Official Luthiers Forum!

I have seen back and side sets displayed for sale that are, judging from the grain pattern, considerbaly less than quarter sawn.

I ask because I have a good amount of black walnut, more than I should have hauled in one load in a 1/2 ton pickup,that has been air drying for more than thirty years. It is log run and only a small portion is quartered.

How far can I safly stray from perfectly quartered and not invite disster. TIA

Cecil

I'm of the camp that quartered is over rated. Yes, it's best but I've built with completely flatsawn wood and had no problems at all.

I quite often use cocobolo way off quarter, and walnut, I think you would be fin Walnut is useually pretty stable.

I recently built a walnut dred with flatsawn crotch grain for he back, and quartered for the sides. It came out fine.

Al

quarted tops very important Back and sides not. A large portion of the pre band BRW left is flatsawn and still bring $500+MichaelP38783.7402777778

You can be off-quarter by a fair amount for backs (even all the way to flat
sawn, as others have stated) and not have trouble. The closer to quarter
the sides are, the less likely you will have waves across the grain after
bending.
Craig

Quilted maple for instance, only shows the really good figure when flatsawn.
Wood is certainly more stable when well quartered, but some off-quarter won't kill you either. I have a set of cocobolo on a guitar I started a couple years ago, and it's incredibly stable, even though the outer parts are very flatsawn. But the figure in the middle is killer !.
That said, I usually try to get the most quartersawn woods I can to use. Except for tops. The more quartered the better in my book.

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Don this is really cool looking also!

http://www.dewguitars.com/progress/ZISS-D-03.htmGraham Steward38783.8296643519

Thanks for the input guys.
You have sucessfuly planned my next few weekends for me.
I'll post some pecs if I can get that photo thing figured out.

Cecil

whew hou hou! that was bayou tee full!!!!!!

My own personal opinion on this is that it is not absolutely necessary to have backs that are perfectly quartered, but I try to keep my sides as close to quarter as possible.

My experience with walnut has been different. All my quartered sets have stayed straight as a ... uh.... board? and the off quarter and crazy figure sets have curled up like potato chips -- some so bad that I don't dare ever try and use them.

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

i remember that one.. I had to wash my shorts the first time I saw it

As others have said, if off quarter wood isn't usable...you can eliminate 95% of the brazilian rosewood or cocobolo guitars being built today.

Speaking of cocobolo, just got some. None quite big enough for quartersawn, but close.

Only 200 bf or so is mine...I took the big ones!



Andrew Wright
Managua, Nicaragua