Official Luthiers Forum!

Hey Guys,

I have 4 tops and 4 sets of back and sides and I'm trying to decide which goes best with each for OM size guitars. Can you help me decide how to match these up.

The tops -
Western Red Cedar
Carpathian Spruce
Sitka Spruce
Sitka Spruce w/a lot of bear claw

The Back & Sides -
East Indian Rosewood
Black Walnut
Zirocote
Brazilian Rosewood

My friend, Steve Brown, says I should use adirondack for the brazilian...

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

Sure Steve buddy I will PM you my addy and you can pack it all up and send it to me. It may take me 10 years to make a recommendation but it will be a good one when I do......

Adi and BRW is always a great combo but I didn't see you list any adi in your list?

Walnut and sitka
Ziricote and bear/squirrel claw sitka
EIRW and WRC
And the carp with the BRW if you don't have adi

East Indian Rosewood/Western Red Cedar
Black Walnut/Sitka Spruce
Ziricote/Sitka Spruce w/a lot of bear claw
Brazilian Rosewood/Carpathian Spruce


IRW and WR Cedar and BRW and Carpathain for great tonal match ups and that left the two Sitka tops to use with the other two back and sides. I just put the BC with the Ziricote for visisual apperance but you could switch this around if you want.

Now this is not knowing anything about the individual tops. So if I had the woods in my shop wher i could tap them and feel them I very well could make a different choice Such as Cedar with BRW. Very subjective question you know but in general I stick by my first picks

Previous experiance tells me that the BC Sitka will be a bit less clear in tone than the other tops so I would not use it on the BRW unless it rang like a bell.

Added to the good advice above... I find it useful to wet the boards with naptha & hold them side by side to check out the colour combinations.
The first guitar I built was Honduras Mahogany & Redwood... Both woods finished up a reddish colour, but the hues clashed badly. Good thing the guitar sounded so nice, 'cause it was no joy to look at...
Spruce looks good with anything, but Cedar & Redwood can be problematic.
Have fun eh!

I go with what Chris choose !
mike

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Mike Collins

I would go ....

cedar over ziricote .. the ziricote is bright like ebony, the WRC will warm it up.
carp over brw, unless you get adi or nice lutz
pick what ever sitka looks best over one of the other two ...

Or none of the above .. toss a coin .... they will all just be different flavours of ice cream, like B&J vs Hagen Daz vs King Soupers brand ....

_________________
Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

My choice is always red spruce with red spruce bracing. Bear claw sitka is 2nd and Carpathian 3rd. that is my taste in tops. Engleman is 4th . Just my opinion
john hall
BCG

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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

Put the red cedar with the walnut. This way you can kind of dump all the mud in one bucket and get it out of the way.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Send it all to someone you feel is worthy of it and try using pine.
I think that I agree with Daniel. Wet the wood and see what it may look like, as well I agree with Chris ( Verhoevenc)

just my .02cents,
Mike aka MiKro

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I'm outside looking in, just farther from the window than most.

Thanks Guys,

Well there were some interesting reponses. This was intended to get some opinions and there was everything from "it doesn't matter because it has more to do with construction" to "use the walnut and cedar together to dump the mud in the same bucket". But there does seem to be concensus that WRC goes well with EIR (although, Tony suggested cedar over zirocote). Are there other opinions of whether WRC would be better on zirocote or better on indian rosewood....? Otherwise, it appears that everything else works well together. Although the other tops were all spruce...

But packing it up and giving it someone else isn't what I had in mind...

_________________
Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com