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Adirondack Spruce?
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ernandez R
Posts: 737
Joined: Mar. 25 2019
From: Alaska USA
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 RE: Adirondack Spruce? (in reply to Andy Culpepper)
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Andy,
I recall coming across that vary statement about AS and noting it for future reference.
And no, I have not used any AS, I'm only eight guitars in and still feeling things out like basic construction.
My first question though is, Blanca or Negra? Only one top so you can't do both?
If you keep the rest of the woods the same how does/is this top going to interact with the woods and your building style?
Curios how the thinning, bracing, tapping of this top will influence how each of these things are done knowing they all effect each other?
Are you trying to brighten up your Blanca or add a touch more sustain to your Negra?
I guess I'm interested knowing you have a well founded baseline so using this material is less a shot in the dark then say if I did it. I just strung up two in the white and one is great, my best ever, the other is an f'n cannon but I'm not exactly sure why. Was asking the boss the other night how it sounded different and she said, it has cojones.
In my short tenure as a builder I was surprised how many mentioned how much of the process was less science and a good amount of intuition. I'm coming around to thinking even less deliberate science and more magic of the unconsance mind.
Would be fun to make this as scientific as posable but without having you give up too much of the soul of your luthiery.
And of course thanx for sharing,
HR
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jan. 13 2020 23:20:08
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NorCalluthier
Posts: 136
Joined: Apr. 16 2016
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RE: Adirondack Spruce? (in reply to Andy Culpepper)
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Hello All,
I've made successful guitars with Euro spruce, Englemann spruce, and Adirondac spruce. In every case the test numbers were good enough to justify the work involved in making a guitar out of them.
I'm prejudiced in favor of Euro spruce just because my hero in the guitar making world is Jeff Elliot, and that's what he prefers, even to getting Euro spruce brace wood.
There is a vast deal more difference within a species than there is between the averages of the different species. I just think that I'm more likely to find good wood in a batch of Euro-spruce.
And if those variables weren't enough, there is the sawyer, and how well seasoned the wood is---older is better! I once rejected twenty some 30 year old Euro spruce tops because they had poor cross grain stiffness. They went off quarter toward the outer edges because the sawyer was going for greater yield, rather than wasting some wood and staying strictly vertical grain---I hated to send those back!
I keep thinking about making a short sustain flamenca blanca, and that may require using top wood that tests poorly! I've got some old ponderosa pine shelving that I keep looking at, and some paulownia that is really low density, but ugly to look at...
Cheers,
Brian
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Date Jan. 17 2020 16:20:03
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Tom Blackshear
Posts: 2304
Joined: Apr. 15 2008
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RE: Adirondack Spruce? (in reply to NorCalluthier)
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quote:
I keep thinking about making a short sustain flamenco blanca, and that may require using top wood that tests poorly!
Brian,
Respectfully, I understand your engineer's mind about these things but there are varying schools of thought that take elements of design to turn out a basic difference in tonal perception.
In my 58 years of guitar building, I've come to the ideal that there is no tonal outcome that is perfect, without final tweaking methods that finalize the voice.
Sure, many guitars can get by with being by design only, but in retrospect, very few I've ever built without certain tweaking methods would be the best I could build.
I grew more confident in this in 2004 when I investigated the 2003 Manuel Reyes flamenco guitar; to find that I was doing some of my fine tuning similar to his. But the big difference was that he supposedly preset his top's fan braces with different shapes, sizes, and tapers before he completed the construction.
The tell tail evidence was that, upon my investigation, I found that his guitar's second string was not quite as strong as the first and third strings. So I developed a method to fine tune the fan braces through the sound hole, and Little by little, I gained the knowledge on how to finalize sound.
Then, of course, age takes over and gives the sound its propio sello.
_____________________________
Tom Blackshear Guitar maker
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date Jan. 17 2020 17:07:39
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