Oak ladder braced

[ruby@magpage.com]

My next guitar will be a red spruce/oak ladder braced instrument with a Gibson J-185 body size and shape. I have seen some pretty fantastic oak instruments on the internet but was having trouble finding something that I liked. John Hall turned me on to a local-to-him wood supplier, and it turns out he is the guy that supplied Martin for the 100 oak Arts and Crafts guitars from a few years ago. I went to see him and here is what I came up with:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/ ... 776959267/

The man I went to see was Sam Tallorica near Reading PA. He has a large yard full of mostly oak - oak of all types and origins, most of it in large sizes and of rare varieties. He has a 9 foot wide bandsaw mill that is pretty amazing:

http://www.talaricohardwoods.com/imports.htm

The back and sides are Scottish Oak, quercus patreae, a white oak. He likes this species from Scotland because it grows slowly and the soil has few minerals to discolor the wood. These logs are BIG, up to 60 inches. He had a photo of this log, and the reason it was taken down is because a large section in the center near the ground had rotted out, but there was still a bunch of wood left even at ground level! Only rarely does a log yield this kind of figure, and to get it to show the wood must be almost perfectly quartered. Most people are after the straight and tight grain that these logs produce - flooring, panelling and veneer - and to get that he will rift saw the wood.

The big piece is for the neck. I wanted an oak neck for the look but I expressed my concern that the neck would be too heavy. Sam said he had just the thing for me. Real old growth, tight grained Spessart oak. He explained that the very close grained woods have more air in them than the faster growing woods, and are therefore lighter per cubic foot - can anyone confirm this? Well this 3 board foot piece clocks in at 36 lbs/ft3, where white oak is normally somewhere in the 45-50 lb/ft3 range, and the mahogany that is usually used is in the 40 lb/ft2 range - so lighter it is. Check the 240 grain lines in 7 inches - more than 30 per inch - and further check the consistency of the growth. The piece I have has some of the heart in it and about 1/2 of sap wood, so this tree was less than 20" across at 240+ years. This is a pretty spectacular piece of wood.

So what is Spessart Oak? This is a large forest in Bavaria bordering France (Snow White is reported to have lived there with 7 little guys) that has a lot of oak and beech, and he told me about the area where this wood came from. Part of the Spessart Forest was a hunting ground for nobility and bishops 400 years ago. The oak that came out of these woods was of very high quality, but they did not want to cut it all down, so they decided to manage it. They would clear cut a small area (Sam said a hectare which is 2-1/2 acres(?)), then replant these quercus petreae on a grid very close to each other. Every couple of years they would pull out the trees that did not promise to be the very best, until the right number was left for the trees to mature properly. At this point they would plant Beech trees in the open spaces because they could grow in shady areas under the oaks, meanwhile, the Beeches would shade the trunks of the oaks so the sun would not encourage a branch on the trunk which would spoil the lumber.

Since then they have harvested only a sustainable amount of wood every year, and continued replanting. He is on his way to Germany in February for the next auction - which happens a couple of times a year. He has the logs cut in Germany and stacked for 2 years to get the initial moisture out of them. Then he ships them here, kiln dries them, then he won’t sell them for another couple of years. Nice and dry and extremely stable (and expensive).

I wanted 16 quarter wood to get a 1 piece neck out of, but all he had was 8 quarter, so I got twice the length and will glue a center seam up.

I am also showing the nice piece of red spruce I picked up for the top.

Another great day

Ed

[penndan]

Hans Brentrup in Minneapolis makes some great ladder braced oak guitars. Google up his web site. You'll be glad you did.

[Diane Kauffmds]

A local luthier makes ladder braced guitars out of old piano wood; they're great sounding guitars. Love your choice of woods.