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I've been trying to get a small stock of laminated necks glued up and roughed out. I don't remember who said they do this. I read it here and it seemed like a pretty good idea so that if there will be any movement in the wood it will hopefully happen happen before it ends up on a guitar. I've got some really nice 2x4 maple and some 2x6 sapele. The wood is almost perfectly quartered. The trouble is it is quartered the wrong way so if I glued them up I would end up with a flat sawn neck.
I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this one but I thought I'd run it up the flagpole. Anyone ever build with flat sawn necks? Laminating with a layer of layer of wood going the right direction would help as would carbon fibre.

Thanks,
Danny

I could be wrong, but isn't maple stronger when it is flat sawn? Maybe someone else could confirm that.

It'll be stable-ish but not as "Tone-ful" as it could be. Here's my tutorial and commentary on the rift/ flat sawn on this forum.
http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10117&t=30171

Theres tons of old 50's Strats with flat sawn maple necks that people are still paying $30K and above for. It's just not my choice. Stronger flat sawn, no.

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Todd Lunneborg
http://www.tlguitars.com/
http://www.fretboardjournal.com/

I'm happy to see somebody on my side here... I heard too many times here that Flat is stronger that Q-sawn, with maple... Well, why? I did many tests on different pieces of different sizes, and well, flat and Q-sawn are close enough, for maple but... Q-sawn is still stronger, it's just mecanically logical. And Q-sawn is just WAY more STABLE than flatsawn. I would just never put some flat sawn in one of my neck, even if it's maple, even if it's laminated. I'd always go Q-sawn, or maybe rift sawn in the case of a laminate.

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Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

Quartered wood is more stable, but cracking is more likely, and in most species flatsawn wood is usually at least a little bit stiffer. I'll take stability over the minimal decrease in stiffness, etc., but I also don't have a problem building a fender-style instrument with a flatsawn maple neck.

I never really gave the stability factor much thought but I guess that's pretty logical. That's a good tutorial Todd. It would never have occured to me that grain direction would have an impact on tone. On the lamination in the toot you did what kind of heel did you carve into that one?

Best Of The Season

I would like to see some data on this, it sounds like one of the many urban myths of luthiery to me.

Fred

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Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

Not an urban myth. The neck is a tuning fork and acts as an additive to the tone if the body. If grain isn't set right it will affect the vibrational movement of the neck and limit it's movements which can dampen the output volume of the guitar. This is not a comment on strength.

Some builders don't consider the neck to be an important part of the whole tone of the guitar. They think a neck is a neck and is just necessary to hold the nut and the Fretboard so they focus on shape and taper but not the things that will make it a part of a tone system to match with the body.

Myths are full-moon harvested spruce and the like. Yes with some pieces of wood orientation of grain doesn't matter for tone or tone transfer. The density is such that sound will travel no matter what. But you can't garuntee speed of sound and density from species to species or piece to piece. There's a lot to learn about our craft, but neck grain orientation as it relates to tone isn't a myth. That's why I said it made a great neck but not a tonefull one.

Just watch some of the PRS private stock videos where Paul taps on neck blanks. I'll find it and post here next time I get to a computer rather then my phone.

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Todd Lunneborg
http://www.tlguitars.com/
http://www.fretboardjournal.com/

Well I guess it depends on how you look at it. For example you have this piece of 5/4" x 4" flat sawn maple. Now take this piece of FLATSAWN maple and rotate it 90 deg. and it miraculously becomes a very stable piece of 1/4 sawn maple suitable for a laminated neck. Amazing.

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Unfortunatly Bob the wood I speak of is 6/4 x 4" and 8/4 x 6". Both very well quartered. Turning them 90 degrees makes them flat sawn. But it's looking like a full moon here soon. Sounds like it's time to fire up the chain saw and dust off the night vision goggles. That's a new twist on Midnight Madness.

Filippo, you never commented on the original question. Have you ever done a neck with flat sawn?

Cheerio

Danny I understand your situation and IMHO I'd take your well quartered maple stock turned on edge over my flat sawn piece turned on edge. If your in doubt then insert some carbon fiber. You can also make up a built up neck with stacked heel and glued on headstock and maintain the qs orientation.

