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I am coming up with a new sound hole and rosette design (lots of "borrowing" going on) and I thought before I cut up a very nice Sitka top, I'd practice with some nicely quartered 2x6's from Home Depot. I cut up a few slices and sanded them to .125 and glued a few up. It was nice jointing practice also. I can only resaw to just under 6" on my 14 inch Steel City.

Anyway, I thought I'd give them a tap or two and ... Oh My! This board at that thickness and with only about 5 rings/inch rings like a gong and goes on for seconds it seems. Now if I can only find some tight grain, well quartered, no pitch pockets, and glue up a 3 piece top...!

Since there was a recent thread about the sound of DF, I just wanted to chime in with first hand experience.
Steve

With the predictions about how much longer the Sitka supply is going to last, I'm always looking at possible alternative tonewoods. Thanks for sharing this. I may include some Douglas Fir in my future experimenting.

Rick

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Rick

I have absolutely zero experience but I do know of other luthiers who use doug fir, particularly in classicals. Companies like Gilmer Wood Company (http://www.gilmerwood.com/) keep it in stock...

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"Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy." - Winston Churchill

Here in Northern California you can walk into any pro lumber yard and find beautiful quartered, tight grain doug fir. I love the look of a doug fir top and have been using it on my ukuleles. Superior sound to the standard Koa tops in my opinion.

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http://goatrockukulele.com

I got a Douglas Fir top awhile ago. Haven't built with it yet, but it does have an amazing tap to it.

Does have a lot of sticky sap though.

I got mine from Larry Stamm in Canada.

Neil

Good Doug fir is very resonant, but its density tends to be rather high. That means that a top will tend to be heavier than a spruce top at a given stiffness. This may or may not be a bad thing depending on what type of instrument you are building and what the expected result is.

M