Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi all,

Lance has indicated that I could offer a bit of a promotion to introduce my company. A quick look at our website should introduce us to you. To say thanks for all of your committment to the education of others and as an introduction please allow me to offer the following prices for the month of August only to OLF members. (please indicate that you heard about us here when you order to get this pricing).

'AAA' Lutz Spruce (Sitka/Wkite/Engelmann hybrid) guitar sets - singles for $35 USD and when buying 10 or more $30 USD.

'AA' Lutz Spruce guitar sets - singles for $20 USD and when buying 10 or more $15 USD.

I have poked around in the forum a bit and look forward to following a lot of advice listed here in my guitar making endevours (the first is in the early phases) and will offer some input from my 25 years plus as a woodworker and from experiences harvesting and milling spruce and cedar tonewoods.

Thanks to Lance for his help in getting me up and running on this forum and to Shawn Carlson and Bob Cefalu for their support and encouragement.

Shane

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Canada

Thanks Shane, can't wait to get mine! Did you say this hybrid is called Klutz Spruce?

Shane has some really nice wood. Well worth the price.

Hey Bruce,

The woods fine, it's me that's the "klutz"! Your tops should be there in a bit.

Hi Richard, been meaning to ask how the wood was working out. Glad to hear that they will do the job for you. Send some pictures once you have them bolted onto some guitars! Thanks.

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Canada

If two guys went together, could they order 10 AAA Lutz tops for the discounted price of $30 each? Then, for the added freight, would you ship to two addresses? Just wondering?

I'm a pretty reasonable guy. So I guess so. The $2 packaging would be applied to each order though. Have you got a friend Bruce? I mean besides me cause I already have lots of tops.

I am glad to see you keeping this forum alive, active and interactive, I will send a profile for the (budding) Luthiers Bio's in the next couple of days.

Keep well

Shane

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Canada

Shane, my wood arrived, paper cover hanging off on one end, but it made it, all pieces. That has to be some kind of record from Canada to Arkansas. Five days, was that Monday this shipped?

Anyway, what was all that writing on the center of the Lutz? Couldn't figure it out, didn't seem important, at least to me, so I sanded all sides of this stuff to see what I had. I must say I'm pleased.

Although I sanded it all and put Lutz SN, 8-05, Terrace BC on all sets, geez I forgot to flex a single piece. Wasn't quite awake yet. But will do that later.

Thanks for the extra packing set, will make a flat top mandolin for sure. One of the nicest sets developed a long knot reveal half way across, a third of the way in, so it'll be a mando set as well.

Now, here is my take so far on Lutz:

Grading on the AAA and AA seems appropriate, but unmarked, best I could tell. That's the way I'd grade it too. There may actually be a couple AAAA's in there. Quarter was perfect all sets, runout negligible, color striping on the AA sets, while the AAA sets had light medullary raying going on, which I like a lot.

The wood seems fairly dry to touch, with no apparent stickering on wood faces. A couple sets appear to have been sanded a tiny bit, but not cleared. Mostly the sets were rough cut with heavy steel bandsaw marks. Every piece cleared both sides on the drum sander.

The higher grade AAA sets were fairly uniform and white in color, with some slight pinking of the sets, more where medullary rays were evident and on the AA's where stripes occur. Okay, that pretty well does it, they are on the shelf 'til the bakeoff or 2007, whichever occurs first, heck I still have wood from '01.

I think anyone taking advantage of your offer Shane will be pleased. Okay, time to go build, cya.

Wow Bruce...that is a record!! I actually mailed them on 9 August, Tuesday! Of course you wanted it air mailed so I express postedyour order, which is not the usual and the postage was probably 80% higher or so ($35 rather than $25). Let me explain the marks on the face of the wood. First you see a triangle, that's a cabinets makers triangle, I've been using it for years in woodworking and I actually got that from one of James Krenov's books. It helps me a lot, especially when my hairy arsed Bull Mastiff knocks a pile of tops over and I have to re-sort them. Only a matcking set of triangle halves will match up. Inside the triangle are three letters, the first two identify the tree, in your case "KL", means I harvested this tree from the Kleanza watershed, about 25 miles from my house. The last letter "G", you guessed it....guitar. The numbers inside the triangle are the series number of tops from that tree (404 will be the 404th top from that tree). The numbers underneath are the shortest form for the date the tops were re-sawn, for example 1-5-5 would be May 1, 2005. This particular tree was felled in October 2004. I dry them in a room in my house where the hygrometer indicates that the moisture level is always 40% or lower. I sticker the wood and have fans blowing across them for about 10 days. They are then quite dry (they are thin afterall) and then I move them to a heated shed for storage.

I didn't labell the grades on them, I don't usually unless someone orders different grades, as you did. I grade them and the tops are stacked under their grade in my storage areas. I wanted to see what you thought and see if the difference in grades was appearant. You wanted 4 of each. The nice set that had knot shadow develop is a good example of what will take a nice set and make it 'AA' when it would otherwise be 'AAA' or 'AAAA'. By the way, I think some of this wood is extremely nice but not quite 'AAAA', I need a bit more room because I think there is one grade better out there and I am on the hunt for that tree!!

Bruce, thanks for offering your thoughts on this wood, I hope the group appreciates your analysis as much as I do. Also I hope I have explained the process, I keep a log (no pun intended!) of the wood I cut so I can offer anacdotal information about their wood for those who like those kind of things.

Thanks again

ShaneShane Neifer38577.7633449074

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Canada

Shane,
I slipped down to the shop again and looked the wood over again. It is generally much lighter than the Sitka tops I have, but it favors Sitka more than say Englemann.

The Englemann I've seen and have is somewhat tinted yellowish. Anyway, I'm happy with the wood, their is some change in grain spacing on these pieces. Without counting my guess would be average of 30 gpi inside to around 16 gpi outer.

I counted tops in my shop and had no idea that including this Lutz Hybrid Spruce, I have 120 tops. Time to slap a few on some guitars, momma wants a new diamond ring. I guess after 33 years she ought to have one too.