Wood movement perspectives

Another one, because YouTube really thinks I need to see these today. Good information on this one, but he glosses over a couple things, and when he talks about internal tensions as it relates to final dimensioning, he could be misunderstood as saying it has to do with drying, but it really doesn't (and I don't think he thinks it does, either)... it just co-occurs with the wood storage. Also basically an ad for a wood moisture meter, but whatever.

I don't disagree with any of that, but I think it gets way overstated an awful lot. I've worked on a LOT of vintage instruments, and while there are a few key obvious differences, I think in many other regards the differences in woods are not that remarkable.

Brazilian rosewood obviously isn't used much anymore, and lightweight Honduran mahogany for solid bodies has been pretty well picked over. There are some species of spruce that are very hard to come by these days, but unless you're doing cello tops or something it isn't as big of a deal. Sitka does just fine much of the time. Grain lines are pretty much the same distance now as they were on pre-war martins, often tighter, actually. The problems I see are when makers try to get fancy and they use woods they think are pretty, but are not that good. It is the sort of stuff that would have hit the junk pile 60-70 years ago. Part of that is because it was more abundant and there were fewer conservation concerns, but also because I think some builders are just oblivious. The use of power tools is a part of this, I think. If you're using CNCs and orbital sanders, you won't notice horrible, wonky grain as much as if you're using a coping saw (or even pin router) and a card scraper.

Honestly, if guitar makers were better with woods, they'd know how to exploit woods that ARE available today in a better way. We've done a good job of making certain species scarce, but there are so, so many others that could sound amazing, but they choose not to work with them. What we lack in sourcing of certain species we make up for in cataloging and distributing a multitude of others, and no one wants to be bothered by it. The people who rushed to the cafeteria first got all the cookies, but they're ignoring the perfectly good brownies and cupcakes. Unless you're building replica instruments, I don't see much reason to think it is all over because certain woods are harder to come by. That is just making excuses.

As I understand it, old growth vs. new growth is only a concern when farming of trees is involved. Hickory grown for axe handles in the 19th century comes to mind, and second growth actually came out much better, as the earlier "old growth" had a habit of breaking across the grain. None of the hardwoods used in guitar making are new enough to have been done from replacement plants as far as I know... Spruce for example, ideally has 18-22 grain lines per inch. A dreadnought has a 15 5/8" lower bout, so each half of the top is going to have VERY conservatively 140 annular rings, add more since pieces are going to be oversized for manufacturing. It could be as high as 180-200. I don't think anyone was planting spruce trees for the guitar industry in the 1880s or earlier. If it isn't a farming thing then it would either be a climate thing, or a matter of the forest floor being thinned, allowing trees to grow faster. But then again, annular rings (as far as I know) only come once a year on most species regardless of how fast they grow.

The grain you're talking about with the narrower grain towards the center and wider grain to the outside is done primarily for strength, but yeah, it does help with sound, too. We see pieces like that not because wood is worse than it used to be, but just because it is more expensive. No one is going to send that stuff to the scrap pile for what it costs, and those pieces are generally used on less expensive models, except when a maker wants to use a hyper rare species, but then again, it isn't because it is being grown differently... it just is more rare so you have to work with what you got. And speaking of older tooling, it is easier to use tops with grain run out these days when you aren't using scrapers or splitters, but just resawing on industrial equipment and using massive sanders. The grain run out is a royal PITA to work on with hand tools, and incidentally, less run out means a stronger top and better sound... though admittedly, rather modest gains are to be had unless it is being very carefully voiced.

The larger spaces indicate a younger tree. I don't think the trees are growing much faster today than a few hundred years ago. You could say that trees grow faster when they're younger I suppose.


This is just what happens when you quarter saw a smaller (younger) tree. You'd rather have tight grain all the way across for better rigidity, consistent density and thus, better sound transference. This is not to say that you can't make a good guitar with wood that doesn't meet that standard. 


There are methods you can use to choose good pieces of wood for the top of an acoustic instrument. By applying some science you can also get more consistency from say, guitar to guitar. When it comes to an acoustic sound-board the wood has to have a balance of density and (at least) rigidity. Spruce happens to offer the best results. Mahogany and cedar are sometimes used as well but there aren't a lot of woods that have the magic formula that allows good projection along with enough strength to not break under the rigors of vibrations. I'm talking specifically about the thin woods necessary for an acoustic guitar here...

When it comes to a solid-body I agree with you Funky. People have gone way overboard in what they think is necessary for a good sounding electric. Don't get me started on fret-board species. Sheesh, what about the rest of the neck? You know, that stuff that makes up eighty percent or so of said neck? How about resonance? I have an Alder guitar (body made of two un-matched pieces with non-centered seam, neck made of three pieces of figured maple) that is by far the most resonant electric I've ever played and yes, it does sound fantastic and just feels so nice to play. I also have a Mexican tele made out of who knows how many pieces of who knows what kind of wood with a bit more than 1/16" of "finish" on it. It's comparatively dead resonance-wise to the alder guitar but guess what? It also sounds fantastic. There are just too many variables (wood, pickups, amps and settings) to ever say that you have to have a given type of wood or even combination of woods in order to get a good sounding guitar.

Our ideas about tone were formed by music played on instruments made of nice, old-growth trees. They were made of that wood because it was available and cheap at the time. And of course as anyone who has ever made anything out of wood knows, old straight-grained wood is more stable and usually easier to work with. Guitar players are some of the worst when it comes to traditions. The makers would gladly use cheaper, more plentiful woods if we would get off of our high-horses and buy them. I myself suffer an occasional prejudice in this regard too but if I get it in my hands and it sounds good then, well, it is good.

Mr. Benedetto famously made an arch-top out of construction-grade 2x10s for the top, unmatched weather-checked and knotty plain-sawn maple for the back and plain maple for the neck and sides. According to him it sounds as good as any if his others. 'Nuff said, I say. 

Yeah, and Bob Taylor made one from an old oak palet.

Starting with well seasoned wood, is fundamental.

"It is one of those things, do you trust the vintner, the sommelier or the cork sniffer?"

You've perfectly captured the root of the tone argument with this statement. The vast majority of guitar players rely too heavily on the opinions of others for what sounds good. If you cannot trust your own ears to discriminate between the sound of one guitar over another, then either one will be fine! Why should any difference matter if you need someone else to validate one above the other? They're not going to be playing the thing--you are. Trust your ears, be patient, listen critically, and to hell with what anyone else thinks. If it sounds good to you, it is good.

So you like the taste of a particular cheap wine? Fantastic! Anyone that criticizes your like for it can go pound sand. Snobbery abounds.


And yeah...listening with the eyes has been at pandemic levels for a long time.

For clarity, I'm not a professional luthier. I went to the Galloup school several years ago by the grace of some very generous friends who paid my way. I couldn't have afforded it myself. I did the six month program, built four guitars (first one is basically a kit electric) and since then life has gotten in the way of me building my own designs. I already have a good job as a carpenter so starting over at the bottom of luthiery wasn't really the plan. There's also a stellar luthier here in town... I do occasional repairs for others and of course on my own stuff. 

That said, I hear ya. There have always been people exploring other materials, etc. but get shot down by the traditionalists. Some day, when we run out of the usual woods then something will have to happen. Sadly, I don't see much happening until then. As I said before, our ears have been trained by the old stuff. The internet has much to do with this situation as well. I started playing before the whole "vintage" thing really got going and, like many of that time, was more apt to think that newer equaled better. Fast-forward ten or fifteen years and you have people all over the web crowing about what makes the best guitar. Combine that with a large group of people with money to spend and time to finally start learning the guitar and it's easy to see how we got to now. Whether or not we'd have seen more progress without the web we'll never know.

"I'm definitely on team "Wood Matters", I just don't think it matters in the ways people think it does."

Couldn't agree more. Every piece of wood (and hardware for that matter) plays a part in the end result. It's just that (I think) there are too many variables involved to definitively attach tonal characteristics to wood species (excepting, perhaps, perhaps in the case of a soundboard). Tonal tendencies maybe. Whatever the case, we all know that if the best guitar you ever played was your buddy's ash-bodied tele with a rosewood board, you can go ahead and buy or build one with the same stuff and expect a pretty slim chance that you wind up with what you're shooting for. I'm amazed (and jealous of) people who say things like, "I had to play thirty strats before I found 'the one'." How could you know after playing for only a short time? I gotta spend some time with a guitar before I know whether I'm gonna keep it. Usually I can find something to love but there have been times when after a few weeks I realize that I can't stand stand the thing even though it thrilled me at the store. Case in point is a MicroFrets I bought a couple of years ago. Can't find much to like about it at this point. 

