Official Luthiers Forum!

Sorry, Brent! Just corrected that mistake in my post!


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Thanks again for all the helpful responses. I'm not new to woodworking, have been at it for several decades but not professionally. My pride and joy in the shop is my MiniMax bandsaw (MM16). It resaws anything I throw at it without blinking...so far.

My disappointment was in the EIR back and sides, primarily the back. The bookmatch is off enough that I'll lose some top and bottom in matching it, hopefully not so much to force a change in design, but even then it won't be a great match. And one of the faces on the Engelmann top was very rough - not a big deal of course. It's just that "first impression" sort of thing.

My rookie mistake was not seeing exactly what I was getting before buying. Anyway, I've been having a blast looking through the inventory of the suppliers you've all recommended. If my wife knew what I was looking at.....

While I agree that your safest bet is to buy from sponsors, you still need to have some ability to know what to expect.

TRUE STORY:
I bought a cedar AAA top from a sponsor recently and it can came as significantly off-quarter sawn and long (3") splits on the end. The good thing is that the sponsor made good on it and sent me a much better top to replace it. Here are some facts told to me by the sponsor that surprised me:

They said: They put much more value on the look of the top and paid little attention to the quarter sawing. They don't know the how long a split can be without causing the top to be unusable for building the advertised guitar size (I bought a jumbo size and they don't know when a split will rule out the use of their top for building the advertised jumbo "since they are not guitar builders") They said they do very little cedar and have trouble sourcing it (that should be said on their web site so I know to go elsewhere for a more experienced and resourceful supplier IMHO)

Again, the sponsor made it right for me which is great. But it was not without surprises. I'm not going to name the sponsor.

Ditto. I love my MM16 too. Powerful and accurate re-sawing of all the wood I use except tops.

Thanks, Ed! Yes, having well-tuned expectations is important, and learning those lessons is part of that journey. I'm just happy to be going down that road.

My MM16 was one of the best investments I made for my shop.

Some times you have to cut inward on one half to get a perfect book match. Other times you accept that it isn't perfect

Rough cut top would seems to be the norm to me, at least from the suppliers I get from mostly.

It was my best investment too. For guitar building, unlike furniture building, I find it much more useful than a table saw.

Often with the soundboards you will find one face planed and the other left rough (and often all four left rough). I like to keep my tops stickered and stacked for 4 or 5 years (or longer)and allow them to "season" before I use them. I've heard a rough sawed surface, rather than a planed one, allows for easier movement of moisture through the wood. With Engelmann tops I like to check both edges for runout and join the edges with the least runout. Engelmann spruce often has spiral grain and the runout can vary a lot from one edge to the other.
Unlike soundboards where either side can usually be book matched, Back woods usually have a better book match one way than the other, and sometimes neither is perfect. The "perfect match" left with the kerf the sawblade took.