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Quartered Brazilian apparently hasn't read them either.

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dang illiterate wood!
The edducattion system is letting us down.

I recently finished my first flatsawn rosewood (amazon) guitar, and unfortunately, not my last since I have a couple more similar madagascar sets in the stash.

Bottom line is that after i join a top or back, I break the offcuts in several pieces to test the joint, seek for potential weak grain lines and get an overall feel for the wood.
For this particular set, the flatsawn parts were breaking just by looking at them. The outer riftsawn and quarter bits were obviously harder to split.

So I braced and glued it at some 38-42% along some long prayers.

As for spruce and runout. Spruce with runout might sound just as good, but it sure isn't as break resistant and elastic. Split a nice brace and then cut an identical one inducing runout, then break them. The difference is big and after such a test the only reasonable conclusion is that runout in spruce is perfectly undesirable and should be avoided by all means.

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Build log

Looking at the back (not the end grain) grain that comes together like this ///\\\ or this \\\/// makes a bad center seam joint. Straight grain has no end grain exposed and makes a more solid joint.

Hi Howard

Fair points, but perhaps more was read into my post than intended (a fault of the writer in this case, not the reader ) I was being perhaps quite specific to instrument builds and maybe a few examples may have illustrated the points a bit better. I guess, if you look at the diverse nature of the build asthetic from high end factories to the individual professional and amateurs alike on here, there is a huge diversity of styles and materials used - and each of us has a preference - some build 'in a Martin '45 tradition, dripping with Abalone - which is not to everyones 'taste' - the flip side to that is also evident with 'plain simple' builds - again some find this minimalism beautiful, others 'too boring' and I would argue that there is room for both and all inbetween as the 'function' as an instrument takes priority - in most cases - the beauty being more in the ear than the eye of this particular beholder!

That said, I do have preferences, although they tend to change quite frequently! I think we do need to maybe accept that opinion and taste ARE equaly valid IF based on the experience and education of that individual. As we learn more, we can appreciate more - Good example from the artworld is perhaps cubism. Learn about what it is all about, and the beauty is revealed, and I would suggest that understanding leads to appreciation which helps define and evolve our taste? So for me all opinion/taste is valid if placed within the context of knowledge?

I would say as I got older, I 'learned' to appreciate the simpistic beauty of a prewar 000-18, appreciate the patina in an 1840s French Parlour or the 'odd' shape of an early Lacote... soomething taht would have been dismissed when in late teens or early 20s.

There is also the impact of the passion and enthusiasm of others we respect for greater knowledge, that 'rubs off' - so I would stand by what I said in that opinions ARE equally valid, but with the caveat that they evolve based on experience. So are my 'tastes' in guitar better now in my 40s?

I would naturally say yes. Going back on topic, perhaps the issue with the more 'exotic' looking specimens is influenced in part by 'tradition', by the theories of what makes a good instrument, and...if I dare mention it, most builders are wood snobs! ? - there is an arrogance based on the accumulation of knowledge and experience, and if customers/shops are demanding instruments built from what many class as inferior is because they lack education and knowledge?

... PS I am not into bling myself, but do like the natural beauty of some swirling grain under finish... but whetehr this builds a decent instrument is almost a seperate debate, and from what has been seen in this post already, one of obvious varied opinion!

I've seen a good amount of Brazilian and never noticed that quartered Braz is more split prone than other rosewoods, with the exception of EIR. The most unstable Braz sets I've seen are definitely the ones going from rift to flat, and some of the stump stuff (but not all). The most brittle Braz I've seen is some of the black stuff, regardless of the cut.
We all know quartersawn wood exhibits much less movement with RH changes than flat-sawn, and that tension wood will invariably be unstable, without exception, so why argue about it? Mahogany and a handful of other species are much more forgiving, still, the quarter cut is favoured in all cases where stability is the main concern.
It is obvious that we will see signs of damage and repair on antique instruments, regardless of the wood species.
When Baroque and Romantic guitar builders wanted to use wild figure, and/or flat-sawn stock (as in bird's eye maple), they invariably laminated the inside with a layer of spruce. However there are plenty of examples of fiddles with flat sawn backs, but the width is minimal compared to a guitar, and the plate is carved. BTW perfectly flatsawn is much preferable to rift IMHO.
I have a good amount of cocobolo in the shop, as I often use it for trim. Invariably the rift and flat sawn pieces cup, move and some eventually crack. I will add that I am almost fanatical about maintaining a constant RH.
Traditionally woodworkers always used the most stable woods they could obtain, it is for a reason that seasoned wood is more expensive and sought after. In cabinet making, as in instrument making, wild figure is always used as a veneer with a solid substrate (ply in modern times).
The Benedetto arch top is comparable to the Torres papier-mâché guitar: as has been said, they're testaments to the builders' skills, and not to the virtues of flat-sawn knotty pine or papier-mâché. A " tour de force" in other words. Otherwise both would have continued their careers building with sub-par materials…
I agree with Howard about the absurdity of relativism when pushed at its extreme: even if there are grey zones, some things are obviously better than others.
It is a testament of the malaise of our times that we are perfectly willing to distort reality in order to accommodate incongruous statements for the sake of avoiding conflict and raising the illusion of tolerance.

