Age of the wood more important than species?

[Michael Gowell]

I saw a DVD presentation featuring Richard Hoover, luthier and owner of Santa Cruz guitars, doing a workshop at Artisan Guitars in Tennesee.#Richard travels the world buying tonewoods and oversees - and participates in - the annual production of some 600 guitars in a dozen models. Bigger than a boutique builder but basically a dozen luthiers who each have a hand in each instrument and watch each other's work.

He spent a lot of time discussing tops - species, thicknessing, and bracing. #But then he said something new to me...he tries to buy standing dead trees. #The sap has crystallized, he says, and that's the main reason old instruments (tend to) sound better than new ones. #He implied that this factor is more important than species.

Presumably any builders stash of old wood would have undergone this process in the racks or under the workbench.

Your thoughts, builders, about this crystallized sap idea?

[labraid]

I think any extra effort put in by the luthier comes out in the end as justifying a better sounding instrument. If I cut down trees reciting prayers, and my guitars sounded really good, I might just give a seminar telling others how I do it. Sap, or tree sugar, is precisely one of the things that vaporizes over time in the drying process, at least the volatile portions. Even crystals will sublimate if they are of a volatile nature. In short, if anything is going to vaporize in time, it will. It will leave the wood. This is part of "aging" -- wood stops smelling over time as less and less volatile compounds remain. (varnish, on the other hand, can give off organic compounds pretty much until disintegration)
So I'd ask. Crystals of what? Sugar? All wood extractives?
Crystals would be nothing but dead mass, in my guestimation of their effects. Some violin makers have even been known to boil tops to expediate aging, at least, this is what I believe it actually accomplishes. This process would effectively lighten the wood, dissolve and vaporize any extractives, sugar crystals, and especially resins.

[arbarnhart]

I find that incredibly odd. I have removed dead trees from my property and helped others also. The vast majority had bugs and/or rot. Some are largely hollow. It's one of those "circle of life" things; the forest is alive and a lot of the live things feed on the dead things.

[sunburst]

If you re-saw a few old yellow pine beams (heart pine, as it's known commercially these days), or sand a yellow pine floor in an old home, you'll find (as I have) that sap in some wood doesn't "crystallize" in over 100 years. It might be possible for western red cedar to stand dead that long without serious degrade, but I have my doubts if any spruce tree could, so we're probably not talking about lengths of time like that.
The fact that yellow pine can gum up a saw blade or sandpaper over 100 years after the tree died doesn't necessarily mean that the resins in spruce will do the same, and spruce doesn't have the gummy resin of yellow pine anyway, but it indicates to me that any improvement in the wood from the tree standing dead would have to be small if it exists at all. Also, as arbarnhart says, the wood in a standing dead tree is subject to lots of things that it would be protected from if it had the bark peeled and was quickly dried in a controlled environment.
There are wood harvesters like Steve McMinn and "Spruce" Bruce Harvie who have specialized in processing dead and downed trees and/or logs into top wood, but I don't know if they perceive any superiority of that wood over "fresh" wood dried similarly after harvest.

There are resins in spruce that can be "set" by the heat of kiln drying, or simply heating the wood hot enough, and some prefer that that be done so that those little dots of resin don't come to the surface of the wood under the finish, but I don't know of any evidence that "setting" the resin improves the performance of the wood in an instrument. There are compounds in wood that "out-gas" as the wood ages (mostly early on) but that will happen whether the tree stands dead or is cut down.

I don't know what Richard Hoover's words were, and I don't know if he was stating a preference or an opinion, but I'd want to be shown some kind of evidence before I'd believe that wood from standing dead trees would serve me significantly better than wood from standing live trees.

[arbarnhart]

Sinkers and well stored wood are a different story than standing dead timber. I don't know if they are better, but it's different. I didn't think about cedar; it stands a better chance of being intact after standing dead for some time. But spruce is yummy bug food.

