RE: The effect of "silk" on spruce (Castillo guitar)

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Anders Eliasson

Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006

RE: The effect of "silk" o... (in reply to a_arnold)

quote:

What is seen in the photo of the guitar belonging to a_arnold is bearclaw, maschiato, hazel-fichte. This is like curly maple and gives a structure to the spruce which is not desirable. We search desperately for tops with no run-out and this is extreme, localized runout. In my experience the bearclaw tops I have handled have been less stiff in general. Romanillos in one of those guitar gourmet videos says that bearclaw indicates a well-cut piece of wood but that is untrue. What indicates a quartersawn piece is medular rays or silking as has already been mentioned. Quartersawing and the consequent silking is very desirable for most of us. Now, having said all that, bearclaw can make a beautiful guitar and sadly sometimes that is what the client wants.

Thats 100% your personal statement. You can find a lot of different statements from other well known guitarbuilders about Bearclawing, including some that says it makes for a better soundboard.
You can also find statements that say that what you call "extreme, localized runout" has no possitive or negative effect because the wave goes in two directions and thus neutralize each other.
I´m personally neutral about Bearclawing. I find that it looks good on some guitars and some of the best guitars I have made have been with bearclawed tops. I wouldnt judge a guitar positive or negative on the fact that it has a bearclawed soundboard.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 20 2010 0:06:37

Ricardo

Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: The effect of "silk" o... (in reply to Anders Eliasson)

I can relate a personal story. Without naming names, it involves famous reputable classical maker, and 2 folks I know. One person had a fantastic sounding instrument that had the bearclaw. The duo partner wanted a matching guitar and requested bearclaw from the maker. The maker said please no because the wood he had with bearclaw would not result in as good a sound as the other guitar he made. It was insisted that he do his best with it anyway. Sure enough the second guitar with bearclaw did not sound so good and had to be sold.

I would agree with anders it can go either way depending on other factors. Why Carrillo has so many tops with bearclaw is kind of strange to me. Especially cuz he builds many and very fast. All the blancas I have played sound great to me though....

Ricardo

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 20 2010 7:01:47

orsonw

Posts: 1934
Joined: Jul. 4 2009
From: London

RE: The effect of "silk" o... (in reply to Ricardo)

quote:

localized runout

I always wonder what is meant by "runout". Please could someone explain?

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 20 2010 9:06:14

Anders Eliasson

Posts: 5780
Joined: Oct. 18 2006

RE: The effect of "silk" o... (in reply to Anders Eliasson)

Orson,

Its so much easyer to explain with a drawing, so do a google search. There are plenty of descriptions, photos, drawings etc.

I have personally never had problems with Bearclawed guitars sounding worse (or better) than straight grained ones and I think its VERY much another myth for those who like to discuss endlessly about things which are very difficult to prove.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 20 2010 9:40:22

orsonw

Posts: 1934
Joined: Jul. 4 2009
From: London

RE: The effect of "silk" o... (in reply to Anders Eliasson)

For anyone else interested to know what "runout" means, here's a good explaination (I think?) with pictures.

http://www.lutherie.net/frankford.runout.html

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 20 2010 13:17:27

HemeolaMan

Posts: 1514
Joined: Jul. 13 2007
From: Chicago

RE: The effect of "silk" o... (in reply to Anders Eliasson)

Silk on a castillo. sorry, shot with a 3 mp camera lol

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 22 2010 6:54:55

HemeolaMan

Posts: 1514
Joined: Jul. 13 2007
From: Chicago

RE: The effect of "silk" o... (in reply to HemeolaMan)

you can see it here as i've reduced the brightness of the picture and increased the contrast. for illustrative purposes of course

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 22 2010 6:56:50

Exitao

Posts: 907
Joined: Mar. 13 2006
From: Vancouver, Canada

RE: The effect of "silk" o... (in reply to Anders Eliasson)

Interesting HM, I seem to have a bit of that, but I hAd assumed it was from the French polish.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 22 2010 12:46:27

estebanana

Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009

RE: The effect of "silk" o... (in reply to Exitao)

quote:

I seem to have a bit of that, but I hAd assumed it was from the French polish.

It is partially from the finish. The shellac is acting like a lens to allow light deeper into the structure of the wood.

The finish consolidates and clarifies the transparent layers of wood, and light can move deeper into the wood. Then when the light reflects back off of the deeper tissue that is opaque, it shines through several higher layers. The frequency of light allowed to penetrate to the deepest layers of wood and then allowed to escape to your eye determine the color of the wood.

The level of translucency of the cross fiber layers of wood parted by the plane are determining the amount sparkle. The direction of the crossing fibers determine how the refraction changes when the light hits the wood from various angles.

It's optics at work more than wood. Light penetrates surfaces and some surfaces absorb certain frequencies of light and what frequency of light bounces back at you is measured by your retina as color. Wood has complex multiple layers into which light can penetrate. The wood is in effect filtering out certain frequencies and the finish on the instrument is facilitating that exchange of light through wood by acting like glass.

