars..first (whap whap)

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Howdy,

Here's some info on a guitar I built recently.
It's basically a prototype, to evaluate my "digital lutherie" process - but the front half of the guitar is a piece of reclaimed old-growth Doug fir.









I didn't attempt to do any grain filling...and I didn't spend a lot of time sanding or working on the finish, as I was more interested in discovering if, or how the assembled guitar sounded.
For such a small-bodied guitar, I'm pretty pleased with its sound.

Cheers,
Jeff

NO Rahoul,

You are not allowed to use Doug fir for Flamenco guitars. See # 324, section 43, paragraph 7 of the Official Rulz Book for Perspiring Loofers. (run google)


Padma


Yo, Jeff...nice build.

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Audiences and dispensations on Thursdays ~ by appointment only.


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those are pretty wide grain lines for "old growth" wood.....i understand "old growth" to mean a tree that was sprouted and grown in a mature/virgin forest for hundreds of years, where there is(was) lots of competetion for light and nutrients, thus it grew extremely slowly and has very tight annular rings as a result.

Doug Fir can be fantastic soundboard wood. My good friend was building a 8 million dollar house. He bought 3 very old standing dead douglas fir trees from Montana and had the entire trees quarter sawn. I built all the stairwells and wine cellar for that house Needless to say some of the really good cutoffs made it back to my shop. There are so many grain lines per inch it is difficult to count. Looks like golden honey under lacquer. The most beautiful conifer top wood I have seen. I use it for ukulele tops.

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Michael F Smith
Goat Rock Ukulele
http://goatrockukulele.com

I found a piece just like yours at a local hardwood lumber yard. It has spectacular cross grain silking. It is perfectly quartered and the super tight grain lines get lost in the silk. It is also hard, but fairly light. I am considering an all Doug Fir build. Glen