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I found a board of Sitka at my lumber yard. I wanna resaw it into tops to build guitars with. When I customer asks me "what grade top is this?" I want to have a solid answer.



This is the board. Sanded to 80 grit.
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This is the (relative to the above pic) the right edge


This right here is the (again, relative) the left edge.

Question 1.) Of the above two pictures, which one would have been towards the inside of the tree, and which one would have been to the outside of the tree? Am I correct if I think you can you tell how much runout is going to be present by looking at the sides? Also, the V that I put there, is there a correct side to put that on? or does it not matter.
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Question 2.) Is there a formula or something to actually grade the tops? This looks to me like stuff that Ive been sold as AAA. It grading kinda ambiguous though?

One of my friends on Vancouver Island grades thousands of tops a year. She told me they actually use 7 grades I think. There is no formula.

I would call that a mid 2A due to the colour and grain variation. However grading is in most part all about appearance. Building with it is all about how you treat the top. I have a lot of very stiff #2 Sitka and I'm not afraid to use it. Personally, I am happy to have a little colour and grain variation if it is my own guitar.

Congratulations! Great lumber yard score.

Cheers

Looks to be off quarter enough that there will be limited silking, which will drop the grade. Also check it for runout. Split a piece and see how it fractures. If the runout angle is excessive, that will be the biggest issue. It will make the bridge more prone to ripping off and taking wood with it, and will give you a two-tone top, where the right and left sides will be different shades.

I would call it a AA grade.

Sitka trees are so big that you may not see curvature in the growth rings on the end of a board that thick. But you can usually tell by looking at the latewood. One edge is usually fuzzier than the other edge....that is toward the heart of the tree.
I would join the left edge because the grain appears to be more vertical.

With the naked eye, only if you have visible features like resin canals. I believe I do see a large resin canal in the third photo. With magnification, you may be able to see the ends of the rays, which follow the grain.

It matters not. You can even put it on the end. That is what I normally do when sawing from split billets.

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John

Color and streaking take it to AA if its off vertical too, -- I don't know. There's one guy that photos all his stuff calls it AAA no matter what and his disclaimer states "its his own rating system" -- go figure?

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

With the discolouration I'd say aa at best. Not that it would stop me from using it. My most common grade I use is 'select a', not quite good enough to be aa.

Grade is quite subjective and as stated a few times cane vary from one vendor to the next. The board looks to be 12" wide.
What matters most when grading, as far as market is concerned, is the patterned top and a stand back appearance. pick out your joining edge, even if you trim and inch or 3 from one edge or the other. Trace your pattern to the boards and judge it.
Zero grain slope on the flower grain edge as evidenced by the little checking split. and the other 2" edge towards the heart tells me its off quarter by a few degrees. Overall, Looks to me like high grade with character. as in little bit of subtle color. I see a little pitch inclusion on the left board [that may sand out] and the pitch pocket well outside of any pattern on the right. half. A reverse book may still have symmetry and be clean in the pattern. To me the Domestic sort is a AA . Asian sort #1A. That is if you can get a clean pattern.
Here is a pic of me whittling down on grading the 2500 guitar top stack of light curly and light quilt sitka. A few non-figured, and bearclaw sets got mingled in. Next up is about 500 red and yellow cedar tops just out of the pic.
https://www.facebook.com/AlaskaSpecialt ... =3&theater

Thanks guys, this was helpful.

Also. If you can find a section that has nice straight and maybe tighter grain you could get yourself a pile of brace wood. On the more structural braces you would want to hand split for run out. You didn't have a good end grain picture so it's hard to see the cut but for braces it's easy to get it on quarter with a table saw.

This is my reference for grading spruce tops.

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John

My opinion... Without it being in my hand... I don't see any silk and the grain doesn't really go wide to narrow, more like wide narrow wide narrow.... I also can't judge the runout from the pic... I wouldn't really put it into AA... Probably more like A...

I will say, though... You are way more successful than me....