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

Maybe I am having a hard time grasping this however with either 2x4 or 2x6 you can glue up a neck with a conventional quartered orientation with this lumber whether it is flat sawn or quarter sawn.
If it is quartered and 2x4 or 2x6 why do you need to do anything ? If flat sawn and 2x4 or 2x6" , well 2 +2 = 4" and you have the quartered orientation. If it is only 1 1/2" and FWIW I would only refer to standardized dimensional building lumber with this terminology but in any case if you meant 1 1/2" X 3 1/2" when you said 2x4" you could still add a center strip if you wanted a decorative element and it would give you a bit more width and or you can add wings to the head stock and hide and strengthen the the scarf joint etc. Anyway it seem as if you could easily have a quartered orientation to the neck if you wanted with the wood you have.
L.

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Cut to size.....Beat to fit.....Paint to match.

I have built with flat sawn mahogany necks, and BTW a lot of 17/18 series Martins from the '30s onward have flat sawn necks. I've seen quite a few. It didn't seem to affect anything, but it is Honduran mahogany, and strength and stability on the flat or on the quarter are probably near equal.
Damping properties have nothing to do with the cut. Rift, flat or quartersawn: the same piece of wood with exhibit the same tonal properties. Mechanical properties are different, but virtually only cross-grain stiffness is affected by the cut.
As for the cutting of wood, everybody who cuts trees on a regular basis knows that cutting when the sap level is at the lowest produces lumber that is easier and faster to dry and more stable. This is no myth, nor rocket science.
I tend to agree on the importance of neck material in terms of weight and damping, but the tuning fork? What do you say of that:

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

Since you guys are gettin deep into the subject
I might as well ask

Does anyone out there base their neck stabality on
testing out which direction is an easier plaining direction
before deciding which side to cut the scarf /gue heel block

might as well ask if you do the same with your f/b too

thanks .tomas

Sorry if I wasn't clear Link. Here's some pics.

Maple

Sepale

The only way to use this for a quartered neck, assuming most people would call a quartered neck having the grain 90 degrees to the flat of the finger board, would be to stack it. I've done them but I don't care for the look too much. I'm not sure how maple would look stacked being that it tends to show glue lines more than darker wood. With a centre lamination it's easy to hide with veneer or something. The sepale might not look too bad stacked. I think I'll go glue some up and see what it looks like.

I get it. I see your dilemma now. You were clear enough, I was being myopic. I was only thinking of stacked heel style necks.
L.

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Cut to size.....Beat to fit.....Paint to match.

Looks like great neck stock as-is to me, for scarf joint and laminated heel style. I don't like the look of stacked heels either, so here's how I laminate them to look a bit nicer, if you can find a more flat/riftsawn piece of the same wood:


I like the look of the V shaped grain down the heel with riftsawn, although the closer you get to an exact match of grain angle to the neck shaft, the better for stability (and more invisible the center seam). The one in the second shot isn't symmetrical like the first, due to the way I cut and flipped it around, so it's not a perfect example of how good it can look.

The look of a scarf joint doesn't bother me, but can be covered up and made to look even better than a one-piece if you add a backstrap. And side wings too, if you don't even want to see the little glue line on the side of the headstock.

And is that maple 2"x4" or 2x4 as in 1.5"x3.5"? If the former, then you could even rip it down the center into two 1"x4" neck shaft blanks
And then rip those down to 1"x3" and laminate a 1/2" center strip between the leftover 1"x1" pieces and get a third neck, which would need headstock wings... which could be made from the taper cutoffs from the 1x3 blanks.

If it's 1.5"x3.5"... then just make one neck out of it.

Edited.

I own a 1934 Martin O17. I've seen those necks as well. If "damping" is the wrong word then try "Impede," which means "to slow or hinder the progress of..." You can take one half of an arch top book match that goes from perfect quarter to say rift sawn, tap it and it's great. Out of that 8" X 20" section you cut two 3" X 20" rips from the ends and leave the 2" X 20" middle section to the side. You tap those outer sections and there's a difference in volume and tone projection. So from from that single piece of wood just 2" inches apart you can audibly hear a volume and a sonic difference. And to me one of those pieces is "impeded or dampened" more then the other, or at least demonstrates a sonic spectrum that I'm not as much a fan of.