I think it is John Hall who wrote once that information on the forums is free, and you get what you pay for…

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

perhaps not so much...

I'll say it another way - The internet is the world's greatest source of misinformation.

-jd

Laurent, well put. Less experienced luthirers can learn a lot from your experience and should take heed. BTW you do exellent work from what I have seen, as do all of the pros that frequent this site and that's why I look here for credible information.
My motivation in starting this thread was first, I had not come across one similar and second there are a lot of aspiring luthiers that may not know enough about the wood they are about to spend big dollars on because it is "pretty" and it "taps like a bell". Don't get me wrong, I have W.A.S. and a garage full of hardwood to prove it, (just not tonewood)
Think I'll go make some saw dust!
p.s. don't believe everything you read.

I hope that I have perhaps misinterpreted what you are saying here... because... you mentioned you agreed with Howard so I can only assume that this was in relation to my post - As mentioned above, more was read into this than intended. In no way would I condone the acceptance of the average, either to due to some sort of malaise or to avoid confrontation... that is not waht was being said. But I there is an arrogance that stems from certain builders about asthetics and or materials.

Perhaps it better to be clear about these TWO separate issues:

1. Purely asthetic - if there were no differences between the tonal and structural characteristics of different 'cuts' and it was purely down to the look, then would this debate be as fierce - I would go as far as to suggest that the attitude and opinion towards wild grains appeal or lack of it is driven more by the attitude to its 'structural' and tonal characteristics' - the fact that it implies a sub-standard quality of material, rather than the look itself - a taste for or opinion that this 'sub-standard' wood is beautiful under finish and makes a beatiful looking instrument should surely not be dismissed as somehow accepting sub standards....

2. The structural integrity and tonal characteristics are documented, but as some have shown, whichcare and different approaches these materials can be successfully incorporated into instruments. You dont need years of experience and hundreds of guitars undr your belt to understand that the ideal is to build with the very best materials available, and that setting high standards for quality means no compromise - BUT the reality is that these perfect samples are rare and becoming more so, either used, burned or hoarded, so for many so called 'inferior grades' are all they have access to - ideed, in the future it may be that its all ANYONE has access to, so it will be case of compromise or give up.

Surely the smart decision is to accept that, taste on the asthetic beauty/ugliness aside, in future, builders will need to adapt their build process to make the best out the dwindling resources.... and this has nothing to do with accepting lower standards, or a general maliase towards acceping mediocrity... to suggest so would be highly arrogant dont you think?

Howard is a friend, and I liked what he wrote. So no relation to your post at all, but rather to some others with little to no knowledge of the subject at hand who babble incessantly or repeat ad nauseam tales read on the Internet, and spread disinformation and confusion.
BTW quartersawn, rift or flat sawn, a piece of rosewood will tap the same. It probably won't flex the same though.
I am not sure to understand your point in any case. The majority of us are small builders, and not the Taylor or Martin factory. I could make a dozen and a half guitars per year (it's more like a dozen now): with such a production I have no problem purchasing materials meeting and exceeding my standards, nor do I foresee having any problems in the near future. It may cost a little more, so what? It's a different story for factories. It's not the end of the world either.
The increase in tonewood sets of poor quality and cut is due to 1/ eBay 2/ the emergence of guitar building as a hobby 3/ people not previously experienced in cutting tonewood taking advantage of 1/ and 2/
100% agreed. However since it's a public forum every individual should take responsibility (see above). Either for not talking out of their buttocks, or for correcting inaccurate information.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

I am not sure what you mean by 'talking out of their buttocks' or correcting inaccurate information, since I was talking about taste, asthetic - which despite being something that can evolve is a personal thing. With respect to the quality or otherwise of tonewood, It was not something I was discussing apart from availablity impacting on quality - sure price increases may not effect you, but they do effect many...(of us hobbyists). If there are therefore methods available that can be utilised to improve the quality of instruments made from the the lesser materials, then surely that is worth understanding... yet it seems such discussions are an 'irritation' to the 'more knowledgable' despite this being an open forum...

Frank: I would love to hear about new techniques that will improve the craft. (Padma eluded to knowing them but has not offered any up in this case) I don't see it as that much different than it has been for many, many years. I think the tools have changed more than anything else.
There are always compromises to be made, quality of the materials should be the last. Change the type of wood, change the size of the instrument, the number of pieces used for a plate etc. but not the quality of the material. BRW is the best example, many will not compomise on the wood, they end up using inferior material because of it. I see this happening with coco also. There will always be material of good enough quality, maybe not the specie you want to use.

I have a fair amount in my shop too and all has been very stable. Maybe your wood was wet or has other problems. That would explain the split you experienced.



Agreed. Now let's see, should I listen to the OP who has yet to build his first or you since you have more experience than I do with guitars splitting?

Or is this just me talking out my buttocks. I'm glad there's no emoticon for that.....

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A supplier that I have bought several sets from lists his EIR as either "AAA" or "Highly Figured"
I kick in the extra $10 for the plain quartersawn sets.

True and I am not questioning those with more experience with these things in their statements that quality tonewood is best - and in an ideal world it would be within the reach of all. But this thread has opened up 2 seperate discusion points - the asthetic /taste/visual appeal question v the straight and narrow High quality QS that in some spieces is beyond the budget of mere mortals like myself... should you use a pretty stump of BRW or straight grained Indian? Sure the wise move is the straight grain, but if players want the former, is it not worth looking at ways to meet their wishes without structural compromise?

If customers are less knowledgable and are being fed a line in their local guitar retailer, about the beauty of a piece of BRW stump, being better than a decent piece of straight grained QS Honduran RW or even Cocobolo, (which is usually also reflected in the price) then what should you do? Educate the buyer or the shop - or look for ways in which the quality of the instrument can be improved when using material that customers desire, but a builder would consider as inferior?

And there is asthetic aspect that can not be underestimated. Some of these more unusal patterned 'seconds' are beautiful - stunning and its easy to see why players (and builders) are drawn to them even without the price 'suggesting' (wrongly) its a superior instrument because its pretty BRW?

There is always a danger with forum/emails of flaming or at least misinterpretation - and if I have mis read certain posts I apologise... but I do feel that its wrong to just dismiss a taste for the 'exotic' if maybe not as ideal - out of hand. Surely there are methods that can be used to get the most out of such material? And whilst for those pros that have the budget for the best in this generation may feel they do not need to worry about finding and afording the best, unless things change, this may not be the case in a few generations time.

Laurent, I meant no offence and apologise if my posts came across as either ignorant or illinformed, but i hope you can at least acknowledge the direction I am coming from. I appreciate there are many experienced craftsman on here who have attained their standards and reputations through years of NOT compromising on quality of the wood they use... and as a vocation, such high ideals are vital and necessary. But for the amateur/hobbyist and even the pro of the pros of the future, the resources will be finite and therefore these materials become integrated into the designs and plans - just need to know the way to get the best from them... and some are very pretty.

To me,wood that has been seasoned properly and stood the test of time weather quartered or not is the most stable wood to build with. The more often a piece of wood is subjected to humidity swings over time, the better the stability. Usually wood that cracks is wood that hasn't experienced that very much and is reacting to the humidity changes of time and can't handle the tension caused by the swings of humidity. This is one reason i search out old wood from the past. I've used wood from old bed rails from the 20s i got from the salvation army for necks because of the stability factor of old wood. The older the wood, the better the stability as far as i'm concerned.

This includes me.

I did make it clear that I am no luthier, but as a third generation cabinet maker I do know wood.
I never intended to single out one type of wood (cocobolo) or say that figure is bad.

I have questioned the idea of using less than the most stable wood possible for an accoustic instrument.


Yes it has Fred, asthetics to me are subjective. Beauty in the eye of the beholder.



without a doubt.

I guess ultimately, you only know 20 or 30 years after it's built. But my experience is that reaction wood shows up right off the saw if the wood is fairly dry. If it's fairly wet, it may not show until it dries. If it's somewhere in the middle, yes, a piece this thin will get squirrelly in a couple of days (or less) in a dry shop.

