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Thread: British/Irish Grown Soundboard Wood

  1. #1
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    Default British/Irish Grown Soundboard Wood

    Following on from the recent thread on different species used for soundboard wood, I was wondering whether any makers in the British Isles (i.e. UK and Irish Republic) have any experience of using home-grown softwoods for soundboards. Although there is spruce (Norway, Sitka and others), fir and pine grown for timber in the British Isles, it seems to be received wisdom that lutherie-grade softwood (with the exception of Yew, which is only technically a softwood) simply doesn't grow here, owing to high rainfall, mild winters and the resulting fast growth rate.

    Does anyone have experience to the contrary?

    I've recently been offered some local (Welsh) douglas fir. It hasn't actually been felled yet, but it will be interesting to see what sort of timber it yields. For those that don't know, Wales is known for being one of the wetter parts of the UK.

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    Default Re: British/Irish Grown Soundboard Wood

    p.s. I see my location is still marked as London. Fortunately, I'm now in an altogether cleaner, more peaceful, more beautiful place.

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    Registered User Tavy's Avatar
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    Default Re: British/Irish Grown Soundboard Wood

    No idea on the answer, but I'd be interested in this one too.... I want to start my first scratch build later this year, and would prefer to use all local sustainably harvested woods if possible. Basically that means Doug Fir or um.. Doug Fir

    Oh and was thinking of using Doug fir for the back and sides as well - similar to a cirtain well known green mandolin that's been seen around these parts - except for the green finish that is!

    Cheers, John.

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    wood butcher Spruce's Avatar
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    Default Re: British/Irish Grown Soundboard Wood

    Quote Originally Posted by whistler View Post
    Although there is spruce (Norway, Sitka and others), fir and pine grown for timber in the British Isles, it seems to be received wisdom that lutherie-grade softwood (with the exception of Yew, which is only technically a softwood) simply doesn't grow here, owing to high rainfall, mild winters and the resulting fast growth rate.
    No, the reason that those species are not producing instrument-grade tops is because they are second-growth timbre...

    Second-growth--whether it's North American spruce, cedar, redwood, etc. etc.--is simply not going to make tops...
    Too many knots, wide grain, etc. etc.

    One possible exception I've run into is some second growth Red Spruce I milled in Maine, but that was a rare one...

    Generally speaking, the above is the norm...

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    Default Re: British/Irish Grown Soundboard Wood

    Bruce, would you care to weigh in re. the reasons 2nd growth is not as good as original forest?

    I assume that the issues are fast growth, lack of competition, all the trees being of nearly the same age, and monoculture planting.

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    Registered User big smiley guy's Avatar
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    Default Re: British/Irish Grown Soundboard Wood

    Quote Originally Posted by Spruce View Post
    No, the reason that those species are not producing instrument-grade tops is because they are second-growth timbre...

    Second-growth--whether it's North American spruce, cedar, redwood, etc. etc.--is simply not going to make tops...
    Too many knots, wide grain, etc. etc.

    One possible exception I've run into is some second growth Red Spruce I milled in Maine, but that was a rare one...

    Generally speaking, the above is the norm...
    Some of the wide-grained red spruce I've seen in recent years has made some spectacular sounding guitars. Most of it seems to be coming from West Virginia and Canada. It doesn't have the tight grain of the old stuff but it also seems to have a lot less pitch pockets. As long as it's wide enough to get on good quarter it's sounds fine.

  7. #7

    Default Re: British/Irish Grown Soundboard Wood

    In the April 1977 edition of the UK magazine Guitar, David Rubio did an interview in which he stated he was rather keen on English Fir (whatever that may be) I've never come across any in my time. The fir he refered to actually came from the north of Scotland.

    There are a few UK domestic woods which can be used for instrument making but they tend to be used for backs and ribs. English Sycamore being the most common (I'm a fan, especially for smaller instruments like Mandolins) and sometimes Yew.

    http://www.nkforsterguitars.com

  8. #8
    Adrian Minarovic
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    Default Re: British/Irish Grown Soundboard Wood

