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Hi folks

I recently acquired this interesting top set. Its sitka with blue mineral deposit streaks... whilst it might not be for everyone, i happen to find it beautiful. And i will probably use it for a special project at some point, the tap tone is really nice!

Anyway, my question is - Does anyone know much about this, how it happens etc? It looks in someway similar to that ancient glacial sitka, but can't be quite the same.

Also, has anyone worked with it before? any idea how it hold up under lacquer and how UV affects it over time.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

FTL

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www.leddingtonguitars.com

Some blue stains are caused by fungi. If the wood is kept dry it shouldn't be a problem. Many of the things that were once down grades are now sold as "features". The blue may grey out a bit ae the top darkens with age.
If you reversed the layout end for end you could maximize the area of blue discoloration, and by cutting off a 1/4 inch of the edge before jointing make it a single blue band in the center of the top ( the fingerboard extension and soundhole would hide/eliminate the remaining light wood in the center.).

I think it looks cool too and I've always liked that. In my design philosophy there is nothing imperfect about nature

the log that was cut from was on the ground for quite awhile.
I've never used any so have no idea how it will work out.

Fungi like Clay said.
let it acclimate to your shops humidity for awhile.
Check for any spalting.

Mike

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Mike Collins

Cool... thanks for the tips folks!

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www.leddingtonguitars.com

Pretty sure the fungus laden area is softer and weaker than the clear sections of the plate.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I've seen some that had the blue color but was otherwise O.K.

I made one with the whole top was colored. Lutz Spruce. It turned out really nice and sounds spectacular. The log laid on the forest floor since the 1940's. Full of Bear Claw too.

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Jason Moe
LaCrosse WI 54601

Looks great!

FTL

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www.leddingtonguitars.com

Not necessarily. Blue stain by itself does not weaken the wood. However, I would probably try some flex testing to make sure that decay has not taken hold. I have not seen any issues with finishing blue stained wood, nor have I seen much fading over time.

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John

That's a nice axe Jason!

Everyone thinking fungus or laying on the ground caused the blue is incorrect . It's from iron. Big spikes or staple, or even smaller nails.. anything iron was driven into the log and water. The iron follows the grain fiber with the water. It oxidizes blue. Also, The Ancient sitka has/had nothing to do with glaciers. This area of SE Alaska has been determined to have been ice free for about 13,000. The following millennia was tundra, then developing a lodge pole forest. Our current forest of spruce and hemlock is determined to be about 8000 yrs old and the red cedar started growing in S SE Alaska around the POW area about 5000 yrs ago. The ancient sitka gets its blue color from iron also. Our mountain has lots of iron pyrite [sp?] and seeps and springs and 10 feet of rain per yr.. The iron is in the ground and is in the water that perniated the buried log for nearly 3000 yrs. It's soaked through and through. When first cut it is golden yellow like wet wood, and within 15 minutes has oxidized the blue color it is. Time is involved, but iron causes the blue in this sitka spruce. I have 10's of thousands of bdft of large float logs that had 12" spooked driven into them for decking and 6" staples securing 1.25" steel cable lashing that tied the brow logs to floaters. That's how log floats for homes and logging camps were built.

This article has a definition and origin of the blue stains seem much different from above.

http://www.nelma.org/beware-of-using-bl ... materials/

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I don't know about the topic of this thread, but off topic....

My father is a carpenter working at a U.S. AFB. Before working for the AF he owned a construction company. Growing up I would help with jobs, mostly picking up scraps and nails. One job I remember was building a new house for his church pastor. After the roof trusses were installed the pastor's wife noticed "mold" on some of them. The pastor was instructed to scrub with bleach and a scrub brush to "kill the mold". It didn't really come off at all and the poor guy was coughing and gaging on bleach fumes. It sure looked a lot like the picture on that link.

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Two different things Ken. The article is talking about sap-stain. There is no sap wood in the guitar board pictured. I sold a bunch of sets just like the pictured set late last year or earlier this year, I have stacks of them. And I have a small stack that the blue covers most of the board to pattern pretty much a whole instrument top. I know what sap stain looks like. I have seen it occasionally in sitka. and it's nothing like that in the pic. I've just dealt with millions of bdft of log to know. 40 years ago when working the wood of Wisconsin, I saw the sap stain in white pine. and for the last 30 years I have been in wood here in SE Alaska.
There is a blue stain that happens in Yellow cedar, that is caused from a bug and larvie hatch. It causes a fungus and a rot that gets grown over, engulfed in new growth. I can take pics of 2 of the circumstances I encounter blue stain, but I don't have any green cut sitka that could get sap stain laying around right now.

I respectfully disagree -- the OP pic totally looks like blue fungus sap stains to me $.02

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

AWSOME... now we are getting to meat of the matter...

Thanks so much for the info Alaska Spty Woods!

And to the rest of you...

FTL

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www.leddingtonguitars.com

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I knew I would get the opportunity to show both examples of Blue Stain mentioned in this thread. Garys pic is of the Sitka Spruce has iron stain type. Most Likely Cut from either a float log or bridge stringer.
The pick shows the sap stain. It's from a big blowdown sitka that we logged last August/Sept. There is a thread of pics in this form ripping and logging that huge 74" diameter stick. The sap soured and turned moldy blue.
Different species of wood have different issues of staining. Ken points at a type of blue stain common in pine but can also plague maple
There is a blue stain that happens to the Alaska Yellow cedar tree here in SE Alaska old growth. that is the result of a bug hatch and the beetle deposits eggs In the cambium of the tree, the larvea hatch and a bacteria is left behind that causes degrade of the wood, which will evenbtually turn into rot. But the tree keeps growing and the area gets engulfed with new growth. In this pic of the Yellow cedar block with the 12" speed square for referance, The block is about 17" wide VG and records 485 yrs of growth. Annette actually counted the lines for me. You can see the splotches of blue stain on the end grain that follows the fiber. This particular block is the first block from the log we see this. The other end of this same 23" long block is clean. As is the previous 10-12 feet we had cut to date. Finally a 3rd pic is of a sitka block that I dessected for maximum recovery of high grade product. This block is aprox 14" wide VG. the middle billet split is about 10 wide x 3.5-4" thick to cut sawn into flat tops. The blue stained area. the result of a nail, for bracewood, or maybe a flute maker will want to turn it into a blue flute. And the wings will get sawn into archtop fronts and flat tops, and maybe mandolin, octave or mandola front, depending on how the measure works out.

Still alive... this is great... thanks fellas!

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If the top set came from Mario Dacosta's old wood stock, it is from a bridge stringer that had large spikes, and steel cables holding the logging road bridge together. Mario used to buy the bridges from the Ministry in B.C. when the old logging roads in the Terrace B.C. were being reclaimed or the bridges were being replaced. I have some sets from 10 years ago. I also have a set on the one I am almost finished that is 95% iron stained. The tree laid in a small stream, that had a very high iron content, from the time it was felled til it was removed 40 years later.

Bob

Yep Bob, We have done and continue to do/use the same. Numerous bridges, no less than 30 of them. Bridges that all have a min of 6 logs for the driving surface that range in length from 30-80' and 20' sill logs as well, and log floats too. 11 floats with an average of 16 - 80' logs.