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Thread: Birch as a tone wood?

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    Default Birch as a tone wood?

    There is a mando in the classifieds right now with a birch back and sides. Is birch a good tone wood for this? Where is it tonally? Bright like maple, or darker like mahogany, or in between?

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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    Not 100% sure, but I thought some old Gibson mandolins often had some birch incorporated (necks? Rims?)? If so, it couldn't be too bad! Less interesting to look at usually though.

    Scott

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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    Giant numbers of old Gibsons had birch backs.

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    Registered User toddjoles's Avatar
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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    Yep, along with the old Gibsons, many thousands of guitars were made from birch backs and sides.
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    Better late than never walt33's Avatar
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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    I've been thinking that soooo many old Gibsons had birch back and sides, but I can't remember reading about many (any?) new builds that use it. Does anybody build with birch these days? It always seems to be maple or mahogany.

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    the little guy DerTiefster's Avatar
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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    My great-uncle had an old no-name mandolin that I received through my father. It looks like a Regal design and appears to be solid birch all through. I like its tone, but it is quiet and sweet, not strident. It all depends up on what your are hankerin' after.
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    Registered User Walt Kuhlman's Avatar
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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    Birch is similar to many of the maples regarding density and strength and has been used as a structural substitute for maple in the furniture/cabinet industry for years. One thing that drives many manufacturers is price and availability and the two woods have competed on the wholesale market on many occasions. Regarding instruments, birch is readily more available with some light figure and some of the red birches can be very attractive, it is however a bit more difficult to work then maple regarding chip out. It is a staple in the hardwood veneer industry and used extensively for drawer sides and cabinet interiors. Due to its abundance it also is easier to find the light figured birches at a reasonable price then the higher flamed, curly, tiger or birds eye maples. All in all I don't think it would be a bad tonal choice..it is just a bit more of a 'Plain Jane'.

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    coprolite mandroid's Avatar
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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    Don't sweat it just play the music ..
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    Registered User Bill Snyder's Avatar
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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    If memory serves me correctly Gail Hester has used birch in at least one of her f-4 copies. I have read that it is a fine tonewood and it was used on a great many old Gibson mandolins.
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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    Birch was very common in instrument manufacturing in years past. It is a fine tone wood. It will not look like a highly flamed piece of maple so don't expect that. Why it stopped being used may be a combination of appearance (people began to want it fancier and prettier) or availability. Many of the old growth woods like Walnut and Adirondak Spruce stopped being used due to the availability of the pieces large enough for instrument use due to the old growth forest depletion. In the decades since some of these wood sources have become readily available again and in reasonable price. We use a lot of Walnut in our electric guitar and bass builds. It is one of my favorite woods for acoustic guitars and arch tops as well. Birch should be very acceptable as a wood for instrument use again.
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    Registered User Walt Kuhlman's Avatar
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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    Joe I think it stopped being used like you say, becasuse the market favored the Maples, not because of lack of availability. I spent many years in the hardwood industry and there has always been enough to meet the demand at very reasonable price.

    As for Walnut and Adirondak Spruce I couldn't agree with you more and I also use Walnut in many of my builds.
    Last edited by Walt Kuhlman; Jul-15-2011 at 9:09am.

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    Capt. E Capt. E's Avatar
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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    I know I read that Gibson used birch as the body wood for ALL the A and A-1 models. Maybe others. Am I wrong?
    The 1922 Bacon "Amateur" I had recently was made with a birch body.
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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    This is the mandolin I was referring to specifically. It is in the classifieds right now:
    http://www.mandolincafe.com/cgi-bin/...uery=retrieval

    Lots of replies said that birch was plain but look at the flame! Very nice in my opinion. The appearance speaks for itself, I was mostly wondering what the sound and durability would be like. Mr. Flood describes the sound as "bell like". Apparently this is a on-off prototype of a new design that was later modified. Sure looks nice for 400 dollars. I am severely tempted!

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    Capt. E Capt. E's Avatar
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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    Yes, very nice flame for birch, but I am not too surprised having built furniture in the past with both birch and maple. Many people don't know that most maple has relatively little flame. Instrument quality wood comes from only 10% of all the maple harvested. How it is sawn also makes a big difference.
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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    Garrison also used birch on their mandos, not sure of the guitars though.
    http://www.mandolincafe.com/cgi-bin/...uery=retrieval

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    Registered User Walt Kuhlman's Avatar
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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    Multidon that is very typical of birch a decent 'open' wave pattern. Birch also has a tendency to color variation in each tree, and as this piece in the classifieds has been stained lightly, a light amber of sorts. Birch can mimic as well and has been used as a substitute for both maple and cherry, typically stained accordingly. With what I know about this wood, if Mr. Flood chose decent heart wood it would be dense enough to be bright and more stable than the newer growth of the tree. On a little closer examination of the photo you can see toward the center match a stained 'reddish' appearance, one can also see the growth rings which indicate the tree came from some favorable conditions and grew rather rapidly, not a bad this just and observation.

    Many of the maples have a much higher pattern...

    Click image for larger version. 