    Most of european spruce sold for violins/violas is also second growth...
    There is so few old growth forests in europe and the small isles are protected (here in Slovakia you even cannot enter them freely without authorised supervision). Forestry and forest planting has very long tradition and the oldest grown trees (that were not cut for any reason) are reaching 300 or more years which is upper limit for European spruce. The spruce trees are typically planted in way that resembles natural forest (mixed with birch, poplar, willow etc.) so the trees are protected and grow well (foresters only want to fill the empty spaces fast, then the trees take their own pace). Even trees from spruce monocultures (typical for the Czech Republic or Germany) grow fast only till they reach some age as they are planted too dense to keep growing fast. That also makes them lose their bottom branches quite soon and as result they have less knots than old growth. Were they left to grow for 150 years in places where spruce typically grows the wood would be superior to old growth (at least in growth consistency and flaws).
    I have seen such trees cut when they were 150+ years and the wood was looking great. But most often the trees get cut in 90-100 years cycles. But that makes pretty nice violin/mandolin wood. I personally split logs from 60-80 year old spruces into mandolin tops and while the wood has wide grain, it is nice, stiff and has very few knots.
    US species that grow much older or introduced species may be different story altogether...
    Adrian

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    Registered User Tavy's Avatar
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    Default Re: British/Irish Grown Soundboard Wood

    HoGo has hit the nail on the head there: there are no old growth forrests in the UK that can be felled in any quantity, and in any case taking wood from old growth forrests is hardly sustainable.

    BTW the local Doug Fir I've seen (grown, felled and dried literally a couple of miles from me here) comes in pretty wide boards and is almost completely knot and defect free... getting it quarter sawn may be a whole other story though... it would be a case of finding a suitable slice from the centre of the log (half sawn??).

    John.

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    wood butcher Spruce's Avatar
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    Default Re: British/Irish Grown Soundboard Wood

    Quote Originally Posted by Rick Turner View Post
    Bruce, would you care to weigh in re. the reasons 2nd growth is not as good as original forest?

    I assume that the issues are fast growth, lack of competition, all the trees being of nearly the same age, and monoculture planting.
    Yep. All that.

    If you want to see something really funky, check out a second growth redwood or cedar...
    Limbs to the ground, wide graining, etc.
    The same applies to second-growth spruce, fir, etc.
    Just go to Lowes and have a look at the lumber.
    Not many mando tops on those shelves...

    As Adrian points out, you could manage a tonewood forest, preserving the conditions that might produce a mandolin top, but it would still be dicey considering that only 1-in-25 spruce trees will split straight anyway...

    The selected wood that comes out of old-growth forests is what we want, making the canard you see on bumperstickers--"Forests-America's Renewable Resource" a dubious statement as far as mandolin makers are concerned...

  11. #11

    Default Re: British/Irish Grown Soundboard Wood

    Second-growth--whether it's North American spruce, cedar, redwood, etc. etc.--is simply not going to make tops...
    Too many knots, wide grain, etc. etc.

    One possible exception I've run into is some second growth Red Spruce I milled in Maine, but that was a rare one...
    Nearly all the red spruce I have cut has been second growth, or at least having second growth in the outer 7+ inches. That is because the trees that are now large enough were left behind when the logging occurred in the late-1800's or early-1900's. I have looked at some pure second growth red spruce in NC, and though wide-grained, the trees have now shed enough limbs to be useful for instruments.
    BTW, the Carpathian spruce I have seen is nearly all second growth, too.
    John

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    Default Re: British/Irish Grown Soundboard Wood

    my first two mandos were mande with lumber yard pine tops.

    the grain was about 3 to the inch!!!!

    they worked!!!!!
    Quote Originally Posted by stout1
    Now, thanks to Martin and his guitar shaped mandola, I have been stricken with GBMAS, guitar body mandola acqusition syndrome
    hey!! I got my own Syndrome!!!!

  13. #13
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    Default Re: British/Irish Grown Soundboard Wood

    I built a very small (coconut bodied) mandolin, with the soundboard made out of a western red cedar banner stake, gleaned from Hyde Park, London, after an anti-war march (6 slices, glued edge-to-edge). It probably wasn't grown in Britain, but it was harvested in Britain, after a fashion.

  14. #14

    Default Re: British/Irish Grown Soundboard Wood

    The Irish wood would probably take the fires of Heck to dry it ...

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    Default Re: British/Irish Grown Soundboard Wood

    Quote Originally Posted by Eddie Sheehy View Post
    The Irish wood would probably take the fires of Heck to dry it ...
    hey!! I resemble that remark!!
    Quote Originally Posted by stout1
    Now, thanks to Martin and his guitar shaped mandola, I have been stricken with GBMAS, guitar body mandola acqusition syndrome
    hey!! I got my own Syndrome!!!!

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