Yes, piece to piece is different, but to take wood from just 2 inches apart and the only difference is the grain orientation (and yes I'm not accounting for wet/ dry years within the grain medullary rays, I know)? I'm not commenting on strength or stability, never was, that's not the question or point. I'm commenting on "Tone transfer." Sound waves traveling in a straight line, the physics of sound not the strength of the mechanical properties. It's just my experience that with a neck, with it's grain set a certain way, there are more tone transfer possibilities then when the grain is oriented the other way, or in-between. I also know that by laminating my necks with 7-21 laminates I'm taking away most of the tone that was in the raw board and adding additional moisture and weight as a result. Which is why I know setting the grain correctly can help to bring some of it back.

Tuning fork: Absolutely! The shape of the neck, the headstock profile and size, the tuners (weight), all of it affects the tone of the body; the vibrational movement of the strings, the sonic flavors, everything. Build a guitar body and build 3 necks, one with a 10 degree headstock angle, one with a 12 degree and one with a 14 degree (the base of the fork). Your tone will change and not just because of the tension the angle has put on the strings. Or if you just think it's tension and that's not proof enough, change your headstock paddle size/ shape. Or simply change your tuners and you can change the sound. I've heard more then one builder refer to the neck as a tuning fork: PRS and Manuel (Paulo) Contreras Jr just to start and I trust them more on building then I do myself, so I started to pay more attention to my own work.

Moon Wood as a Myth: I was never commenting on proper harvesting techniques. Cutting the wood when the sap is crystalized rather then in flow is common sense and good harvesting sense. I just have a huge pet peeve with the sales of instrument wood as "Moon Wood" and it's some times over zealous diciples (maybe it's just me, I have goofy friends... like guys who refer to themselves as a "Luthier" constantly or in the 3rd person-- yes they do exist. Or who describe themselves as "World Class" in every other sentence, because it's a moniker or title that is bestowed on some ones work as an honor, not just announced every time one talks about themselves).

Inviting a customer to buy wood that's been harvested correctly, (isn't that the way it should always be anyway? Harvested correctly I mean) by selling the idea that it's going to make a better guitar just because it was done properly to begin with and then adding the "Moon Wood" moniker to make it more magical or hold a price point just irks me. When it doesn't matter how good the wood is when a builder can ruin the wood in a million ways throughout the build process. I've heard the spiel from a builder who I watched goof up his "perfect top" by over bracing and more. But I, "needed to buy it because it was better then anything else that I would ever use." (Right, I now see that it's just my weird friends!)

As a writer I'm also a stickler for definitions. And "Moon Wood" is too didactic for me. It indicates that the harvest is based on the lunar cycle only (29.53059 days) and I can't believe that just because day 19.7568 (or what ever) is the best day to harvest that you'll get the same result in July and August as you will in January and February. Wood is harvested and processed year round, I agree winter is the best time as the sap isn't in motion then and that the gravitational forces of the moon on our favorite raw material plays a part in the stability of the wood, but the myth is that just because it's harvested at the optimum point it will then make a better guitar as a result.

Just like Brazilian Rosewood guitars are "the best," that's a myth too. There are lots of great BRW guitars but it's not every guitar.

All of this can go both ways: Grain orientation, Moon Wood, laminations, whatever. There are cases where they all sound better or worse then the next. I'm just looking for repeatability and as such I'm paying attention to my grain orientation in my necks as I'm laminating. This is just one way I'm doing it. I never count on it to absolutely make my guitars better, that's my myth, I'm just hoping I haven't eliminated all the possibilities to keep some of the woods inherent tone in my work.

The PRS wood video: Make a body in 3 days and a neck in a month or so. It's interesting to reflect on the necks importance in acoustic building.

_________________
Todd Lunneborg
http://www.tlguitars.com/
http://www.fretboardjournal.com/

Todd, when I mention flat sawn neck I mean flat sawn. I do not mean 12/4 stock turned over. I've only seen flat sawn Honduran mahogany necks on Martin single 0's 17 and 18, it's obvious when looking at the heel. They're not common, but they're not rare either. Those being the cheapest guitars, perhaps Martin decided it was OK to use what I think were probably remnants from processing 12/4 stock. I've never seen a D-18 with a flat sawn neck for example.
I also built my 4th guitar with a perfectly flat sawn Cuban mahogany neck (long ago) with no issue whatsoever. The structure of mahogany is such that mechanical properties on the flat or on the quarter are, if not identical, pretty close.

