Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi Shane!!
Do you have a business web page here at OLF?
If not, what woods do you sell??

Thanks,
Walter

Walter

Shane is the owner of High Mountain Tonewood, they are in the sponsors list.

Thanks Russ!!!

Sometimes I'm not all here...
Too many prescribed Drugs!

Thanks

Walter

Shane...
Do you have a pic you can post of a good example of your Master Grade Luts spruce??

I would appreciate it.

Thanks,

Walter

Hi Walter,

Sorry for the delay, I was in the bush all day today. I don't have any master grade, having said that all of the wood I have sold people really like but I think there is another grade yet out there so I won't call my stuff master grade. I will take a picture of a top I am working on now and post it in a bit. Spruce is hard to photo, especially when you have to reduce quality to 150K but I will get it up for you. THe wood I have I call 'AAA'. Grain counts are 40's in the tight to 20 or so on the outside. They are stiff and well quartered with virtually now run out.

Oh ya. Right now I sell Lutz Spruce and Western Red Cedar. I have a rosewood and ebony shipment arriving in a week or so and I sell an assortment of bindings and purflings, new order should be here Friday. I also sell truss rods and will soon be stocking Sperzel tuning machines. I custom cut to anysizes requested. I will now also make go-bar dishes.

Shane Neifer38621.9437962963

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Shane...

How do you know it's Lutz?

Can you tell from the wood, or from the needles?

Thanks!

PS....

First post here....
Hi all!spruce38621.9773726852

Hi Bruce and welcome to the OLF, You'll like it here there are a lot of great people who are not at all shy in lending a hand with any questions.

In the part of the country where I live, three species of spruce converge. They are Sitka, White and Engelmann. I have started some research for an article I am going to write for Guitarmaker Mag. In talking with researchers from our Ministry of Forests, they have confirmed that the spruce in my area is ALL hybridized, to varying degress. Below about 3500 feet of elevation (my house is at 500 feet) all spruce will be a hybrid of White and Sitka, above that elevation it will probably be a hybrid of all three. These hybridized species are Picea lutzii or Lutz Spruce. You can definately see the dominance in each tree, mostly by canopy structure. In the wood you see it is mostly in the texture (for lack of a better term) in that this spruce is nice and stiff but not as 'course' looking as Sitka. It can have a fair bit of colour but typically it tends to the whiter tones. I haven't done a cone comparision, mostly because I don't have pure species cones to compare to, but this has been done and will be in the literature. I will know more when I get finished with the research and have the article written but I hope this helps. Taxonomists categorize species and look at thier differces based on habit and habitat, in this case I guess it's habitat!

Shane

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Canada

Hi Walter'

I took these pictures of a top I am working on with the rosette installed. This a typical 'AAA' set. I hope there is enough detail to see the wood. It is difficult to photo quality spruce because there is no funky figure to show off!







I hope enough detail shows through to get an idea of the wood.

Thanks

Shane

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Canada

I bought some from Shane and will concure with him that it is very nice stiff wood, His AAA compares with any other I've seen and nicer than much (nicer than some wood I've seen people try to sell as Master) so I am looking forward to when he finds his "Master grade wood. As far as the look of the wood goes I would say that it is much lighter than sitka although it has some of those pink colours in it. To my eye it looks like the wite spruce we have here in Northern Ontario but of course, I've never seen a spruce around here big enough for a guitar top. Building my first guitar with it now and am looking forward to comparing it to the Sitka and Red spruce I ussually use. So far it looks very promising.

Thank you Shane for the nice pictures. The wood tops look really great.
I appreciate you taking time to do the photos.
I will buy some soon!!
Thanks again.

Walter

Hi Shane...

Is the sapwood in the hybrids usable as it is in Engelmann and White, or
does it resemble Sitka sapwood which is usually not usable?

Thanks in advance....
Bruce

Hi Bruce,

I think that the sapwood is usable. I know that one of the cutters up here ships it for braces. It is always very tight grain, but wetter and heavier than the dickens so would need to be dried for quite some time. The sapwood is a different colourtone on all of the trees I have looked at, harvested and processed. Including those that resemble white/engelmann or sitka. So when I process I split the blocks into rectangular sections and remove the bark (there is a picture of blocks stacked in the bush on my website that will give you an idea of how I "pre-process" at the harvest site), leaving a bit of the sapwood. When I saw the tops I square three sides using a lazer to mark the saw kerf line so I can cut right adjacent to the sapwood, maximizing the outer tight grain. Then I switch fences and slice tops from the squared blocks. It is fairly slow but allows for a lot of control over runnout and slope.

Hope this helps Bruce. A couple of years ago I ran across your website and considered sending you some samples on spec but never made it that far.

Shane

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Canada

Shane...

Thanks for that...

Your neck of the woods has always intrigued me hybrid-wise...

Love to make it back up there some day...

Anytime Bruce, We'll make room!

Shane

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Canada