Celery top pine bracing?

[Rick Turner]

Build 'em as you like...but the example you show would be absolutely unsalable if it were made today. But then I'm coming from the perspective of having to make a living at this; it's not a hobby for me.

If I'm going to take the time to build, I'll do so with quality materials.

[gratay]

I haven't heard a Bunya faced acoustic guitar I've really loved yet...They seemed to lack character and depth to the sound..I think it suits solid body electric bodies quite well for more of a rock voiced instrument.
Although these acoustic examples we're all mass produced I still believe that it would be a good material for faces in the right hands.

[matthew]

Build 'em as you like...but the example you show would be absolutely unsalable if it were made today. But then I'm coming from the perspective of having to make a living at this; it's not a hobby for me.

If I'm going to take the time to build, I'll do so with quality materials.

Well, it appears the prime directive for you - and there's nothing wrong with it - is what woods will sell, more than what woods will work.

However, the original poster in this thread was asking whether celery top poine would work, not whether it would sell.

I took a piece of dry quartersawn CTP and cut one 10" strip across the grain, and one 10" strip along the grain. I soaked both overnight, to give an "extreme reading". Along the grain, it has swollen about .5mm. Across the grain it has swollen about 6mm. Make of that what you will, it seems to tally with James' observation about the wood used in boatbuilding applications. But then again, a musical instrument is not usually immersed in water overnight. But that brief test indicates to me that as bracewood it might be longitudinally stable enough.

When the strips dry out again I'll do some flex testing.
A quick test last night showed that CTP feels as stiff along the grain as a similar piece of tassie oak. I didn't compare with spruce or cedar yet.

[Rick Turner]

Jeez, am I supposed to apologize for being a professional builder? I think it gives me a very valuable perspective. I work with and for the guys and gals who actually play these things for a living as well as those who are dedicated amateurs, many of whom have decades of experience with fine guitars and other stringed instruments. I pay attention to what they perceive and say to me about their preferences. Some of them have proven to me that they really can hear the differences among even back and side timbers; Laurence Juber, for instance, can pick out woods accurately by listening to digital models of guitars. That blew me away, but he does have golden ears.

The woods that are favored by builders and players have not been chosen over the decades by accident. The have kind of floated to the top over the course of there being millions of guitars made. There are generalizations that apply reasonably well to a number of the species. There is a rosewood sound, a mahogany sound, a maple sound, for instance when talking about backs and sides. There is a cedar sound, an Engelmann sound, an Adirondack sound when it comes to top woods. Yes, there is overlap, particularly with Sitka spruce, but still experience luthiers can feel and hear the differences and work with those differences to nudge tone one way or another.

There is no big conspiracy to shun bunya, celery top, or radiata pine, and if some of you choose to experiment with these timbers, go for it. So far I'm not hearing about properties of these timbers that match up with what I've learned about what makes for good braces, tops, or backs and sides. Just be careful not to be so in love with your idea of what you think it should sound like that you hear something that isn't there. Make your alternative timber instruments and then let musicians play them and just shut up about the woods. Let the players feel and hear the wood without spinning tales or whatever. Set up some double blind tests if you really want to test fairly for tone.

Then let the marketplace tell you if you're on the right track or not. Don't go all ivory tower with this stuff just to be able to justify your ideas. Musicians are drawn to great sounding instruments; if it's truly good, they'll buy what you make. Dollars to donuts, you won't get many takers on luthier-priced radiata pine guitars! Sure, you can give them away, but that's not a fair test of whether you can pull off making great guitars with junk wood.

As for the celery top...well, if it's the right stuff, then I guess folks will just be all over it, won't they. Sales of spruce brace stock will plummet and the new holy grail of brace timber will have been found. Somehow I'm not inclined to hold my breath... Not that it might not be appropriate for some sort of lutherie usage, but once again, I'd have to be shown a very clear advantage to the stuff before I switched away from other timbers like Sitka or Adirondack spruce.

[Kim]

A little OT but just wondering if you have ever played around with Bunya Pine Matt?? I only ask because if you did not mind working with a multi piece top, Bunya may well provide a great solution to the prohibitive materials costs you face.

