yellow pine for top?

**mercenarymandolinist** · Mar-14-2010, 9:34am

I have a piece of what appears to be old growth southern yellow pine. It has straight, even grain and is quartersawn. I know the board is over 50 years old. It seems somewhat heavy.
I have a mandolin (not vintage or collectable but good neck, sides and back) which needs a new top and wonder if I would be wasting my time trying to retop it with this piece of pine. The plate is already roughed out-I was practicing with a new finger plane. the mandolin in question would only need to have the top removed. It wouldn't be very difficult with the dremel.
Any thoughts if it would be a viable project worth the effort?

**dan in va** · Mar-14-2010, 10:27am

One of the advantages that spruce has is the strength to weight ratio. This is lost with the other woods and your pine sounds extra heavy. It might make a good science project to prove the physics in play here, but is that worth the effort to you?

Another option is to use the pine to make an electric mando (maybe a 5 string with warm sounding pickyp?). There are some pretty good sounding Telecasters out there with heart pine bodies.

Hope your project comes up a good.....dan

"When everything is coming our way, we might look to see if we're in the wrong lane." -Arthur Burt

**mercenarymandolinist** · Mar-14-2010, 10:51am

I also have some really old Douglas fir with crazy fine grain, also quartersawn. It was originally sawn for stair treads. I have enough for two tops.This mandolin will resemble a snakehead A style Gibson when finished.
Would the fir work for this project?

**grandcanyonminstrel** · Mar-14-2010, 10:57am

Douglas fir works great for mandolin tops. Usually I would have some reservations about using yellow pine. I had a student bring in some to make an archtop guitar a while back. On the bench, I was so unimpressed with the wood that I offered to give him some red spruce billets for free if he would make the top out of that instead. He still went ahead and made the top out of his yeallow pine and the results were a pretty good instrument. The nice thing about a mandolin is it is a small intrument, so if the pine does not work for you, you can always carve another top reasonably fast; it is not like you are building double basses!

j.
www.condino.com

**Josh Kaplan** · Mar-14-2010, 10:59am

Larry Hopkins, who made my mandolin (pictured in my avatar), now uses 300-year-old southern pine tops for most of his mandolins, fiddles, and guitars. And I recently bought a mandolin with a Douglas Fir top from Howard Morris that sounds just fine.

Josh

**Spruce** · Mar-14-2010, 12:04pm

Originally Posted by dan in va

One of the advantages that spruce has is the strength to weight ratio.

A concept that is embraced as holy in the violin world, but seems to have been swept under the couch among many high-end mandolin makers...

Think Gilchrist, Monteleone, and many others who are seeking out and using spruce that no self-respecting violin maker would touch due to it's tonnage...

**dan in va** · Mar-14-2010, 5:55pm

That makes a lot of sense, Spruce. The extra tension of more steel strings may be able to drive tops made from other woods. My one fir top experience was owning a Unicorn mando with fir top back in the 1980's, and it sounded on the low side of average to me. But that particular instrument might not have represented the fir well since there are so many factors involved with carving tops.

**grandcanyonminstrel** · Mar-14-2010, 6:17pm

Ask Rolfe about Douglas fir mandolin tops. I believe he has built over a hundred instruments using them - more than anyone else I know. There is one here in town and it is a banjo killer. The half dozen mandolins I've built with it worked very well, and not just for tops. The density range for Douglas fir is all over the place. I've seen some that is very light and other VERY tight grained old growth that specs out about 40% more dense than western maple. On average, in a lot of ways it reminds me of red spruce.

j.
www.condino.com

**Paul Hostetter** · Mar-14-2010, 9:42pm

I forget his name, but The Strad once interviewed a famous French-Swiss cello maker. They said something to the effect of 'You say you make your tops from pin oregon - didn't you know that was Douglas fir, a common construction wood in North America?' The guy responded "I don't care what it is. I have built over 600 cellos from it and wouldn't use anything else."

A couple of woods that probably fail the strength to weight ratio ideal are redwood and red cedar. Both seem to make very nice instruments. I think violinmakers are much less adventurous about making instruments with sounds that possibly vary from the Cremonese masters. Ironically, people building with carbon fiber are claiming they're replicating those sounds. I think mandolin and guitar makers use alternate materials to cover new territory.

**Mario Proulx** · Mar-14-2010, 11:46pm

didn't you know that was Douglas fir, a common construction wood in North America?'

We frame houses, and wipe our butts, with red spruce, too.

Heck, I even burn it as firewood. Just because something's "common" for someone doesn't make it any less usable. Glad the cello maker stood his ground!

I just built a flat top mandolin with a red pine top that I picked up at the dump; was an old piece of 1x6 T&G that I thought was spruce; dead-on quartersawn, so I thought either bracewood or a flat top mando([piece was short). It was only when I re-sawed it and ran it through the thickness sander that I realized it was red pine(distinctive smell and native to this area, so would have been used in older homes). Damn if it's not becoming my favorite mandolin! It was a good bit heavier than spruce, and very, very pitchy, but also very lively.

I've also made a violin from fir that has received high praise.

Go for it!

Edit: here's a shot of said pine-topped mandolin.

**billhay4** · Mar-15-2010, 10:17am

Nice, Mario!
I wouldn't hesitate to use pine for a top, especially if it was dead on quartersawn, tight grained (but even if not so tight), heavy, and had a nice ping.
Bill

**mercenarymandolinist** · Mar-15-2010, 5:07pm

O.K. Pine it is. The old top has been removed, leaving the binding intact. Now I need to replace the kerfed lining and profile the top so it fits inside the binding. I never tried it this way, but I guess if I make a cardboard template it's doable Indeed, this piece of wood is extremely dense with perfectly straight and even grain and wonderfully aromatic when worked. I have enough for one, maybe two more tops. I'll save the fir for something special, maybe that three pointer I've always wanted to build.
Actually, this is going to be an F hole mandolin because it has a 14 fret neck.
Now the question is how are the graduations going to compare to a typical piece of spruce. Thinner because of weight? Thicker for strength?
Tone bars or X brace?
thanks to all for the feedback.

**John Arnold** · Mar-15-2010, 8:22pm

SYP is generally stiffer across the grain than spruce. I would make it a bit thinner than a spruce top, with tone bars.
If you can secure the top just above the binding, you may be able to profile the edge, using the sides as a guide. That certainly works with flat top guitars.

**Michael Gowell** · Mar-15-2010, 8:52pm

Just an aside about Southern Yellow Pine - the US Navy used to specify it for wooden decks on saling ships - it's the least slippery wood when wet. The guys at the Navy Yards liked it so much they frequently diverted shipments to use on the interior floors of their shops & shiphouses.