Official Luthiers Forum!

Yikes, with everyone jumping ship to Carpathian and Caucasian Spruce, Sitka and Engleman may become extinct

They Euro woods are exceptionally great tonewoods and I am quickly becoming a convert as well. It's great to have so many choices to offer the customer and I am sure their heads are spinning too. I've got one guy who has been to my shop 3 times, contemplating wood choices and still can't make up his mind.

_________________
tim...
http://www.mcknightguitars.com

Sounds like your customer really needs to buy two guitars!

_________________
D..

The plus side to everyone wanting the Euro spruces like Carpathian, is that it might help to drive the prices of the native species down a bit, due to lower demand. Which may mean lower prices for Sitka and Englemann. I doubt it will ever affect the price of Adirondack though.
Curiously, if you look at the poll here, the favorite top woods are Redwood and Adirondack (red) Spruce, at least for builders. I was frankly suprised at the popularity of redwood, but after coming into the large stash I have, I'm not suprised. It's amazing stuff.Don W38357.3198263889

_________________
"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."

I'm building an engleman top right now. Englemen seems to have fallen out of favor. It seems a bit floppy compared to the sitka and red wood that I have, but I've always liked the look and sound of engleman. There seems to be a lot of mystique about top woods. I'm inclined to ignore most of it. Yes, the different woods sound different but does one wood sound better than the other? If so, define better.

Well I have to agree with Mike. Define better. Personally I think it's a lot of sales hype. I have read over and over again how engleman spruce from N. America is imported to Europe and sold back to us as German spruce or euro spruce. I like engleman a lot and you just can't go wrong with good old sitka and adirondack. But if it sells guitars I guess thats all that matters. I have some of Don's redwood thats awesome. I've built with cedar and like that too. I have some Doug fir that rings like a bell. I guess I'll stick with the addage that the builder has more to do with the sound than all these exotic named spruce's.

_________________
Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

I find it interresting that Brock's top wood poll left out sitka. I realize that it was just a test of the polling mechanism but I think there's some subliminal stuff going on as well :-)

I didn't leave it out. The poll truncated one of my selections. Sitka was the first one on the list.

I think the problem has been fixed.

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

I like the Caucasian and Sitka color and tap tone better than Engelman

Personally I've had better luck with Addy than any other wood. My sitka guitars always have a great deal of fundamental tones that gives a sort of brassy sound and since I like a woody sort of sound with lots of harmonics I've had what I think is a better sound from Addy and Engleman. I haven't tried any of the new Euro woods or any of the old Euro woods for that matter. Cedar os nice too and I have yet to string up my redwood attemp. I still use Sitka but it's not my fav.

_________________
Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

Hi Tim,
I'm a big fan of Bear Claw Sitka. If we ever get a Bear Claw Emgleman I might like that even more.

_________________
Dave Bland

remember...

"If it doesn't play in tune...it's just pretty wood"