All commercially viable strands of "Old Growth" Bunya Pine where logged out completely years ago. Generally speaking, the only "Old Growth" Bunya available these days large enough to produce a clean well quartered board that is wide enough to make a 2 piece dredy top is cut from private property with only a tree here and a tree there becoming available to the musical instrument makers of AU.

All the rest of the Bunya you will see in the market, including the stuff used by the major producers in AU has come from re-growth. The logs from the larger examples of these re-growth trees are juuuust a tad too narrow still to produce a good clean well quartered guitar top. Therefore it is common to find some heartwood inclusion in most the tops being made available and this goes a long way to explain the funky look.

The good news for guitar builders is that because the old growth was wiped out sooo long ago and the trees re-grow rate is sooo fast, these incursions should be completely grown out altogether in just a few short years and great quality Bunya in suitably dimensioned boards will once again become available to us at a reasonable price. (':D')


As for you Matthew, well you will need to wait a little longer . However, if you could get by jointing boards that will produce 160mm to 175mm of good clean well quartered wood, you could be building right now with a very good tonewood at a very, very reasonable price...Just a thought.

Cheers

Kim

[Kim]

Yes, there is overlap, particularly with Sitka spruce, but still experience luthiers can feel and hear the differences and work with those differences to nudge tone one way or another.

So why then would you not consider Bunya could be worked "One way or the other"?? That statement just seems contradictory to me.

So far I'm not hearing about properties of these timbers that match up with what I've learned about what makes for good braces, tops, or backs and sides. Just be careful not to be so in love with your idea of what you think it should sound like that you hear something that isn't there.

May be Rick that you too should be careful not to be so put off by your idea of how something should look that you don't hear what IS there.

Make your alternative timber instruments and then let musicians play them and just shut up about the woods. Let the players feel and hear the wood without spinning tales or whatever. Set up some double blind tests if you really want to test fairly for tone.

Then let the marketplace tell you if you're on the right track or not. Don't go all ivory tower with this stuff just to be able to justify your ideas. Musicians are drawn to great sounding instruments; if it's truly good, they'll buy what you make. Dollars to donuts, you won't get many takers on luthier-priced radiata pine guitars! Sure, you can give them away, but that's not a fair test of whether you can pull off making great guitars with junk wood.

Maybe your missing the point Rick, as far as Bunya is concerned the market is making it's choice. I am not saying that Bunya guitars in AU are out selling Spruce topped guitars by any means, tradition marches forward, however a good number of players faced with two guitars hanging on the shop wall are indeed choosing Bunya over Spruce.

As for the celery top...well, if it's the right stuff, then I guess folks will just be all over it, won't they. Sales of spruce brace stock will plummet and the new holy grail of brace timber will have been found. Somehow I'm not inclined to hold my breath... Not that it might not be appropriate for some sort of lutherie usage, but once again, I'd have to be shown a very clear advantage to the stuff before I switched away from other timbers like Sitka or Adirondack spruce.

Me too, but I won't be waiting around for others to find the grail for me when there is soo much new wood to explore hear. Could be that those traditional timber that you suggest have floated to the top of the pile through natural selection have only done so because Bunya was not available to the yanks to kick ass... quite possibly not, but how many Bunya guitars have you actually built Rick to now make you such an authority on it's potential as a tonewood?

The point here is that there are many woods in AU that warrant very close investigation by those with an interest in this craft and tradition need to be pushed aside if a fair and valid assessment is to be made. Sure certain properties should be present for certain components but just because one builder achieves only mediocre results with a given wood, it does not mean that it will work that way for a more capable builder who as you say, has the skill to assess the wood and work it "one way or the other". Who knows had Cooktown Ironwood or Minnerichi been available to the Spanish Masters, could be that BRW would have been passed over as a tonally less desirable cousin.