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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    Sycamore can be an interesting wood for instrument building as well. While I don't like the tone it produces, one of the most beautiful guitars I ever saw was a Santa Cruz done in all Sycamore. Even the top and neck were Sycamore. The grain pattern was jaw dropping wonderful! However, it sounded like a 100.00 guitar to my ears. It was certainly a work of art!

    Capt. E is correct that only a small amount of Maple has what we call "Flame". The way it is cut, and the way it is finished will make the flame jump out or be more hidden as well. While we like the looks of highly figured Maple, it does not make the instrument sound better. Often the more plain looking pieces of wood are better sounding but harder to sell. The "eye candy" aspect of it all is what sells the instrument in many cases. Think about it for a minute. If you could get a pretty mandolin that sounded about as good as the plain one, which would you chose? 99% will chose the pretty one even if it does not sound quite as good. Our ears are directly tied to our eyes. We can do a blind taste testing, but our billfolds don't respond the same once we open our eyes.

    I posted a while back on where the term "Flame Maple" originated. I had to take wood classes while at Gibson. It was interesting, and though I thought I knew quite a bit about wood before, this was like a graduate course in woods for instruments. I loved it. The instructor would get irate when we said "Flame Maple" for instruments. He insisted we call it "Highly Figured" and explained that flame maple was an artificial way of graining the wood to appear as if it had a high figure. They would tie rope around the item before finishing and set the rope on fire. It would leave a burn mark that looked like what we call flamed grain in the maple. That was the way "Flame Maple" was made during that era and the name was invented as a marketing gimmick to make people think it was a special quality of wood. In fact, it was just plain maple that would structurally great but optically very poor. When they put the "flame" in the wood and then finished over it the wood looked as though it was highly figured and could command a premium price.

    Today they don't have to go to those extremes to do the same thing. Now we have "photo flame" that was used a few years ago to make guitars pretty. It was a photo that was placed over the instrument and when the finish was applied it looked like real flame. It was a lot cheaper than trying to burn the wood and certainly cheaper and easier to get than really nicely figured wood. Now some builders are doing a thin figured laminate over the top of the underlying wood. You may have a "flame top", but who knows what is under it? It may be maple, but then again.....

    This does not have much to do with the discussion on Birch directly, but the flaming process was used on birch and other species as well in the furniture industry. Now to modern times. The term "flame maple" has come to mean a particular pattern of figure in the maple. Purists will still go nuts if you refer to it as "flame maple" but in actuality the term originating as a marketing ploy became successful enough to become the standard term for ""highly figured" wood.

    In addition to the rarity of good highly figured maple (flame) the birdseye maple is even more difficult to get and to get in large enough pieces to build instruments. We have been trying to find some that would be acceptable for a guitar neck and fingerboard and have enough birdseye all through the piece. I finally found some after some hard digging, but it was not cheap! The guy we are building for mush have his "bling"! .
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    Registered User Max Girouard's Avatar
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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    I built an A5 with a highly figured birch back and another with a plain birch back. I think they came out really nice. I'll be using birch for a future OM I'm in the process of building as well.
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    Registered User Jill McAuley's Avatar
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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    Nice one Max!

    Gail Hester uses birch for her mandolins sometimes as well if I'm not mistaken.

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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    All the old Gibsons I have had are birch back and sides.

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    Registered User Walt Kuhlman's Avatar
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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    Sycamore can be very beautiful, I was once offered quarter sawn Sycamore for my instruments..a lot of it..but as Joe says 'as a tonewood'..hmmm..not so good...I didn't bother. The owner of the wood had violins in mind when he cust it, I don't know if he ever did find a buyer.

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    Capt. E Capt. E's Avatar
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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    Quote Originally Posted by gypsy1 View Post
    Sycamore can be very beautiful, I was once offered quarter sawn Sycamore for my instruments..a lot of it..but as Joe says 'as a tonewood'..hmmm..not so good...I didn't bother. The owner of the wood had violins in mind when he cust it, I don't know if he ever did find a buyer.
    Some of the finest Spanish made classical guitars have sycamore tops, but it is a different species than what we have in north america. Just as european spruce is a different animal than adirondack etc.
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  23. #23

    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    Birch all around ( top ,back , sides), I belive. The figure is faux:

    and, Black Walnut back , sides , neck:



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    Registered User Tavy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    Quote Originally Posted by Capt. E View Post
    Some of the finest Spanish made classical guitars have sycamore tops, but it is a different species than what we have in north america. Just as european spruce is a different animal than adirondack etc.
    And lets not forget that "European Maple" and/or "German Maple" is actually sycamore, and has been used for 100's of years in many fine instruments.

  25. #25
    Registered User Walt Kuhlman's Avatar
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    Default Re: Birch as a tone wood?

    It is an amazing world of woods and tone and more amazing is how the same specie growing in a certain region can be a top notch while growing in another region will fail tonally, (Cypress is another example of this)...The other thing playing in is what type of instrument is being built and what tone is the goal. Lets face it it all woods have a resonate tone value, it's just what are ears like or responded to that makes the difference and it also has a great deal to do with stability...and strength. …heavy, light etc.

    Getting back to the question at hand, Birch as a tone wood does cover all the stability and strength requirements..now do you like its tone and looks...to me and the instrument in question does have a pleasant look..not off the hook, but for the price pleasing..

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