[labraid]

I'd be interested to see an exact quote of what M. Hoover said. Is this possible?

In any case, the thought has been following me for a few hours... And I was thinking, there may be one benefit to leaving a tree standing.. This doesn't have anything to do with crystals, but instead the columns of water and sap which begins in the roots and extend to the leaves. If a tree were to die standing of, say, old age, these columns of water and sap would remain intact until some exterior force acted on them. If some force from the roots, or even the leaves if intact, were to pull on these columns, it could effectively drain the columns entirely over a few years, drying and emptying the cells... different than a cut log which would have no forces acting on it except drying at the ends which isn't an emptying/pulling force, but more like osmosis..
It turns out to be an interesting twist on drying, with more than a few differences really. It just might, in the end, make for an emptier cell structure dried standing.

[Michael Gowell]

Aarrrghh! I just spent a frustrating two hours trying to transcribe Richard Hoover's quote. #My copy of the DVD has many skips and jumps and they get worse each time I try to replay a section.

I just spoke with Ellie at Artisan Guitars and she said that while she'd be happy to send me a replacement, the workshop will be available online at their site in a few days. #Seems to me I remember seeing another online Richard Hoover video, this one following a crew getting sitka spruce billets out of some remote forest via helicopter.

Anyway, here are a couple of direct quotes from earlier in my DVD regarding harvesting dead stuff...

re. his chosen Mahogany harvesters in Peru..."they go out and harvest windfalls, lightning strikes, the downed trees, that's the stuff that we (SCGC) use..."

and later, re. his enthusiasm for California Sycamore as a substitute for Mahogany (which he predicts will become unavailable)..."and we'll be able to work (in this species) our whole career, my lifetime, from downed trees, because it's not a commercial timber..."

So obviously SCGC's preference for standing dead timber goes beyond the conifers. #Perhaps it's only a California-fashionable sales pitch, but I don't think so. #Their guitars have a wonderful reputation.

In any case, the remarks about sap crystallization come at around minute 24 or shortly after. #I'll be interested to hear what folks think after seeing the video in a few days.

[sunburst]

Those statements mean he likes using wood that is already down rather than contributing to deforestation by using wood from logging operations. A good choice for a sustainable future, IMO. From those quotes it seems to me he is more interested in sustainability than any superiority in standing dead trees.

[Michael Gowell]

Agree about sustainability. #Let's wait for the video to see what he said about sap and crystallization.

[thistle3585]

I spent an afternoon with two violin builder's and we talked about, among other things, wood preparation for building. One gave a brief synopsis of his "boiling" method which removed inorganic material from the wood that traps moisture, sap and whatever else. When he was done the other guy looks at me and says, "Thats why I buy standing dead trees."

[Hans]

As far as the topic title, the species determines the tonal qualities of the instrument...complex, rich, fundamental, dry. Not sure age has much to do with better tone and is speculative. I've built some instruments with 2-3 year old tonewood that sound just as good as ones with 20-25 year old planks. I don't really care to bake or boil wood that I've stickered and stored under R/H control for many years. Cutting the tree on a full moon may fall into the same speculative category, who knows...this I know for sure: the tonewood in an instrument is 1 day old the first day it is strung up. Nothing will replace 10 years of playing. There are no "instant gratification" instruments. There is only experience, careful graduation, and thoughtful reflection on the finished instrument.
Twelve workers building 50 guitars a month sounds like factory to me.

[steve V. johnson]

I am just crazymadnuts in love with my Santa Cruz guitar, and I don't much need another one. But if RH puts out something similar to the OM PW in design that's made of dead-standing cedar and sycamore I'll bust a*s to find and play one.

Maine Michael, thanks for a nice thread, and thanks to all for good infos and discussion. Michael, please remind us when that stuff is available online?

Many thanks,

stv

[arbarnhart]

Twelve workers building 50 guitars a month sounds like factory to me.

