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Thread: sap wood

  1. #1

    Default sap wood

    I am surprised to be seeing sapwood in mandolins. Is this a personal problem?Click image for larger version. 

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    Last edited by MrMoe; Mar-29-2020 at 8:04pm.

  2. #2
    Registered User sunburst's Avatar
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    Default Re: sap wood

    The sapwood of maple is the part we use. The heartwood of maple (most species) is dark colored and sometimes not sound.
    We use spruce from just inside of the bark, so we don't distinguish between sapwood and heartwood.
    Is it a personal problem? Perhaps...

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  4. #3

    Default Re: sap wood

    I am trying to learn about maple. The best figure (If one can afford any) is generally in the outer part of the tree. Is that all sap wood? I struggle with which way to "open the book" to achieve a "book match". The sap wood dilemma that I am referring to is more about tropical woods. Should a sometimes cool looking white area be in the middle of a dark back? or vice versa? Thanks John, your Instruments are stunning!

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    Registered User sunburst's Avatar
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    Default Re: sap wood

    Quote Originally Posted by MrMoe View Post
    ...The sap wood dilemma that I am referring to is more about tropical woods. Should a sometimes cool looking white area be in the middle of a dark back? or vice versa?...
    That appears to be a tradition from the classical guitar building community. It is a matter of aesthetics it seems to me. The white sapwood of many tropical woods, like rosewood, seems to be otherwise nearly identical to the dark heartwood, so structurally there is no apparent problem. We're all entitled to our opinions about how it looks.

    As for maple, yes, the outer portion is pretty much all sapwood. (One of the identifying features of wood species is the number of annual rings of sapwood.)

    We can 'open the book' either way if one way or the other serves our purposes better, but generally the center joint has the two edges closer to the bark joining (assuming 'quartered' wood, or nearly so).

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  7. #5

    Default Re: sap wood

    [QUOTE=sunburst;1763674]That appears to be a tradition from the classical guitar building community.

    Thanks again John, Very helpful. An instructor of mine with a background in guitars always insisted that the center of the tree be toward the center of the instrument. He seldom used Maple. I begin to understand the premium for nice all white Maple.

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