Cheers

Kim

[James Mc]

Personally, my thinking on this runs along much the same line as Matthews. Yes, call soundboard timbers tonewoods if you want, but calling any timber that could possibly be used for necks or bodies ‘tonewoods’ is getting a bit much. Torres built his guitar with paper mache back and sides to prove that the top supplied most of the sound. But doesn’t that also prove that back and side timbers need not be tonewoods, or even timber. Musicians who played it considered it to be a good guitar with fine sound, so do we have to add paper mache to the list of available tonewoods?

Torres’ criterion for utilizing several types of wood for the construction of the resonance box was based on the aesthetic value-or availability of suitable woods-rather than on the intrinsic tonal qualities of the wood itself. The evidence from his existing instruments supports this theory. The choice, for example, of locust wood (certonia siliqua), a locally grown wood, completely riddled with all kinds of knots, blemishes, whorls and short-grained fibers, could not have been selected by Torres as a material ideally suited to produce the best possible tonal response. This wood was selected for its striking visual impact as was the case with the bird’s eye maple used in several existing guitars. (Antonio de Torres: Guitar Maker - His Life and Work)

The boat building use of timbers also used for guitars and other musical instruments is a bit extreme as an example. But I think it is a good guide is some ways to which timbers would work best or last longest from a mechanical perspective rather than if they would do the job satisfactorily and work well tonally. For example my experience of CTP on boats is that it has had problems with movement. I’ve also worked on a very old not very well maintained Canadian built boat with yellow cedar decking, the YC deck was in amazingly good condition after 80 years of extreme conditions and abuse. The two timbers are very similar in strength and weight but given the above I would consider YC a better choice for using on a guitar for its mechanical properties. This doesn’t mean it would be the better choice for producing the sound you are looking for (whatever that may be). The only way you will ever know for sure about that is to use them both and compare the results.

[Rick Turner]

You'll notice that few classical guitar builders these days are building with papier mache...

To deny that there are specific characteristics that make a timber good for one use or another in a guitar is to be seriously self-delusional. If the alternatives have the right characteristics, then they will prove to be good.

What I'm seeing here, though, is 1) Not so great reports on bunya (no overtones, etc.) and 2) Such a desire that different timbers work that important physical characteristics are being overlooked in the rush to find these alternatives.

I'm all for intelligent use of alternatives to the usual suspects. I am one of those who, here in the US, does use alternatives (walnut, cherry, our own California blackwood, California sycamore, etc.)...but I do so very mindful of what specific qualities work for specific parts of my guitars. Don't let the romance of all this new-found timber stuff blind you to what really works and what doesn't. Patriotism slides quickly into jingoism, and that into sloppy thinking. Don't let some sort of local pride get in the way of listening to and understanding what makes a good guitar. It's a world market out there, and what rises to the top will not be emotional choices, but rather guitars that truly stand up to the test of time. That means great sounding guitars that also look good. Guitars that sound good don't sound good just because you want them to.

Meanwhile, you do have some incredible timbers that have barely been used for guitars, and a bit of study and building some instruments should prove some of them out to be just fine. So far, what I've seen is that you have more useful back and side timbers than prospects for tops. The best I've seen so far for tops would by your very rare King Billy pine from Tasmania. That should also make good bracing material.

[Kim]

What I'm seeing here, though, is 1) Not so great reports on bunya (no overtones, etc.) and 2) Such a desire that different timbers work that important physical characteristics are being overlooked in the rush to find these alternatives.

That's rubbish Rick, no one here is rushing to find anything but a great sounding guitar from what is readily available. So far in this thread only one of us have commented on their own assessment of a couple of Bunya topped instruments he had played that someone else built. Any over braced, poorly crafted, plywood monstrosity fitted with the very best Master grade Adi top would fair no better. Yet, without even knowing who it was who actually built these guitars you are prepared to accept that assessment as being credible input to support you own argument...bull shit mate, I don't wear that for a millisecond.

I really think that you need to do some research of your own before you can begin to think that your opinion has any value at all on this topic. Simply winding on and on about what you consider is valid or acceptable is pointless and making broad statements and assumptions is no help either. How about you grab a top or two and build with it or at least hold a dam instrument in your hand before you start presenting yourself as some kind of authority.

Cheers

Kim

[matthew]

Jeez, am I supposed to apologize for being a professional builder? I think it gives me a very valuable perspective.