FWIW, this is how I will proceed with this set. My moisture meter says 6% and weight and feel agree that it's dry (thank you, Hibdon!). I'll store it on the upper shelf in my assembly room (warmest, driest place in the shop) for the next couple of months. Then I'll thin it a bit and probably do a slow, low temperature bake, about 120 degrees for 3 or 4 hours. A couple of months after that, it should be back at EMC and I will build with it. I've been using lattice bracing on all my backs lately and I feel like that gives me some extra protection against cracks too.

If any odd movement or any checks show up in that time, I'll re-evaluate.

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Unfortunately I have no pictures of the flatsawn guitars I've worked on.

I once set up a run of 50 guitars for a music store that bought a bunch of guitars from a manufacturer closeout special, "Orpheum", I think it was. The guitars were obviously made as cheaply as they could possibly be made and still be all solid rosewood and spruce, or something.

The backs and sides were wildy sawn, some not even matched and the tops were random pieces of bookmatched spruce, probably the leftover dregs from making "real" guitars, some significantly flatsawn even for the soundboard.

I played them all and picked out the best sounding one and compared it to the (in my opinion) WORST sounding high end perfectly cut Martin we had in the store, and to my surprise, the cheaper horrible guitar (which had a fairly flatsawn top) blew the Martin away, and had a sound comparable to the other good sounding high end instruments we had on the wall.

Someone early on pointed out that sound quality and structural stability are different topics, and I concur. I can attest that the cheap instrument in question didn't hold up well over time, as I purchased the instrument as a knockaround.

After 2 years the top had significant torsion stress around the bridge area, and high action due to the neck angle beginning to collapse, but no splits anywhere. The back and sides seemed okay.

Maybe a quartersawn fine-grained stiff top would have resisted the string torsion better, even if it did split somewhere and require a repair.

I'm also willing to consider that maybe if the top had had better quality bracing then maybe the torsion stress would not have been as severe on the flatsawn top as it was. I didn't check the cut of the braces, but I'm sure the quality was no better, and most likely even worse, than the quality of the spruce used for the soundboards. Maybe quartersawn fine-grained braces would have made a difference.

I've never purposefully made a guitar with a flatsawn top just to see, and I don't know of anyone (besides Mr. Bennedetto, and possibly the Taylor Pallet guitar) who has.

I'm not convinced that perfectly cut fine-grained well quartered woods are necessary for backs and sides.

Tonally, I'm not convinced it matters all that much for tops, but strengthwise I think the difference is worthy of consideration.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Kent, let us know what happens.I will be interested in the outcome either good or bad.
The only true test is TIME. Possibly this is one reason the early builders only used QC, being afraid of 20 years of work turning into 20 years of repair and bad press?
I find your processing the plate by forcing it very dry and let it rebound interesting.
Have you done this offten? How did it work out?
Possibly a good way to season wood a little faster than mother nature will.
I have looked at that set several times to see if my mind chages and it has not. I still see a piece of stump or rot stock. There is no flow to the grain like in quartered ziricote, it looks like the grain is running in every direction imaginable, but pictures can be deceiving.

A build thread would be awsome!

Like many other builders, I do that on all my spruce tops. I first heard about it in a repair class I took from Frank Ford about 11 years ago. The typical formula for spruce seems to be 200 degrees for 2 hours. The idea as I understand it is that it bakes off all the bound water. When the wood comes back to EMC, it acts less hygroscopic.

I'll use lower heat for longer on the Cocobolo. I think it's slower to release water and I don't want to stress it from drying too fast. But that's just intuition (or me speaking out of my buttocks again?).

Heating it will also be another opportunity to check it for internal tension.

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To clarify, Ken I wasn't thinking about you with my comment. You obviously know your turf, even if I disagree with some of your statements.
Frank, it wasn't directed at you either, as I thought I made clear in a previous post.
If it existed, the "talking out of the buttocks" emoticon would be the only one I'd be willing to use (sparingly).

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Total hijack and for that I apologize but I'm going to do it anyway.

This method sounds a bit interesting to me and I may try it on my next build, but more for the spruce top than the back. Few questions though:

Do you bake before you join or after? (I would think before joining is better)

Why do you think it takes a couple of months to get back to EMC? In an un-sealed top or back less than .125" thick, it can't take longer than a few days can it?

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Thanks, It had been a long stressful day... Apologies for any offence caused by misinterpretation.

Andy, definitely before glueing unless your glue is good to 200 degrees! When I measured my first batch of spruce, it seemed to take a few weeks to come back (based on weight) and that was fairly thin. I would think the Coco would take longer and 2 months seems like plenty. Sooner may be fine.

Laurent, thanks. My apologies as well.

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