As a friendly comment: I'm not saying that it does, but your tone has the potential to alienate otherwise interested (and interesting) participants.

To the conversation: your assumption that a quartersawn neck is more "toneful" than a flat sawn one can lead to an interesting conversation. I obviously disagree with your statement, it negates both my observations and my experience. I never heard a difference in taptone and sonic performance from perfectly quartersawn stock or flat sawn stock. But if we want to have a conversation we need more than gratuitous statements. We need some reasoning, observations, etc. Why do you think a quartersawn neck is more "toneful" And, what is "toneful"? If you say you just feel it is, that's perfectly OK. But then, it is not a statement of fact.

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

Thanks guys for the input. I appreciate hearing some different sides from people that have so much more experience than myself. I hope this keeps going. I'd like to hear what others think. I guess in a perfect world we'd all have 100 and some odd board foot slabs of Mahogany to work with. That PRS video was interesting and I think their treatment is no different than what many of us are trying to do. Work with dry, acclimatised wood. Get it and keep it as flat as possible through out the process. We know for sure it makes fretting much easier and it's bound to make for a better neck down the road. I don't see any reason to not think of the neck as a contributor of the over all sound of a guitar. In my case though It's not going to make a whole lot of difference because I have to work with what is available to me. I always have my eyes(and wallet) open for better stock. Like many of the aspects of building musical instruments, the end result is pretty subjective. The tone one person is looking for is not necessarily the one another wants. As far as how I might treat a neck differently to achieve better tone is pretty far down the road for me. I'll try to pay a little more attention to the outcome of a build, with respect to the neck, but with so many variables it would be pretty hard for me to pinpoint a difference. Right now I'm pretty happy if the darn thing just plays in tune and doesn't buzz.

On harvesting spruce according to lunar cycles, I'm pretty sure that would only have an effect on the females.

Best Of The Season,
Danny

Danny V,
Very diplomatic, nicely done.

Hey All:
I get it, I'm qualitatively trying to comment when I should be trying to quantitively comment. No hard facts offered just "hey all, lets live in the land of Todd Make-believe-neck tone and have that be reality for all to enjoy." I get it, I really do, but I haven't tried to lay a process for quantitative work yet. Results that can be yours as well as mine.

So whats next? I have always felt like, as Laurent said, having something that "negates both my observations and my experience" isn't always a bad thing. With my recent work in voicing at the Galloup school nearly everything I did there negated both my observations and my experience but the results proved me wrong. That's how things progress at their best, being challenged and then taken somewhere else, assumptions and experience be damned, the results are the results.

So basically I need to build a flatsawn neck, a rift sawn neck and a quartered one right, and then a laminated quarter and laminated rift? Then I have to figure out quantifiable testing procedures that I can relate to everyone else so they can test their own material right. OK, I'm game. I'm serious, I think it's possible. I'm in.

So Density (mass per unit volume) and Speed of Sound (how fast sound travels through an elastic medium) to start and then we can measure Modulus of Elasticity (a substances tendency to flex under force) as well. I can give the tap tone measurements in bulk and rough shape as well. Any ideas for other quantifiable needs?

To explain, here's what I was thinking about:

Speed of sound http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_sound
The actual measure of how fast sound travels through an object: Wood, plastic, metal
Having a tangible measure of how fast sound is moving through wood is helpful as you can then measure if the speed changes as it moves through density. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, right. Is that applicable to flat sawn and quartered wood as it related to the vibrational movement of the neck and strings.

Every species of wood has a different density. http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/wood-density-d_40.htmlThe grain is more compact or closely knit in Bloodwood, Brazilian Rosewood, Lacewood and more loosely packed in Spruce and Cedar. Sound will travel at different speeds through each of those woods.

The faster sound can move within an object the more energy (volume) is kept in the instrument. The more dense the material, more sound energy is used up just trying to work its way through the resistance resulting in decreased volume or tone.

