sinker tonewood

[rocket]

Does anybody know of any particular advantage sinker tone woods such as WRC and Sitka may have over the stuff that's cut from a purpose felled tree, such as ,,, tonal, structural, aesthetically?? I'd just like to hear some views of those that may have used any sinker timber!!

Cheers

Rod.

[kiwigeo]

Have never used sinker tonewood. I have however had a bit of experience with "stinker" tonewood.

[jeffhigh]

I've used sinker redwood on 4 ukes, but it's hard to compare it with anything else objectively.
The biggest advantages I see is it being old growth which is not really obtainable elsewhere and the brilliant colours which are a great selling point.

[56nortondomy]

I used a sinker Redwood top ( by request ) on a parlour classical, now the owner wants me to cut it off and replace it with WRC, according to him " it just doesn't cut it " whatever that means. I also have a sinker WRC top here that I acquired by mistake, looks nice, that's about all I can tell you just now.
Wayne

[curly]

My question would be why did the tree sink in the first place . Higher than average moisture content and - or higher density would have to be the answer . Aside from the effects of submersion the inherent characteristics of the logs that sank would likely be different .
Pete

[demonx]

I used a sinker Redwood top ( by request ) on a parlour classical, now the owner wants me to cut it off and replace it with WRC, according to him " it just doesn't cut it "

So... they want you buy a second guitar with WRC?

After building to their spec I'd be pretty annoyed if they wanted to swap after its finished. Answer would be no.

[demonx]

I have however had a bit of experience with "stinker" tonewood.

Zebrawood!

I kept smelling dog poo, checked my shoes, no. Checked the shop dogs hadn't tracked some in. No. Turned out to be the Zebrawood I was working with!

When my other half finished work and dropped into the workshop, I saw her checking her shoes and she said she could smell dog poo! Zebrawood.

[56nortondomy]

This guy has ordered 6 guitars from me, I'm on the 4th one now, he has a lot of different ideas, I told him I won't touch it until I've finished the other guitars, I also told him not to use Redwood before I started, but he wouldn't listen. If I do it he'll get charged accordingly.
Wayne

[Philstix]

On the sinker redwood, it probably didn't have different characteristics than other redwoods felled at the time. Most sinker logs were simply pushed into the mud at the bottom of the river as they were being floated out by other logs behind them when something impeded the whole group from proceeding down river. Being submerged in cold water they don't change much over time and are very like a recently felled log when dried. Their main appeal is that they are old growth trees which are no longer available to be logged. And as is the case with any tree some of them produce very good top wood and some don't.

[rocket]

Thanks for all the feedback , i think i might just get a set to add to the stash,it would add some variation to offer prospective customers.
Cheers

Rod.

[curly]

I can't speak as to the North American experience . Certainly with like species here a certain amount of logs just sank along with the jammers . I did a bit of work pulling Huon from the Stanley river , a tributary to the Pieman . Some logs had to be pried free . Others were just sitting there on the bottom . Whilst Huon is heavier than spruce or redwood it's also about 7% oil by weight and oil floats .
Pete

[Alaska Splty Woods]

I can speak to this from a soundboard producers perspective. We live on an island surrounded by salt water, in the middle of a temperate rain-forest.
Wood will eventually sink in freshwater, but not in saltwater, unless so much mass has been removed by teredo[a mollusk, a clam without a home on it's back], that no flotation is left. One commentator stated that the sinker wood was just saturated. And that is true. Certain places that wood has sank, like silty mud bottom will deposit stain from the minerals along fractures, breaks and holes, as it permeates the fiber. Gives it a cool look to some and ugly to another. Other than it being water cured I wouldn't know the benefit. Aging is another issue. Total saturation obviously retards decomposition.
Aging and seasoning does things to the fiber and to the cell structure of wood. In the cell there are sugars that apparently crystallize with age. Seams like that would only occur when dry.
Seasoning can relieve stresses within the fiber. Also in green wood there is moisture that can be referred as trapped moisture, that is within the cell structure. And wood that is seasoned, but wet, has moisture that can be referred to as free moisture. What I have noticed when cutting both green wood in the past, and old seasoned wood that is saturated wet, Is that the green wood was less stable, and would tend to distort and split more readily than the soaking wet seasoned salvage. Also the time to dry was not too much different. The free moisture, though more abundant, was released easier than the drier, lighter weight green wood fiber. A lot of our very abundant log inventory, procured for soundboard production is from log floats. Big log rafts used for floating logging camps. Most were made with12-16 logs 80' long averaging 3-4 feet diameter and lashed together with 1.25" cable and brow logs at each end. There are no more camps like this now. But a few of the floats are still around SE Alaska Islands for private houses. We purchased a float earlier this year that is near sunk, because the bay that it's in has a lot of freshwater coming in with a narrow entrance to the bay. So appears those logs are more water-logged than teredoed. But all of our ten's of thousands of bdft of floatlog inventory is old and had been in the water for decades. When ordering products from us, One will know the source of the product by the color lumber crayon used to mark the bookset on the spine. Blue-designates water wood salvage, and Green designates land salvage of blowdowns, dead standing snags and log bridge stringers. Customers can request the salvage source of their preference by stating so in the comments box of the checkout process.