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Do you like bear claw or not so much...?

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

Love it! But generally it has higher mass so only appropriate for certain things…

I love bear claw, but not all bear claw is created equal.

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Could you guys elaborate...?

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

Are you asking about the aesthetics or the structural aspect? I love it for the aesthetics. I've used it on a 3 Ukuleles. I treat it like any other top. Braced and thicknessed to maximize the most of what the particular top can do.

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https://www.facebook.com/PuraVidaUkuleles/

Yes! Particularly when it presents a symmetrical pattern in a bookmatch like in this set I used several years ago.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I think liking or disliking bear claw is a totally personal opinion. In general I really dislike the stuff but every once in a blue moon I see sets that have not only a nice bookmatch but also have an attractive (to me) pattern, other than that it holds no appeal to me and I'd NEVER buy a set sight unseen

Overall I understand that 'claw tops tend to be a bit less stiff along the grain ('claw is a change in runout) and a little stiffer across. A lot depends on the top, of course, and you really need to measure the top to be sure. A friend of mine has a skew cut Sitka 'claw top blank with cross stiffness so low I think you could about wrap it around a soda can.

Bear claw changes the local stiffness and density of the top wood where it occurs. That sort of local change alters the way the top vibrates and puts out sound at high frequencies, when the moving areas are small. Even with straight grain this seems to be enough to prevent making 'identical' guitars that sound the same. I've always felt that 'claw tops tended to sound more 'interesting'.

Some customers don't like it; some do. I like it, so I hope it's a wash...

I like the aesthetics of it quite a bit. A Dred I have with a Bear Claw Sitka top is one of the best Dred's I've ever heard.

Depends on the top. If it’s balanced from side to side I like it, otherwise not so much.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

When it is uniformly all over the top it can look nice, but a few random claw marks are not so cosmetically pleasing. However they are often still good tops, so I don't mind using them.

There's "bear claw" and there's "bear flaw". I love bear claw, and do not mind bear flaw. A heavily bear clawed top with horizontal to the grain claws is one of the few things I will judge a top on aesthetically when choosing one.

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Instagram: @jfrenchluthier
Web: https://www.jfrenchguitars.com/

Looks like stretch marks on a pregnant belly...definite no from me!

. . . which are natural and beautiful and she has never looked better, etc., etc. Anybody who has ever had a pregnant spouse knows that!!!

Aesthetically, I love it. I've never worked with it and can't respond from that perspective.

I can chime in on this subject. I've produced this product for at least 25 yrs. And had cutting tops with this attribute dialed in really well at least 19-20 yrs ago. The name "Bearclaw", is a namesake term associated with perfectly VG cut boards that have the "indented grain" attribute. And that is The scratch across the board look. There can almost never be symmetry in the look of a bookset cut this way, because of the finite character that is "indented grain", seldom wider than the thickness of a #2 pencil lead.

The look that you are seeing here in this guitar top, is a look we target. And it all comes down to orientation of the cut in relation to the form of the log.
Form of log is too complicated an element for me to address here as it pertains to this subject. And is proprietary information that is expensive learning from the school of hard knocks.
The tops pictured here is off VG by a significant amount. How much, depends on the form of the log. But as a rule, The more longated[with the growth lines] the "indented grain" appears, the further off VG the board is cut. The antithesis is the more horiozontal[across the board/grain] the bearclaw appears, the closer to VG, to absolute VG. And the VG boards will also be as stiff as glass and display strong medularies. We have these too. One has to have some that are VG cut to get to the off VG cut. And depending on the "block" getting dissected, I'll target a specific 2-3" of thickness in a block to capture everything we want in that soundboard. Which is a combination of both looks, visual energy of figure, and enough stiffness for a good soundboard.

Had this orientation of cut been from non-figured block it may be rejected for not being stiff enough across the board. Different luthiers have their own recipes. in this regard.

Regards, Brent Sr

I don't often do bearclaw guitars, but I've done a couple recently. The few samples I've measured have tended toward the higher density, higher damping end of the spectrum, but it's a small sample and you can likley find samples at the other end of the spectrum, too. This one was in European spruce, running a "moon over water" theme.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

I have the offcuts from the top on the guitar in the first photo in this thread around here somewhere, but didn't find them. For grins and giggles, the photos below are of two other symmetrically figured bearclaw Sitka top sets I have and pics of their endgrain. The bearclaw pattern in the first one is almost identical to that of the top in the guitar in the photo suggesting that the two sets were adjacent in the same original log.

The top set in that dreadnought guitar above was a bit less stiff along the grain than I have seen for other spruce tops. It ended up at 0.112" thick. The guitar sounds quite good, IMO. Very dreadnoughty.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

De Rocher, your end pieces are mixed up. 1 of each in each hand.
But regardless, thank you for the props, They show some of what I was referring to. The set with the more longitiude pattern is the set furthest off of Vertical grain cut.
Different logs, and again "form", which I can read by the end grain, Top board -top picture and bottom board- bottom picture are from a log with an offset heart, as evidenced by near vg at both edges of the board, and off VG in the middle. And these 2 ends coincide with top picture #1.

Not sure what you mean when you say 1 of each in each hand.

I took the first photo and then closed up the two plates along the centerline and immediately took the endgrain photo (photo 2). I then took the third photo that shows the second set and then closed those plates up along the centerline and took the second endgrain photo. The photos are in that sequence on my phone and the photos are uploaded in that same sequence so the order above is correct. The wide grain on the left in the second endgrain shot corresponds to the wide grain on the outer edges of the second top set photo.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I zoomed in and now see that the end grain makes a distinct turn were the second set is pinched i your hand.
That’s indicative of an egg shaped log. And undoubtedly has an offset heart as well. At first without zooming in, it appeared to me that the bottom board better matched up with the the top board in the other set. I can’t even zoom in on the top set enough without it getting fuzzy.

Regardless, you've shown good examples of how the second set being cut at aprox 20 degrees off VG has the more elongated , almost parallel indented grain [bearclaw] pattern. Whereas the top set at 10-15 degrees off Vg is more angled like the picture posted I chimed in on.

I love bear claw tops. I know a lot of folks search out those straight, fine grain homogeneous perfect tops but I love wood with some character. Haven't found the outstanding bear claw top I'd like to find in my price range but have a few with a trace here and there by accident.

I'm kind of a reverse wood snob who finds wood with something special happening irresistible.

Grain and color variations just scream "I'm Real Wood" to me and don't bother me at all. Well, occasionally they can be a distraction. We all have our preferences.

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED

Thanks for sharing this. I always like learning new things about wood.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Here is a link to a drive folder where I just loaded 2 pics that I just took of intense BC sitka showing the VG cut and the off VG cut and even further off VG. I've loaded to the folder so the higher resolution is there for you guys.
The log that produces this, is just riddled with pitch pockets and pitch inclusions. It's often difficult to pattern even ukulele cleanly.
Even so I've sold a bunch, pitch pockets and all.
A local lodge owner and friend picked one from this tree for his wife that also preforms, for their 10th wedding anniversary. He had pick of everything in my shop. Hundreds of highly figured BC and he picked one that had a couple small pitch inclusions in the pattern for. The top was sent to one of our customer builders as a custom for his wife. I'll add that pic to the folder also.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing