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Thread: New Mexico Engelmann vs. Wyoming Engelmann

  1. #1
    Registered User sgrexa's Avatar
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    Default New Mexico Engelmann vs. Wyoming Engelmann

    Or something like that. In doing some research, I was a bit surprised to see that many guitar builders seem to have strong preferences and opinions regarding Picea Abies (European Spruce) grown in different micro climates. Bruce Sexauer for instance, insists that Italian spruce is the best, and is very different from say Swiss or German spruce which is of course biologically the same species grown in essentially the same Alpine region. I don't dismiss this as nonsense, as some of these builders have years of experience and seem to have enough empirical evidence to form these beliefs.

    I think Paul Hostetter sums it up best here where he states that while each tree is the same species, they have to be evaluated on an individual basis which includes the same set of standards no matter where it was grown:

    http://www.lutherie.net/eurospruce.html

    What I do have questions about is why haven't these builders taken such passion and formed these same opinions relative to native spruces found in the US and Canada? No one seems to have any preferences that I am aware for Red Spruce from Georgia vs. Nova Scotia? How about New Mexico Engelmann vs. British Columbian? Maybe they do and I am just not aware of them? Anyway, the growing range for these species is much larger relative to those we see in the Alps. It just makes me wonder why they treat Carpathian spruce from Romania as almost an entirely different species but do not seem to have the same strong opinions about North American spruces.

    Sean

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    Registered User patches's Avatar
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    Default Re: New Mexico Engelmann vs. Wyoming Engelmann

    Sean, thanks for the thread. I had been thinking about Engelmann spruce also. Last fall when I was cutting firewood I cut a ES to try out. The biggest problem was cutting pieces wide enough for the soundboard. I'm in Laramie Wyo and the trees just aren't big enough. I finally used three pieces with the longitudinal braces under the joins. I hope to finish my build in the next couple weeks. This will be my first mandolin, an oval hole A.
    Roy Widman

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    Registered User sgrexa's Avatar
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    Default Re: New Mexico Engelmann vs. Wyoming Engelmann

    Roy, congratulations and good luck on your first build. Is it a carved top or flat? I think that building a mandolin using wood cut by your own hand must be incredibly satisfying. I was just using Wyoming as an example and I have no idea if much tonewood is cut there at all. I have to believe there are Engelmann and maybe Sitka (not sure of the range?) trees big enough in that beautiful state no doubt!

    Sean

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    Registered User sgrexa's Avatar
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    Default Re: New Mexico Engelmann vs. Wyoming Engelmann

    BTW, I just learned that Sitka has a much narrower range than I thought, along the northwest Pacific coast.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    It is also used in the nosecones of Trident Intercontinental ballistic missiles just in case anyone was wondering.

    Sean

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    wood butcher Spruce's Avatar
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    Default Re: New Mexico Engelmann vs. Wyoming Engelmann

    First of all, thanks for spelling "Engelmann" correctly...

    I don't have a lot of time at the moment, but I'll just say that you can't generalize about geographical regions of any spruce...
    For instance, I've milled a dozen trees that grew within a rocks throw from one another, and they were all over the map in terms of density, grain count, grain spacing, etc. etc...

    So-ooo, how could you say that New Mexico Engelmann is different from Washington State Engelmann, if you can't even find consistency within a single grove of the species??

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    Registered User sgrexa's Avatar
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    Default Re: New Mexico Engelmann vs. Wyoming Engelmann

    Thanks Bruce. Please post more when you have the time. You are a treasured member of this forum for sure. So is it safe to say that there really is no analogy to these "myths" that exist as far as USA tone woods? Have you had any customers that might have or heard of any builders with a preference for wood from a specific location in the USA or Canada?

    Sean

  9. #7

    Default Re: New Mexico Engelmann vs. Wyoming Engelmann

    [QUOTE=sgrexa;1308294]...... I think that building a mandolin using wood cut by your own hand must be incredibly satisfying.....

    It is, at least for me. Kinda like catching a trout on a fly you tied yourself, but even better. I think there's a lot of cork sniffing lore out there on the topic, but basically you use what you get used to more often, and after enough practice it starts to become so familiar you know what it's likely to sound like. If that makes any sense.

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    Default Re: New Mexico Engelmann vs. Wyoming Engelmann

    I've used Engelmann spruce on hundreds of mandolins, mostly from southern Colorado high country. Earliest hundred from the south side of Mt. Wilson near Telluride, since then from the headwaters of the Navajo river just over the state line from NM. By far the best engelmann I ever used was from Spruce at the 1996 VSA convention in Albuquerque, wish you still had a vanload of that and were heading to Pagosa with it! That said, I'd still trade my whole stash for Lawrence Smart's or Mike Kemnitzer's reject pile! Just got a bunch of old Alberta engelmann from Larry Pogreba, will see about it in a few years.
    Compression- bearclaw red and colorado engelmann:
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    Registered User bernabe's Avatar
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    Default Re: New Mexico Engelmann vs. Wyoming Engelmann

    Quote Originally Posted by oldwave maker View Post
    I'd still trade my whole stash for Lawrence Smart's or Mike Kemnitzer's reject pile!
    I have a friend who had Lawrence build him a mandolin who told me "...I spent a week trout fishing with him.. we were fishing way up in the mtns on this small pond, it was really quiet and he said 'this is where I get the tops to my mando's'... I said 'where', he said 'right around this pond, I wait for the trees to fall and then collect the wood'... I put my order in right then and there... "

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    wood butcher Spruce's Avatar
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    Default Re: New Mexico Engelmann vs. Wyoming Engelmann

    Quote Originally Posted by sgrexa View Post
    Have you had any customers that might have or heard of any builders with a preference for wood from a specific location in the USA or Canada?
    Oh, heck yes...
    I'd say that folks tend to generalize more about the regions of European spruce, though...
    Italian vs. Carpathian vs. German...etc. etc.
    I'm dubious of these claims, but I can't back it up with personal experience.

    Come to think of it, one spruce generalization that might be valid, is that the further north you go in Sitka's range, the whiter the wood...
    But even then I've seen pink Sitka in SE Alaska, and white Sitka from the Olympic Peninsula...
    But the wood tends to be whiter the further north you go...

    Quote Originally Posted by oldwave maker View Post
    By far the best engelmann I ever used was from Spruce at the 1996 VSA convention in Albuquerque...
    Was that the stuff from Notellum Pass with the black tar on the ends?
    That stuff was as hard-to-the-fingernail as any Red Spruce I've ever milled, and is the sample I send out when I want to fool people who think that Engelmann is always soft...

    Quote Originally Posted by bernabe View Post
    I have a friend who had Lawrence build him a mandolin who told me "...I spent a week trout fishing with him.. we were fishing way up in the mtns on this small pond, it was really quiet and he said 'this is where I get the tops to my mando's'... I said 'where', he said 'right around this pond, I wait for the trees to fall and then collect the wood'... I put my order in right then and there... "
    Ha!
    I know that pond (or one of them), as Lawrence and I used to go spruce-sniffing a fair bit...
    It's a pity that a lot of that Idaho Engelmann went up in flames in a fire a dozen or so years ago...
    Including the World's Largest...

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    Registered User patches's Avatar
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    Default Re: New Mexico Engelmann vs. Wyoming Engelmann

    I noticed that the wood from my spruce tree was very white. Also the scraps burned very hot. I live on a small lake so it is indeed nice to build from your own hand harvested wood. Also made a couple boats. My wife thinks the mandolin would make a great paddle or bird house.
    Roy Widman

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