No I didn't even imply that, Rick. But as a professional builder you might have a different approach to trying a non-traditional wood if your well-known and understood client base clearly prefers the traditional cream-on-the-top woods. Its the same in the classical violin world. He who stands up in the violin section with a bubinga violin better watch out, no matter how good its sounds. Its a maple and spruce club.

Just be careful not to be so in love with your idea of what you think it should sound like that you hear something that isn't there. Make your alternative timber instruments and then let musicians play them and just shut up about the woods. Let the players feel and hear the wood without spinning tales or whatever. Set up some double blind tests if you really want to test fairly for tone.

great advice. Try this: If you give someone two glasses of the same beer with a dash of balsamic vinegar in one of them, testers will almost always prefer the one with the vinegar. However if you tell them one of the glasses has vinegar in it, they will almost always choose the other one. go figure.

As you haven't given me any evidence that you have actually tried celerytop or pinus crapiata yourself; all i was questioning was how you were able to so confidently discount them? I have always publicly rubbished radiata, but based on only a few criteria, one of which is price and the other is the samples of the greenish wood you get slab sawn at the local hardware full of knots and twists. Now I'm NOT saying radiata is a promising tonewood and yeah my instinct says it definitely isn't ... but I don't think anyone will know for sure until they try making an instrument with some dry quartersawn crapiata.

Apparently you make nice guitars Rick, and have a wide experience in guitar making; I respect that totally and look forward to your contributions. But you don't know everything, surely? And maybe after a few serious tests the crap wood turns out not so crappy in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing. And maybe not.

You seem to rather sarcastically diss some woods that you hardly know anything about, whereas I would have expected you as a newcomer to this continent to be a bit more open-minded. If you ever set up shop here and have to import all your spruce and rosewood and maple you'll know what i mean.

Kim - thanks for that nudge about Bunya. I do want to try a bunyah top, but its a matter of sourcing a big enough plank. No I'm not averse to making up the extra width, its just something I have to live with. Now ... who's going to supply me with Big Bits of Bunya for Bonanza Bargain Basement Bucks??

I need it 1200mm long x 45mm thick x 280mm-260mm wide, enough wood to make a bass top about 700mm wide at the lower bout.

By the way, the picture I posted is a master bass made in the 17th century and played by stefano sciascia in trieste. It has beautiful tone, despite the fact the back is made from what looks like floorboards.

[matthew]

Meanwhile, you do have some incredible timbers that have barely been used for guitars, ... The best I've seen so far for tops would by your very rare King Billy pine from Tasmania. That should also make good bracing material.

have you used King Billy yet?

[Kim]

I do want to try a bunyah top, but its a matter of sourcing a big enough plank. No I'm not averse to making up the extra width, its just something I have to live with. Now ... who's going to supply me with Big Bits of Bunya for Bonanza Bargain Basement Bucks??

I need it 1200mm long x 45mm thick x 280mm-260mm wide, enough wood to make a bass top about 700mm wide at the lower bout.

Mathew, Tim Spittle has a good stock of Bunya, if you are prepared to work with narrower stock say 180mm give him a call, let him know what your plan is and I am sure he will be happy to help you out.

Cheers

Kim

[Rick Turner]

I am perfectly willing to accept alternative timbers. What I want to know, though, is what is it about them that is so attractive...other than the fact that they are Australian and/or local? Given that the sound of guitars...ones that musicians actually buy and play...is virtually defined by the characteristic top woods of spruce, cedar, redwood and to a lesser extent, mahogany and koa, what do you have that has similar characteristics? For to go much outside of the known qualities of those timbers is to skate away from what guitar tone is. So far I don't see a lot of viable top alternatives from down under.

And for backs and sides? You have a much wider range to choose from as they provide the "spice" in the stew and the structure that supports the top. Yet here, too we can talk "tone woods", as controversial as that term may be, we can generalize and say that some timbers damp tone and make for a quick response with quick decay (maple) and others support a more reverberant and sustaining sound (the rosewoods, with Honduras rosewood being one of the most extreme). "Tone woods" do have physical qualities that enhance musical vibration, and yes, they have probably been historically too limited, but there are still measurable elements there that hold the attention of musicians and luthiers.