I resawed several bona-fide Lutz topwood billets... Reasonably expensive stuff.... It's totally not worth the time vs buying already graded tops.... One was full of little bitty pin knots.... One really cheap one turned out to be suffering from crushed grain internally and was a total loss.. The last one also turned out to be not worth the extra trouble. Grumble grumble.... I was expecting $30+ tops and I got a bunch of $8 tops and a pile of firewood....

I also successfully resawed some sitka "Reject billets" - and ended up with some useful but low grade tops... I resawed several $5.00 "Reject" billets and they turned out to useful but low grade tops that would run $15 or so...

I resawed a decent looking spruce shelf board... Turned out to have WAY too much twist/runout to be useful for anything....

I will say that I did much better with Redwood and WRC dimensional lumber.... MUCH less expensive and way higher quality... but the yield is VERY low... One 8' long 4x4 post ended up yielding about 2 full size tops...

My best results so far have been splitting out spruce 2x4's into brace wood...

I will say that you can do resaw wood into top wood... but it's not really worth your time if you are looking for "Premium" wood...

Thanks

Brent . . . wow!!

I am with John .. resawing tops rarely pays off .....unless what you really want are 15 dollar tops ....

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

At Palomar College we resaw all our own Sitka. We've had students bring in spruce they bought because they wanted "Master" or "AAA" spruce only to end up using the stuff resawed in class.
That being said, none of these guitars are for sale. No one has to justify what "grade" top was used. If your market demands grading, you are probably stuck paying for others to resaw your tops.


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Reading what John posted about grading criteria, it is not surprising that many fine sounding guitars have "low grade" tops. Color, texture, and straightness of grain don't have much impact on the stiffness of the top.

I have believed that cross grain stiffness was extremely important, because that is what I had heard and read, and what most customers sought for from us 20 yrs. Just last yr, I was told by a major guitar co. Wood guy[customr], that the cross grain stiffness is not as important as the longitudinal stiffness. To tell you the truth, by feel, I cannot detect any differance of longitudinal stiffness between any of the thousands of boars we have here. But too, I really don't check that, because it does me no good. Obviously it's something that can only be measured with a deflection jig and dial indicator. Maybe someone here can she some technical light on this.

Clay, That is absolutely right.

Bruce Ross, who wrote the article for the magazine was the wood buyer for Martin, for many years. Has been a broker now for at least 15 yrs. Visited my shop in 07-08.
Manufacturers try to achieve a certain look for their models, and product lines. Problem is, the forest really doesn't play that game very well. Every tree, every quadrant, every length, and really every board is different in looks. So general rules are applied for those visuals. The most even colored, even textured, free of an visual anomalies grade the highest.
There is criteria one can see that offers indication of tone. But in the world of mass production, pretty trumps tone.
I would love to move to another standard of rules, and let the natural beauty of wood and art come together and tone of more importance. The artist/luthier can create some wonderful sounding, looking works of art with finishes that compliment the woods natural colors and other aesthetics..

As I was messing with those cedar boards I labeled Earth-Tone a while back, that many folks liked...coupled with many, many instances of head scratching, while cutting, trimming or grading thousands of guitar tops.... Well it has prompted me to re-examine some things about grade, and try to put together some rules. Or at least create a sort or a product line that focuses more on tone and artistry.

And regarding re-sawing Sitka. It is one of the most difficulult fibers to cut. Not so much when dried to under 12% MC. But let me tell ya. From the log, the wet sitka is tough fiber to cut. We have the equipment to do it. and even with that 15hp, 42" wheel bandsaw loaded with a .042" x 22' 8" saw of 1" tooth spacing, I'll only make 100 cuts[Aprox 30 booksets] of spruce and the saw comes off. But that same saw would still cut another 15 sets of yellow cedar AND 50 sets of red cedar. Because that fiber shears easier than sitka.

Hi Nils, I just stumbled across this thread and saw your location, I have a feeling I may know which lumberyard you "found" that at. If it's the one I'm thinking of, (with the dark basement), those guys are great to deal with. I picked up some Spruce myself there not too long ago and I'm hoping it looks as good as yours. Mines going to sit on the rack for a little bit though as my 1st attempt will be all mahogany. Anyway good to see a local guy up on here.

Jeff