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Ok I have a bit of both aquired from friends clearing lots here in the high peaks region of the adirondacks. I have already processed it bucked, quarter sawn, stickered and waxed ends. I've asked people I know in the area mostly loggers, carpenters, furniture makers unfortunately they lack the knowledge I seek so I come here.

Anyways my question for those familiar with adirondack wood is how does the two species differ in the the luthier world strength, tone, etc.?

Thanks in advance

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Build it cause then you know it's Made in the USA or **insert your country**

Here's my understanding - and wikipedia seems to confirm.

Red Spruce = Picea Rubens - "Adirondack Spruce", "Appalachian Spruce", etc. = stiff, dense wood for tops and braces.

White Spruce = Picea Glauca - totally different species of spruce, (regardless of whether it's from the Adirondacks) Looks like the Japanese use it to make Go boards. Never heard of anyone building a guitar top from it. Perhaps it's too small, as the average size tends to be smaller.

Plenty of guitars have been built from White Spruce. Not as common, as you say, the trees are small, but when a larger one is cut right, it makes beautiful top wood. I have one Master Grade White Spruce top that I plan to use before long on a classical to see how it works out. There are a couple of sources. Grant Goltz, occasionally, has White Spruce available for sale.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Actually White Spruce trees grow as large as any Engelmann or red spruce trees. White spruce has a more northern distribution on the west coast, kind of following Canada/US border but then drops south through the east and dips well into the US. White spruce is probably more common in guitar top wood than a lot of us think. The Lutz Sprucde I sell is a white/sitka hybrid, well documented through DNA sampling in scientific literature. A lot of both engelmann and red spruce that are marketed are likely white spruce or these other species hybridized with white spruce. That is my opinion and I am sticking to it!

Shane

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Canada

Interesting. The White Spruce I got has a very different look to it from the other Spruces I've handled. It's, gee, whiter!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

In the end, spruce is spruce. If you measure the long-grain stiffness, and plot that against the density, you'll get points that fall very close to the same straight line for all softwoods. Cross grain stiffness relates more to annual ring angles than anything else. Sitka seems to run a little lower on average for cross grain stiffess, but it's hard to say: could be just a small sample on my part. So far I have not been able to measure _anything_ that is consistently 'different' between Red spruce and any other. Given the free hybridization, I have to wonder if we're really dealing with all that many different 'species' at all: maybe they're just 'clines' within one widely disseminated species.

Humor me some here still learning the wood thing am I'm using the laymans's brain and correct me if I have it wrong. So basically what I am understanding from the replies is both species I have available is suitable for guitar tops and as far as tone quality of either that falls into the eye (ear) of the beholder. Though red spruce being more prized due to its use in pre WW2 Martin's and a slight bit more strength then the common white. Once again thanks for your time and input.

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Build it cause then you know it's Made in the USA or **insert your country**

My experience is mainly with red spruce, but I did acquire a fair amount of white spruce from the Ted Davis estate. It was sourced from Newfoundland and Labrador. Some of it is very close to red spruce in its properties. I suspect that those samples may in fact be a hybrid. But some is quite different.....whiter, more uniform in texture, and stiffer across the grain. When I say more uniform in texture, I mean it is more solid (harder earlywood and softer latewood). It cuts more cleanly than red spruce due to this texture, and has a totally different smell.
That is, IMHO, one of the definitive tests for separating the two species. When I first started resawing the Davis wood, I was worried that I would not be able to correctly identify the billets (especially after reading the literature). But the smell is as different as Brazilian rosewood is from Indian rosewood.
BTW, the few white spruce tops I have saved should make killer guitars.
Ted's widow told me that Ted was not fond of white spruce, and after resawing it, I can see why. It is maddening in the amount of defects that crop up....from pitch pockets to pin knots to heart checks and heart stains. Though red spruce exhibits most of the same defects, they are usually not nearly so numerous.
There is some evidence that white spruce was used on some early-1900's American guitars, but the main musical use for white spruce has been piano soundboards.

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John

Here is a shot of the Labrador white spruce cut in March 1988:



Most of the white spruce Ted had was extremely tight-grained (25 to 45 per inch). Without building a guitar with it, I can only surmise that the extra cross-grain stiffness would translate to a brighter tone than the typical red spruce. The more solid texture may or may not increase the reverb, but the building style is always a major factor.

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John

As usual John - Thanx for all the good info.

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Very interesting - learn a new thing every day!

Thanks, Shane.