My thought/ sense is that the same idea might apply to sound as it relates to grain orientation. The force of the vibrating neck wants to go, say side to side (like the strings move... in a circle really). My thought is that with a quartered neck, it's more efficient for sound to travel the way it needs to in order add to the tone of the instrument as a whole then it would be to have a flat sawn neck that wants to move up and down first as opposed to side to side first.

And flat sawn grain is more often radial. So there's more exposed curved grain within the cut of neck wood for the sound to travel through rather then a simple straight line of grain that a quartered piece reflects.

Totally generalizing here but that's the idea.

Sound interesting or no? Data is what's needed to further discussion right?

Thoughts?

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Todd Lunneborg
http://www.tlguitars.com/
http://www.fretboardjournal.com/

Is that stuff about the moon phase a joke? I'm gullible...

The problem with believing something is so wild it is crazy is that one doesn't have a basis for comparison. The problem with being the main supplier to the luthier gods is that one doesn't have a basis for a comparison.

No, not a joke. Any arborist will tell you when the best time to cut or trim your trees is. Those principles have been in place for centuries. Heres a couple of quick sites to gleam the principles behind the methods.

http://www.ecodesignarchitects.co.za/ecodesign-projects/current-projects/category/22-moonphase-wood-harvesting.html

http://www.tonewood.ch/moonwood.html

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Todd Lunneborg
http://www.tlguitars.com/
http://www.fretboardjournal.com/

Yes, trees vary with the phase of the moon, as well as with the season. There is nothing preposterous about the idea that living organisms have cycles that track the lunar cycle. Such patterns are seen in organisms from one-celled to humans.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cac ... X3rGSJT0lQ

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

I suppose this post has the potential to be a thread killer, which I regret, as the discussion about laminated necks is interesting. However, as a forest tree scientist with 35+ years’ experience and a bunch of formal qualifications, I wanted to bring some of the fact-vs-myth discussion down to earth. I don't mean to step on anyone's toes or single out statements made in the vein "Yes, of course it's true, everyone knows that!", but some may feel that's what I'm doing.

Does the season of harvesting affect log moisture content and thus durability (resistance to fungi/insect decay) prior to processing? Absolutely, and temperature also affects how these organisms will attack wood.

But, what about this "lunar phase" business on “wood quality”? The impact of lunar phase on growth rhythms and particularly wood moisture content has been something of an obsession for Earnest Zücher, who is the usual scientific authority cited as confirming the "ancient rules". Unlike most members of this forum, I have university access to scientific literature search engines and can review many electronic journals on-line. Zücher's latest effort to investigate lunar phase on wood water relations was just published this year (2010) in the peer-reviewed journal Trees: Structure and Function (24: 31-41). He took over 3400 samples of Norway spruce sapwood and heartwood, and indeed found small but statistically significant variation with lunar phase in moisture content, shrinkage on drying, and relative density (green:oven-dry ratio). In fact, all of these criteria are directly related to moisture content itself (any wood at lower MC will shrink less and have a lower relative density). This is easily the largest single study on the subject to date, but Zücher himself concludes “These first large-scale results however do not permit the estimation of the practical validity of single traditional rules: here too, further research is needed, especially on dimensional stability under changing hygrometry and concerning the effect on wood durability against decay.”

What to draw from this? Moisture content certainly varies with season and, it seems, to a much lesser extent with lunar phase. Freshly cut wood with higher moisture content is more vulnerable to decay and is both more difficult and requires more energy to dry to service moisture content. Is freshly cut wood with less moisture more “stable” or superior in any other quality? Zücher makes no such claims (although "moon-wood" merchants often do), nor could I find any scientific evidence to support that statement, and in fact there are a several articles that claim to have proven that this is NOT the case.

Water relations in wood and the drying of wood are complex topics, but fundamental to the processing and utilisation of timber. Freshly cut wood that has less moisture is easier to dry, requires less energy, and will “move” less during the drying process. However, if wood is dried properly, there is NO evidence of differences in behaviour of the dried wood related to original green moisture content. It is much more likely that the “ancient rules” around the felling of wood when moisture content is likely lower evolved to decrease its vulnerability to decay and hopefully make drying of timber easier.