So it's less a matter of my dismissing timbers as wanting to know why one would choose celery top (for instance) over spruce. Why use bunya rather than the very available spruces or cedar? If the Chinese can afford the traditional top woods, certainly Aussies can. I'm asking for reasons TO use the timbers, because in the absence of good reasons, I'd choose not to use them. Has anyone actually built guitars from radiata pine? Have you made a top with celery top pine? And why do there seem to be major extremes in opinion re. bunya? I can tell you that the guitars I played with bunya tops did not impress me...though the stuff may be fine for solid body instruments.

You don't have to go off testing each and every timber to get an idea of whether or not it might prove appropriate for a particular application. What you do have to do is understand the characteristics of the tried and true and measure those qualities against your alternatives. There are very good reasons why those woods chosen over time have held up as good ones. The spruces, for instance, have incredible stiffness to weight ratios...qualities that made them great for ship masts and airplane parts as well as violin and guitar tops.

I have also come to understand that different frequency ranges may make a timber that doesn't make good guitar tops be just fine for a ukulele, for instance. In my own building, I've found ukes to be much more tolerant of a wide range of top timbers. For instance, I love our California sycamore topped ukes, and yet I wouldn't use the stuff for an acoustic guitar top. Ditto maple, cherry, and walnut. Ukes seem to go by different "rules".

I'm experimenting now with one of the Tasmanian "oaks"...yes, a eucalypt, for one of my quickie mandolins. I found that it glued well, bent beautifully, and has a tap tone somewhere between maple and rosewood. Aside from it wanting to spit a bit more readily than I'd like, I have every reason to believe it will make a wonderful flat backed mandolin. Visually it's more like our white or black ash than any of our oaks, but it's harder. Nice stuff. So that's one Aussie timber going on my "probably good" list.

What it comes down to is asking yourself the simple question "why"...and if you can come up with answers to that that are based upon intellect and not emotion, then I'd say proceed and build and then see.

But let's get off of this radiata pine tangent. Or go ahead and do it and report back. I'll not be the first one into those waters, though!

[Rick Turner]

Ah! fingers going too fast...

Tassie oak "splits" rather easily...not "spits"!

[Bob Connor]

I will try Bunya at some stage. The guitars that I have played didn't impress me but neither do the other guitars this builder makes.

I'd like to build with it to see how it compares with the other guitars that Dave and I build. Then I'll have a definitive opinion, but at present it doesn't excite me too much at all because I don't think it'll produce the type of sound that I want in our instruments. It may be perfect for someone else, but it doesn't float my boat at this point in time.

Interestingly Joe Gallacher is going to try it. If you don't know Joe he makes superb Dreadnoughts totally in the Martin tradition and has a preference for Mahogany/Sitka.

Bob

[matthew]

Well, I've built a double bass with silky oak back and sides with blackwood neck. Now I'm building one with tas oak back and sides and sassafras neck. And yeah, I'll let the players decide whether or not its a success.

Main reason I don't use maple and spruce so far? It simply doesn't grow on this continent. I'm not sure if you've realised this yet. THAT's what makes the potential for other timbers attractive. It makes perfect sense for me, making instruments on an island continent, to want to try to use what grows here.

[matthew]

Visually it's more like our white or black ash than any of our oaks, but it's harder. Nice stuff.

Locally, it is known as Mountain Ash

[Paul B]

Why Rick?

I guess most of us figure that the millions of guitars that have been built to date, and the tonewoods that have "floated to the top" as you say, have pretty much done so in isolation, as far as potential tonewoods from Australia are concerned.

We've got a lot of untested (in terms of instrument building) timbers that may be worthwhile using, and perhap superior to the tried and true tonewoods from North America (but that might be a stretch). If they don't get tested we'll never know that we may have a great topwood under our noses, but if nobody ever departed from the traditional timbers to find out - well that would just be plain stupid (not saying you're stupid, just that if nobody ever tried new avenues as they open up, that would be very stupid).