When a finish has a color added to it that color is again screening certain frequencies of light out of the wood and providing a lens. A colored lens actually, like using a yellow lens on a camera to accentuate higher contrast. The wood has a more selected band of light waves entering it and leaving and it shows as color.

This is why wood looks matt and dull without finish but comes alive with finish. The coating is saturating the thin cellular layers of wood fiber and rendering them more clear. More light can then enter deeper into the wood and thus more light can shine back out of the wood, but through the complex filtering layers of cells.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 22 2010 18:30:25

Exitao

Posts: 907
Joined: Mar. 13 2006
From: Vancouver, Canada

RE: The effect of "silk" o... (in reply to Anders Eliasson)

Interesting. As I said before, I had assumed it was something like striations in the French polish, particularly as the rest of the guitar is lacquer and doesn't have any silk. It seems that the particles in the shellac serve to highlight the silk, which probably led me to see a false correlation.

My soundboard is (German) spruce too (as there's no colour to the finish, it makes it shinier and harder to photograph w/o the right lighting) .

Are some woods more prone to this?

When working with the raw materials, can you tell that the silk is there before finishing it? I assume that you probably can if you know what you're looking at.

When it comes to finishing, are there ways to capitalise on this effect?

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 22 2010 22:16:58

a_arnold

Posts: 558
Joined: Jul. 30 2006

RE: The effect of "silk" o... (in reply to jshelton5040)

quote:

The silk is proof that the wood is perfectly quartered.

How do you detect silk (and runout) in the unfinished top, when you are selecting tops? I have seen bearclaw -- that is pretty easy, but I've never looked for silk, and I have only noticed runout when the wood is thick enough to see edge grain.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 25 2010 3:09:26

Anders Eliasson

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Joined: Oct. 18 2006

RE: The effect of "silk" o... (in reply to Anders Eliasson)

Runout is easyest to see on a faily rough cut soundboard. You can se the grains on the sides and run will be seen as a hairy look on the plates, where you can see that the hair is running in two different directions on the 2 halfs. Its a lot more complicated when you receive sanded soundboards.

Silk is easy to see if you sand the top a bit.

Note, that not all perfectly quatered soundboards show a lot of silking. And silking doesnt mean that a soundboard is top quality. I´ve had soundboards in my hands, which were perfectly quatered and full of silking, but they were soft and with a poor sound.

On soundboards, the only really interesting thing is (I now repeat myself for 100th time or so) STIFFNESS/WEIGHT relationship.

You should ALWAYS choose your soundboards with your fingers and NOT with the eyes.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date May 25 2010 3:26:17

a_arnold

Posts: 558
Joined: Jul. 30 2006

RE: The effect of "silk" o... (in reply to Anders Eliasson)

quote:

You should ALWAYS choose your soundboards with your fingers and NOT with the eyes.

So, Anders, does that mean most luthiers buy their soundboard wood already planed close to soundboard thickness? It would be very difficult to judge a piece of wood when it was too thick to test the stiffness.

Are all soundboards sold at the same thickness? Or do you bring calipers so you can judge if stiffness is due to thickness or some other property of the wood.

These are probably dumb questions, but I'm not a luthier. I've only built a harpsichord -- but some day I'd like to try a guitar.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jun. 23 2010 23:09:09

jshelton5040

Posts: 1500
Joined: Jan. 17 2005

RE: The effect of "silk" o... (in reply to a_arnold)

quote:

ORIGINAL: a_arnold

So, Anders, does that mean most luthiers buy their soundboard wood already planed close to soundboard thickness? It would be very difficult to judge a piece of wood when it was too thick to test the stiffness.

Are all soundboards sold at the same thickness? Or do you bring calipers so you can judge if stiffness is due to thickness or some other property of the wood.

That's why it is so important to find a good vendor. Most builders (like me) buy their wood sight unseen. The wood comes and you are either happy or disappointed. It's usually sawn to about 3/16". What do you do with the lousy tops that you buy? They make nice cigar humidors or kindling for the fireplace or you can use them for backs on all spruce guitars. Discarding unusable wood that some vendor sent you is one of the major expenses of guitar making.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jun. 24 2010 0:24:10

a_arnold

Posts: 558
Joined: Jul. 30 2006

RE: The effect of "silk" o... (in reply to jshelton5040)

quote:

Discarding unusable wood that some vendor sent you is one of the major expenses of guitar making.

So -- I'm guessing that discarding some tops is still cheaper than travel to the vendor so you can select your own for most people . . . or do the vendors not let you pick and choose?

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"Flamenco is so emotionally direct that a trained classical musician would require many years of highly disciplined formal study to fail to understand it."

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jun. 24 2010 1:46:05

jshelton5040

Posts: 1500
Joined: Jan. 17 2005

RE: The effect of "silk" o... (in reply to a_arnold)

quote:

ORIGINAL: a_arnold

So -- I'm guessing that discarding some tops is still cheaper than travel to the vendor so you can select your own for most people . . . or do the vendors not let you pick and choose?

The vendor I'm using is called Akustik, they are located in Turkey.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jun. 24 2010 13:45:55