Official Luthiers Forum!

[QUOTE=ggdelazzer]Beg your pardon for my rough english. I'll buy a new dictionary [/QUOTE]

Don't feel bad... your english is MUCH better than my Italian.   

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

[/QUOTE]

Arnt, have you ever used Norwegian 'Norwegian Spruce'?

Colin[/QUOTE]


I have made a mandolin from 70 year old scraps, it sounds pretty good. It is also all I use for guitar braces; I think it's wonderful for that. It is however very hard to find quartered pieces big enough for 2 piece guitar tops since it is usually dimensioned for construction or goes to pulp, but the trees are certainly big enough for it if somebody would start picking out logs for it. Don't think I haven't thought about it...

Of course I realize that European spruce is "not all the same" as far as quality goes, and it seems that wood from certain areas share common characteristics. Yet, as far as I understand these characteristics are attributed to climate, soil and so on, there are no genetic differences in trees from the regions. Which region that has trees with the most desirable qualities for guitar making is a different matter and I certainly do not have enough experience to say which is "better".

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Arnt
I am admittedly no taxonomist, but I do believe that in the USA, if you were to go to the nursery to buy a tree and you wanted a Pices abies you would ask for a Norway spruce. I think that is its Botanical common name (if there is such a thing) on this side of the Atlantic.

At any rate, I agree with you that different growing conditions are the only difference between Norway, and Swiss and German and Italian Spruces. In fact, you can probably find similar growing conditions in all those places with predictably similar results in wood produced.John Kinnaird38694.4855092593

[QUOTE=ggdelazzer]

Howard, the answer is NO
[/QUOTE]

To what question?

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

[QUOTE=Howard Klepper] John, what is the question here: whether European spruce from other
countries is just as good as Italian (answer is yes), or whether you should
use something else and tell the customer it's Italian?[/QUOTE]

Howard, the answer is NO for both questions.
John even the seeds are different, I can send you some. ggdelazzer38694.7219791667

"Good", now that is the question/issue. In my opinion saying that any spruce is "better" than any other spruce, based solely on location is obsurd! Are they "different", absolutely!! So you look for the combination you want, the best European is not better than the best Sitka or the best Engelmann or the best Lutz or the best Adi, just DIFFERENT. John, you're a bit stuck, the customer wants Italian that's what you get him, the charge reflects your efforts to get it. If your customer is open to other suggestions then you can talk to him about options based on your experience. But he should know that it ain't no better than good spruce from other areas.

Stepping off my soap box now...

Shane

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Canada

John: ...and be shure you are not already buying something different from what you think

As a collector I have various kinds of guitar, violin and cello tops coming from almost any wood of the world. Together with Fabio Ognibeni (considered here one of the most experienced spruce gurus) we tested for grain count, weight, straight and cross grain stiffness, calculated elasticity factors, ultasound transmission speed etc some certified Englemann, swiss, german, austrian, carpatian, croatian, different italians, alaskan, canadian and US sitka, Lutzii, red and yellow cedar from British Columbia. Not shure if posting test results would be correct and do not know if and how results may be related to a "better" sound and finally if this really makes sense but guys I'm shure they would be an interesting surprise.

Why don't we run a serious comparison?

Ggggdelazzer38694.77625

I'd like to see those results.

Luigi,

The point is that each and every single individual piece of wood is just that. Single and individual. We already know that a piece of 1/8 inch plywood is going be stiffer that a spruce top but that doesn't make it better. The comparisions BETWEEN species I think are less important than those comparisions WITHIN species. And then only from experience will these values have meaning. Siminoff, in "A Luthiers Handbook" talks about top tuning using deflection rather than signal generators saying that it is faster and equating it to the tension of a guitar string. He uses the example of a .010" string on 26" scale legth will produce a 'D' with a sting pull of 13 pounds. So you can tune the string by using something that "hears" the string or you can just pull it to 13 pounds and it will be a 'D'. This is where modes of elasticity may will be useful, you have measured your woods, you built an instrument, you are happy with the results, you have a process that is somewaht repaeatable. That's the simple part. Stringed instruments are collection of a large number of pieces, the top is just one of them. So telling me that one of the 100 (or whatever number you have) sets of Italian Spruce sets is 20% stiffer than one of the 20 (or whatever you have ) sets of Sitka or one of the 50 (or whatever you have) sets of Engelmann or one of the 80 (or whatever you have) sets of German tells me little. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind, that given a mission, I could go over to the Queen Charlotte Islands and find you a piece of Sitka spruce that has in excess of 50 gpi across the entire top that will be as stiff or stiffer than anything else you could find in the Spruce family on the planet. Some will say that it is too stiff (and I would agree) but still, if stiffness is all you are looking for then it will be availble in that piece, but it doesn't make it BETTER, just DIFFERENT!!

I guess I wasn't quite off my soap box...soon though.

Shane

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Canada

I personally like Gigi's attitude. None of this relativistic stuff. I hope to go
over there sometime and get the spruce tour. Then I can come home with
some of the fiemme tops and agree with Gigi that it's the best.

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Shane
I fully agree with you, that's the reason why I'm concerning about the opportunity to post results like those I have; I do not want to make more confusion than what actually already exist. "Best" is always a personal opinion and depends mostly on our cultural background, numbers are something else.

I already have very stiff sitka that would be perfect for aircraft constructions but sounds like aluminium; we both agree (already discussed privately if I remember well) that stiffness is not the only property we should look for while choosing a piece of top tonewood. Stiffness does not match elasticity that is another important pattern.

Howard
I like my personal attitude also but I'd like to underline again that my opinions are personal and obviously not absolute. I'm just sharing an idea and I'm ready to change my mind if useful for my bad mannered ears.