Add to that the fact that BRW is pretty much unobtainable here, and now Cuban and Honduran Mahogany can no longer be imported. It's looking like we might be up a well known creek unless alternative are found.

There are also emotional factors that come into play, national pride etc. My mate asked me if I could build him a guitar from 100% Aus timbers, simply 'cause the idea appeals to him. Also there's the economic factors of having to ship in all our materials from overseas.

I agree with you though in that there doesn't look to be too many contenders for great tops amoungst the Aus timbers. Though I think that cellery top pine might well be pretty good - probably more comparable to koa or mahogany topped guitars than being a viable spruce substitute.

If the pro's can't or won't do it (for good reasons, as you've pointed out) then who better than the hobbyists?

[Rick Turner]

Hmmm, what is it that isn't getting through here in my statements? I feel as though I'm us against such a brick wall of national pride that what I'm saying about the CHARACTERISTICS OF TIMBERS just isn't being heard or read.

I agree that you have a wide variety of underutilized timbers both on mainland Australia and Tasmania. I'm actively involved in trying to suss some of them out and even broker some importation over here to the 'States. I'm all over the idea that you have some timbers that belong in guitars...not a fu..ing 1.5 billion dollar pulp mill. That does not mean that I suspend my critical thinking ability nor my decades of experience and go off willy nilly wanting to try every available piece of a tree. I can heft, tap, measure, pay attention to published data, look at and pretty much get a good idea of whether a timber is likely to be appropriate for a particular part of a guitar without having to build one. Sorry, guys, but that's what having hands on in the building of nearly 4,000 instruments gets you. Yes, it's experience, and that experience comes at the price of trying a lot of things and timbers that didn't work. The ones that did and continue to have characteristics I can feel, measure, list and articulate, and that then inform my intuition when I look at new choices. I'm not blowing smoke up your arses here and disrespecting possible choices from an uninformed point of view. My opinions are based upon actually cutting, drying, resawing, gluing and building instruments galore out of dozens of different species of timber.

I started using "alternative" timbers for electric guitars and basses in 1969, and most of my earliest known work...1971 to '78 was featuring alternatives in the design and building of Alembics. I'm a major supporter, and yet I've learned that there are some woods that just won't do, and so I have to ask first "Why should I use this wood". If it's qualities are right for an instrument part, I'll try it. If not, I'll let someone else try it. I just don't need to build with every piece of scrap wood that comes my way to figure this stuff out anymore. Been there, done that.

But go ahead and build whatever out of whatever. You may learn what I learned, and you may be able to teach me something I don't know. But I'm through risking my skills on iffy wood just to experiment. I can safely say I know good top wood when I feel it and tap it, and so far I still like the fairly traditional choices. Backs and sides...that's a whole other thing.

And neck wood...yes, your plainer blackwood should be absolutely wonderful, and if you go with graphite reinforcements, a lot of other choices become reasonable, too.

[gratay]

I will try Bunya at some stage. The guitars that I have played didn't impress me but neither do the other guitars this builder makes.



Bob

thats why I said "In the right hands " it could be potentially fairly decent..
But for me while there is spruces and cedar I'll be staying well clear

[Paul B]

Hmmm, what is it that isn't getting through here in my statements? I feel as though I'm us against such a brick wall of national pride that what I'm saying about the CHARACTERISTICS OF TIMBERS just isn't being heard or read.

Of course you're being heard. I just take it as given that the first thing to be done when looking at a potential new tonewood is to look at that woods characteristics. For me that means looking up a reference book (there are a couple of good ones on local wood) to check out density, shrinkage, propensity for checking, etc, etc.

From that you make a short list. I've got one somewhere - I'll post it here when I find it if you like.

Cellery top pine has been on my short list for a couple years now. The hard part is to find some that has been cut correctly.

[matthew]

Well, say what you will, but actually it DOES feel like you're blowing smoke up my arse ... and I don't like it much.

Would you like me to spout on about the pros and cons Rick Turner guitars without ever having heard or played one? Heck, I've played guitars, played some nice ones even, I know guitars, I can read up on them, look at pictures , hold them on my lap ... I can tell you what's a good guitar or not ... or can I?

