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I recently met a gentlemen in our area that has built many bluegrass guitars and several famous bluegrass folks own one of them. He showed me one of his beaters that he takes to the festival and strangely enough, when he joins his soundboard he joins it with the wide grain in the middle and the grain gets narrower toward the side. He says he's done this on all his guitars and he has a theory where he thinks this gives better sound. For the record, he only builds pre-war style dreadnaughts.

I'm curious if anyone else has tried this. The guitar he showed me sounded great.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

I've heard the same thing before.But then, building for sound isn't always good for durability.It's always a compromise isn't it?

I don't know, but from what I've seen so far on narrow tree euro spruce sets, the very wide early growth tends to be light and spongy and with more runout than the late growth. Perhaps this builder somehow compensates the low weight by making thicker tops, at least 3mm, or stronger bracing? If you do the math, you can see there is actually not a big thickness difference between various densities of spruce when targeting the same weight.

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Build log

Placing the tight grain in the center is mainly convention. Some of the best classical builders put the stiffest section of the tree in the middle of the instrument, regardless of grain spacing. There is not a necessary
correspondence between tightness of grain and cross-grain stiffness; not at all. Wood varies wildly.

From what I measured, within the same set, wider grain tends to be lighter and less stiff than the late growth and sap wood.

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Build log

The wider grain to the center was the way martin did it at one time. On deflection testing most if the time the wider grain is actually the stiiffer grain on the scale. I think they went the other way for stability.
john hall

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

John,

If Martin used to do it that way, it may help explain why he does it that way as this guy tries his best to build pre war style......even builds them where they look old when brand new. I don't know if anyone has heard of his guitars but they are labeled JME on the headstock.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

I match the grain to what I think looks best, sometimes wide in the center, sometimes narrow. If you thin the edges of your tops and leave them thicker in the middle, as I do, the wide grained less dense wood may wind up as stiff as the tighter grained denser wood.