As to the science angle with regard to predictability, I don't see that ever happening and I'm not so sure I want to. A friend of mine, another carpenter who's been at it a lot longer than me likes to say "ya gotta let wood be wood." His meaning doesn't translate perfectly to our discussion but that kind of prediction is akin to watching the tide come in and expecting every seventh wave to be the big one. To a certain extent we're just gonna have to let nature take it's course, so to speak. I'm o.k. with it. Doesn't mean I won't continue to swear a lot when the wood I milled yesterday went all squirrely over night though. Then again...hmm...

One of the guitars we made at school was done utilizing a system devised by I believe an Australian man (I'd have to look it up) in which the soundboard pieces are tested in a certain way before you start building. Trial and error is still necessary but what this system allows is a certain level of consistency. But given everything else that goes into the guitar by the time you're done, results are still gonna vary. 

Jeez, I can go on for days. But thank you for the discussion. I've been reading and learning from your posts over the years and respect your opinions and experience. Hopefully your eyes aren't rolling like those of my friends over Friday night beers when I get on the topic. It's certainly true what you said about how woodworkers and guitarists differ in the way they think about wood. I hadn't thought of it that way. 

sirWheat, no worries. I'm tracking you better now.

I wouldn't sell yourself short. You say you're a carpenter and I don't know exactly what you mean by that, because sometimes carpentry and fine woodworking are considered distinct. You sound like you have more experience on the "woodworking" end of things. I've seen a couple types of guitar builders: the woodworkers who take it on because it looks like a fun/challenging project, and the guitar tweakers who want to go deeper. Almost every time, the woodworkers make far better instruments, and by leaps and bounds. They often hit their biggest obstacles with those funny guitar specific things like fretting, nuts and saddles, but the guitar tweakers usually come out with something that makes me want to say "practice on bird houses first". It is part of what has inspired me to go back and learn wood working basics. At this point I think I have more enthusiasm and interest in woodworking than lutherie, but that is another matter. I've worked with Bryan Galloup before (he did consulting work for a company I was working with) and have mountains of respect for him. His school is one of only two that I recommend when people ask me (Red Wing is the other). Obviously I haven't seen your work, but your CV tells me you're better than you say you are.



It reminds me of a basic argument of hermeneutics that would come up again and again when I was trying to learn pickup design. There was a group that wanted to be as empirical as possible, and another group that just wanted to use their ears. The latter were often mocked as the "golden ears" group, and compared to audiophile cork sniffers who can be fertile ground for snake oil salesmen. The truth is that with pickups, AC electronics provide all kinds of nuances that are very hard to track empirically, but can be heard quite clearly with a decent set of ears. Something might be happening only at a certain frequency and in a way that would take a whole bunch of expertise to be able to isolate, but even the lay person would say "that sounds weird". The empiricists wanted to set up test plates on lathe beds and go straight into digital recorders because they deemed guitars and amplifiers too unreliable for data collection. But, then someone like Jason Lollar would test through guitars in tube amps and just listen. I think it is true for separating elements within a pickup build, too. The experienced builders can hear something and know whether a certain characteristic comes from the wind, the magnet, the baseplate or something else, as well as knowing what comes from the guitar or the amp. I suspect is the the same part of our auditory brain that can recognize different voices, pick out voices from background noise, and a myriad of other phenomena, being slowly trained.

All that said, while I lean a bit in the direction of "use your ears" (those guys end up with superior products, if nothing else), the value of the hard testing has a lot of promise. With a pickup, trial and error is easy enough because you can duplicate your success later on, even if you don't know why something work. With guitar build it is a longer process. Wood selection happens at the beginning, and you won't know how that worked out for you until the end, maybe even a period of time after the end. Even if we just break up wood stock that looks the same into a few categories, that is a huge step in the right direction. We know how to make great guitars, we just don't always know how to duplicate that success. Out of 100 HD-28s, I'm not sure how many people at Martin would be able to say which ones are the okay ones and which ones are the truly stellar ones. They'd probably have a bit of luck guessing just from experience (google chicken sexers if you're bored), but not likely in a way where they could turn them all into the amazing examples. Anyway, I'm babbling.