[Rick Turner]

Hmmm, now where were we? Oh yes, we were discussing the pros and cons of using celery top for bracing. I suggested that if it's characteristics were much like spruce, then it might be appropriate. And I inferred that if the characteristics were unlike spruce, then it might not be appropriate. What's the problem with that? No smoke, no mirrors, an attempt at discussing why certain timbers are better used for one thing than another in guitar making, and my assertion that if you know the properties of the timbers that do work for tops, braces, sides, backs, etc., then you can pretty much assess non-traditional timbers for their likelihood of success.

Then some folks jump in and say that you've got to try everything up to and including radiata pine, and I'm saying that is a crock. You don't have to try everything to have a reasonable view of whether it's going to work or not, IF you learn enough about the traditional tone woods (yeah, that phrase again) to understand their desirable properties.

You may not like it, but most of the world of lutherie uses the phrase "tone woods", and it actually does mean something whether that's offensive to you or not. It's part of the international language of our craft, and sure, it's overused, but at the core it does have meaning. If celery top or bunya meet certain of the broad criteria that roughly define "tone wood", then fine. If you want to build guitars with them, that's fine, too. Does anybody want to play them to the exclusion of spruce or cedar topped guitars in the same price category? You tell me.

You can use your head in this search for great guitar making timber, and you don't have to get all wound up and emotional about it. There are properties that make a timber right for this piece or that. But you're free to experiment. You want to try ebony tops? How about balsa? What you're saying is that nobody will know without trying it. So go ahead, but I'll stay out of it.

And to use my guitars as a red herring in this discussion is just ridiculous.

Look, this is a place for discussion and the sharing of experience and knowledge. I'm happy to come and share what I've learned, and I'd like to learn something in return. But so far all I'm reading here are questions and statements that are not particularly based in experience, but are rather based in hopes and emotions. Go build a bunch of guitars with celery braces and bunya tops and then come back and share. As for me, there isn't enough appeal there for me to give up on spruce and cedar.

[Dave White]

All commercially viable strands of "Old Growth" Bunya Pine where logged out completely years ago. Generally speaking, the only "Old Growth" Bunya available these days large enough to produce a clean well quartered board that is wide enough to make a 2 piece dredy top is cut from private property with only a tree here and a tree there becoming available to the musical instrument makers of AU.

All the rest of the Bunya you will see in the market, including the stuff used by the major producers in AU has come from re-growth. The logs from the larger examples of these re-growth trees are juuuust a tad too narrow still to produce a good clean well quartered guitar top. Therefore it is common to find some heartwood inclusion in most the tops being made available and this goes a long way to explain the funky look.

Kim,

If you want to get "closer" to how some of these woods in a true quartersawn state might sound as top woods then why not do what some of the old Spanish masters did - multipiece tops. Maybe six to eight piece tops, all pieces slected using "semi-scientific" criteria of strength to weight, Youngs modulus, deflection, hands and ears - whatever your personal voodoo is. If any one wants to send me enough pieces I'd be happy to make such a guitar plus some potential "unknown" Aussie b/s and neck wood.

You have to say that topics involving Rick have incredible sustain and reverberations A good thing in my view - gets the thought juices flowing one way or the other, and also gives your scrolling finger some good exercise.

[Kim]

Does anybody want to play them to the exclusion of spruce or cedar topped guitars in the same price category? You tell me.

The bunya tops I've seen on some Cole Clark guitars did not look salable to me. They were just too weird and looked for all the world like Formica.

That's a bit harsh Rick, but I guess if your looking at a piece of Bunya trying to make it into spruce you could get that impression. However Araucaria bidwillii is not spruce or even pine and regardless of how you think it looks, it does make a very fine soundboard. Evidence of that can easily be seen in the fact that there are many happy players out there who walked into a guitar shop with cash and a choice between creamy white, fine grained spruce, and dirty old Bunya and voted with their wallet for the later.

Cheers

Kim

The bunya tops I've seen on some Cole Clark guitars did not look salable to me. They were just too weird and looked for all the world like Formica.