I did the math also and wondered about that. It works out to about 40 hours per guitar. They are flat tops and my guess (purely speculative) is the roughing out of all parts is done by CNC, the bending is largely automated with one of the heat blanket systems and the finish is sprayed by machines, leaving a reasonable amount of time for tuning the top and working on appointments. That doesn't mean they are all as good - a CNC won't notice that a brace just doesn't feel right while carving it and throw it away - but many of them will be. Again, there is some guesswrok here...

[Bill Snyder]

40 hours for a flat top instrument is not a killer pace w/o the automation. I have read that Martin's rate, start to strung up and ready to go is 8 hours. That is automation.

[Michael Gowell]

Yes, I'll check the Artisan Guitar site daily and update this discussion when the video is available.

Re. SCGC being like a factory, I dunno. #Never seen the facility (nor Martin's, etc.) #But RH did mention that Cruz's annual output is equivalent to 2 days of production at Martin or Gibson. #Now THOSE are truly factories. #And the employees at Martin, etc. must do a single job over and over all day, every day. They may be skilled and dedicated workers, but clearly they aren't luthiers.

Interesting that you mention braces and CNC machines. #RH talks about using CNC - as much to save the luthiers from carpal tunnel in cutting fret slots and inlay as for production's sake. #But he did mention that the braces are scalloped by hand and that a new employee gets a lot of training before he's allowed to do that job.

[Michael Gowell]

The Richard Hoover/Santa Cruz video is now up online at Artisan Guitars. #Sorry - I don't know how to link it here. #Go to the 'Artisan Guitars' home page and click on 'Artisan Videos' at the top of the page towards the right.

I'll leave it up to others whether the discussion continues on this thread or a new one more aptly titled.

[Michael Gowell]

Update...within a few hours the number of visitors crashed the server. #The video should be available again within a day.

[niaflsbob]

re: the use of cnc machines. when taylor was the new guy (15 years ago) there was big backlash about them using automation (cnc's) in the production of their guitars. not traditional,etc. in the industrial world i seen machining used all the time to produce consistent quality parts and better products. why not the same for musical instruments. i will concede that there is no substitute for a luthier's touch to assemble, tune and finish a quality instrument. but producing the components (fretboard, neck roughed out, etc) as a way for a company to produce a good product, maintain profitability, and make their product more affordable should not be automatically disdained. imho

[labraid]

Affordability. The moment a luthier decides to speak the word, already he has thought of dollar bills and forgotten the wood under his chisel.

[Joe Mendel]

When I was at the SCGC shop a few years ago, the braces were glued to the tops rectangular shaped and carved by hand. That was a major differrence from the Taylor factory where are braces are carved to shape by CNC and glued to the tops with no additional shaping, ever. When Richard Hoover says something, I certainly give it careful consideration, even if I don't agree. I have come around to his point of view several times after I learned more through my own experience. By the same token, I have come to agree with Bob Taylor's point of view on things I totally disagreed with at first.

[Michael Gowell]

The video is back up on the Artisan Guitars site.

[steve V. johnson]

Volume.

If a builder wants to do large numbers of reliable instruments and keep distribution committments to downstream markets
then "building" becomes "manufacturing," and therein is a whole other world of criteria. #I'm not sure that someone who wants to do that is quite as... um... shall I say "mercenary" as BD suggests.

Many musicians want to "get signed to a major record label" and sell zillions of CDs worldwide. #Some of them are mercenary and don't care about their music as much as about their job, but I think most of them (us) care a LOT. #Some of us just want different things. #I hope that analogy holds...

It takes all kinds... #And what BD says is true in that other things do need to matter to Taylor than the 'wood under his chisel'. Those come with the turf.

Bob Taylor decided to make his business very successful and then build his most artful guitars once that was done. #Brian Dean is building his artful pieces now, and I hope that he builds wonderfully for as long as he wishes. # All the best to you both.

[Full disclosure: #Personally, I like BD's work a lot better than I lilke Bob Taylor's. ]

stv