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And a second one--this is wood I bought from Gurian in Hinsdale NH a zillion years ago. Lots of grains per inch--the top never made it to a guitar. Braced the top in 78. May finish it up someday.

Is this compression grain? Thanks again,
Dave

The first one looks just like a lot of the Engelmann I have.

It does look a lot like your picture earlier--this was from Alaska Specialty Woods and I at least assume it's old Sitka. Nice wood regardless. I'm not much of a dendrologist though (although I had some training in the subject back in college days...).

Dave

The top in the second picture reminds me of some wood I've seen before, but I can't remember where. I only have a couple dozen sets of Sitka so it is not a species I'm that familiar with.
Alan says "spruce is spruce" and for the most part I agree with him. It is more about the piece you have in your hand than any "average" qualities you will read in a book. I think Engelmann is a highly variable species because that is what I have encountered. I have also noticed differences in western red cedar in color and qualities. It's possible other species vary just as much - just that I haven't seen enough examples to make me aware of it. As John Arnold mentioned, the timber merchants select and grade the wood for the qualities they believe their clients require, so we may never see how much variety there is in a species.

No that is just hard grain again.
There are 2 photos in this thread asking if either are compression. Neither are, and both are just hard grain. I was looking around the warehouse to see there may be anything laying around with compression wood. But nope. I will attempt to describe it. It is reactionary wood comes from areas of a tree where that grows with stress. A tree On a steep sidehill of a mountain. Where there is a very “offset” heart. Like total volume of mass could be divided 66% or more on one side of the heart and 33% or less on the other. The side with the most mass, the 66% would have the compression wood in it. It can also occur near limbs. It will be a dense dark line fiber. But it’s usually quite wide in relation to the other growth rings/lines. But what sets it apart and makes it look different than Just “hard Grain”, is that the compression growth will have the heavy hard grain and fading into a lighter colored cellulose within the same growth line,. It would be common to see compression grain to be 3/16-1/4” wide in a tree that has 10-16 growth lines per inch elsewhere. Also when compression wood is cut, there is a lot of :Timber Bind" in the fiber, and boards will bend as its cut, like a bow. And when it dries, it "potato chip" bends and cups cross ways and lengthways. Hope this helps.

P/s I came across a few low grade tops while grading and sorting today that have the compression grain and took a picture with a board with just hard grain next to it.

Excellent--thanks! I like your soundboards, by the way. Getting ready to start another guitar using one.

Dave

He compression wood looks like you are almost seeing the dark grain at an angle, and that's why it looks so wide. At least from that photo. I know I've seen stuff that looks like that.

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Why be normal?

Does wide grain have to be compression grain, or can it just be fast growth?

no. There is fast growth cellulose and there is compression which is "reactionary" growth. 2 very different types of growth.

Yes it does, but these boards are cut perfect VG "on Quarter", I just looked to confirm. So there is no angle to it.

That's a great explanation with the photo Brent, thanks.