Perhaps that's where the Australian and US markets differ. I don't have a lot of doubt that this may be the case in the US but my experience is that there is a burgeoning market within Australia driven by a thriving roots music scene where the customer is after instruments that are interesting and 'natural' in appearance.

They don't like high gloss finishes, flashy inlays, fancy rosettes or traditional bindings. If you show them two bits of timber: one that is plain in appearance that'd go down well on a traditional style guitar and one with what'd traditionally be called cosmetic imperfections/blemishes, they'll choose the latter. I've lost many a "battle" (:P) with customers who want a satin finish even though I insist that gloss will bring out the figuring etc. in the wood better. It's a fairly unique market in terms of traditional lutherie, but not a small one by any means, driven by the popularity of the likes of Ben Harper, John Butler and a whole host of other musicians.

"American guitar buying taste"
I think the tenor of this topic started off as a purely empirical adventure into the merits of potential tonewoods. "American guitar buying taste" (as Rick so eliquently threw into the mix), whilst being a measure of market choice in America is an entirely separate topic specificially for those who have commercial interests in the US. The existence of this forum is clear evidence that there is a another world of lutherie and guitar players beyond the shores of America.
However if we were to consider the interface between the aesthetic and tonal qualities of a range of tonewoods and suggest that a pleasant appearing wood should be the deteminer of what one should buy, then one can only wonder at the desperation that some luthiers will go to buy pieces of wood with tar holes, wide grain, difficult grain, formica like patterns, borer holes and staining to secure that dalbergian or adirondack sound. Logic demands that one should consider all tonewoods in the same light, that is the quest for TONE. To that end I have gradually being identifying any Australian tonewoods that might offer some potential. Bling without tone doesn't cut the ice for a serious buyer.

regards

Tim

Make your alternative timber instruments and then let musicians play them and just shut up about the woods. Let the players feel and hear the wood without spinning tales or whatever. Set up some double blind tests if you really want to test fairly for tone.

Then let the marketplace tell you if you're on the right track or not. Don't go all ivory tower with this stuff just to be able to justify your ideas. Musicians are drawn to great sounding instruments; if it's truly good, they'll buy what you make. Dollars to donuts, you won't get many takers on luthier-priced radiata pine guitars! Sure, you can give them away, but that's not a fair test of whether you can pull off making great guitars with junk wood.

Maybe your missing the point Rick, as far as Bunya is concerned the market is making it's choice. I am not saying that Bunya guitars in AU are out selling Spruce topped guitars by any means, tradition marches forward, however a good number of players faced with two guitars hanging on the shop wall are indeed choosing Bunya over Spruce.
Cheers

Kim

Guess you will always be right Rick just as long as you continue to overlook anything that will not fit with your uninformed mind set.

No one here is seriously suggesting that anyone should just charge on ahead without first considering the basic properties that a wood has to offer in regards to it's intended use, as Paul suggest, that is a basic given and your not bringing anything new to the table in suggesting we should do that, it's just common sense.

The point here is that there are indeed a few, and only a few, alternatives to spruce here in AU and Bunya has been put to good use in that area of guitar building and found a place in the local market. That remains a fact regardless of whether it fits your taste or not.

Good timber + good design + good craftsmanship = a good guitar. Take any one of those elements away, and you have a GLO, not a guitar.

GLO = Guitar Like Object

You said it Rick and I urge everyone here to not be put off by someone who is attempting to validate an opinion formed from only ever playing one guitar of undisclosed design with a Bunya top that was made by a yet to be named builder of unknown skill.

Nothing emotional in that Rick, you just need to get your hands on a board or two to be credible on this particular topic IMHO. How many Bunya tops have you flexed and tapped? How did you find the resonance, the sustain and decay? What did you think of the longitudinal stiffness in comparison to say a nice curly slice of Lutzii? Of the nicest piece you handled, how would you suggest it best be braced to take advantage of base frequencies? Using your reputation to validate your assumptions does nothing to remove that fact that it is still just that Rick, an assumption.

Cheers

Kim