The reasons why you should take the time for a trip here are several: wood, food, culture, a nice bounch of good old krazy friends, wonderful mountains, wonderful women (sound speed transmission widely tested but no data available, we're gentlemen).

Back soon

That sounds good Gg. I'm checking the cheap airline tickets now.

In the meantime. Please do post your spruce data.

John

Luigi,

We did talk about this sometime ago. My concern about these comparisons between species is because of the extreme variation within a species. I have one tree that I am almost done working on, the one that you will be getting sets from soon I hope!, that has a tremendous range in 'stiffness', and it seems relative to the section of the tree that the sets are cut from. I have some mild to moderate bearclaw sets from this tree that, in general, are less stiff than the non-bearclaw sets. Typically, it is felt that bearclaw sets are stiffer, but not so in this tree, therefore I am reluctant to sell them and don't advertise them. They will be experimental sets which will require some level of stiffer bracing/thicker tops. On the other side of the coin on this tree, some of my customers, including William Cumpiano, have stated that is amoungst the best top wood they have seen in their years of building, same tree! I have seen this huge variation in just a single tree so you can only imagine the difference in all of the trees of one species. Testing a few sets from one species and from a few different trees in that species will not, IMHO, give you the data to make any difinitive statement, especially since a moderate size tree will yield 700 to 1000 sets, that is why subjective generalization almost remains the rule and allows for these great discussions. Having said that, I would also like to see your numbers. Jim Watts, one of our forum memebers and an engineer, did some tests on some Lutz he got from me, so I would like to compare those numbers with the numbers you have, purely for interest sake. Good discussion though Luigi, thanks.

ShaneShane Neifer38695.5075925926

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Canada

There is no way that I, or anyone here, can look at a piece of non-Sitka
spruce (Red, White, Engelmann, European--the so-called
"Transcontinentals") and tell, with absolute certainty, what species it is,
much less what country it grew in...

[QUOTE=Shane Neifer]
(...) Good discussion though (...)
Shane[/QUOTE]

Shane
I agree with you again; I also noticed a great difference among billets of the same tree and here we are right now talking about variations within the same species. We know this is quite common among the logs we carry home.

What did we test? The wood I received from sellers who say their wood is the best wood ever seen (often quoting master luthiers). I'm shure that the wood you sent to Mr Cumpiano was the best you ever had. Is the same wood available in quantities? If the answer is yes "you are sitting on pure gold" (quote: name both the luthier and the seller). Mmmmmh... the pure gold I received from one of your neighbourghs wasn't one of the best at all in our tests. Maybe a few boards have been picked up from wrong billets of the same log? I would prefer a serious and useful comparison... forget wood whose availability is 1 board per year; let's compare second grade tops, the ones we commonly buy.

This was just an example of what test results may show: BS of some sellers... (obviously I am not referring to anybody in particular) and that's why I am reluctant in posting them, you know I don't want to start the 3rd world war.

I have a list of US luthiers who say their guitars sound better with the wood I've sent them. Free wood of course. I'll trust them when they will say the same thing of a board they have paid with a lot of their bucks

Very good discussion Shane

Gg


ggdelazzer38695.7824652778

[QUOTE=spruce] There is no way that I, or anyone here, can look at a piece of non-Sitka
spruce (Red, White, Engelmann, European--the so-called
"Transcontinentals") and tell, with absolute certainty, what species it is,
much less what country it grew in...[/QUOTE]

Spruce
are you kidding? For any piece of wood I own I can say the harvester's chainsaw model and year of construction and where he did buy the gasoline needed    ggdelazzer38695.7960069444

I had a nice long post written up put it got "dumped" by the internet/my computer/ the gods, I don't know!! Anyway, Luigi, you should post your results. You can state your sample size and we all understand that you have more control over your local samples than the ones you import so the results should be reflected in that way. They would be interesting none the less.

Two other points. 1) My neighbour and I are not similiar. I will not hype my products, as a result I do not sell as much as he but I feel better that way. He has good wood but I have not seen any of his processed sets in sometime so I do not know if they get the care they deserve, but maybe. Still, the wood from our area is just another quality option.

2) The sets that Cumpiano bought (yup he paid for them) were 'AAA'. I got about 50% 'AAA's out of that tree, no mastergrade in my opinion. Every one who bought 'AAA' sets from that tree (I have a few left) got the same as he. Grading is still very subjective so I tend to undergrade I think because I really do not like unhappy customers. If a customer is not happy with one of my products, it is my fault not theirs so I grade conservatively.

Anyway, please post your results, no wars will occur.

Thanks Luigi

Shane

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Canada

Shane
We had a nice correspondence weeks ago, I know you are a serious intendor, feel you are much more affordable than others and positively trust everything you say. We (mean you and me as well) do not tell lies as we do not have the need; nobody says William - whose bible I still consider the guitarbuilder’s best friend after years of pages consumpion - does. There’n no reason for further discussions on this argument.

The tests (that in my opinion may at best address about top thickness) have to be understood and that’s the reason why they will safely rest into my PC untill I’ll be shure I can answer the several questions they may suggest; I don’t want to see this forum submersed by wild and uncontrolled data (as sometimes happened in other forums, do you remember treads on baking tops?) and I'm much more interested in reading personal opinions about wood rather than numbers.
The tests we runned are a 4-hand work, I’ll talk to Fabio and hear from him if and which result may be published. Papers are privately available if you are interested but please let me talk to the spruce scientist. No rush, don’t you dig?

We are hijacking John’s tread.
Keep in touch

Gigi

Gigi, would you check Private Messenger. I sent a similar message to you
months ago and got no reply.

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.