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ROSEWOOD
A grade – quartersawn , even straight grain.
B grade – quartersawn, grain may curve or vary in colour and spacing. (some of my best sounding wood fits this category)
EBONY
A grade- black, straight grained with no knots. Usually quartersawn.
B grade – Black or with some slight stripe in the grain. May also be greenish or brownish black. May have a small knot in otherwise black board. May be well quartersawn but showing some stripey grain. Can still be excellent for guitar fingerboards or inlay.
C grade – showing brownish streaks or irregular lighter patches. May have some knots. Black pieces will have irregular grain or show some cupping or strong lengthwise bend. Used to great effect in inlay. You get a lot of edge banding or border inlay for cabinet, tables etc out of a couple of fingerboards. The slight colour variation in C grade makes the grain more visible and can look better than the even, jet black grades.
SPRUCE
Spruce is graded according to both mechanical (acoustic) and cosmetic properties. We have Alaskan (Also called Sitka) and German spruce for sale. Cross grain stiffness is held to be desirable by most makers, especially for steel string guitars. This property varies from log to log. A top with very tight annular rings can be very stiff or may be quite loose across the grain. Similarly, wide grained tops, often downgraded for appearance, can be stiffer across the grain than pieces with closer annular rings. Ring spacing is preferably even across the board, and consistent colour is preferred also, however colour variations may only show with age. Grain runout is another downgrading factor. If the tops have been cut from radially sawn planks as is often the case with German spruce, there can be some grain runout through the length of the top. If the angle of the runout is steep enough, this can cause a weakening along the grain. It is visible in guitars and other instrument tops as a “two tone” effect. In German spruce, some grain runout is quite common, but the German millers generally do not supply wood with sufficient runout to weaken the top. Our Alaskan spruce is milled from split billets and almost never shows any grain runout.
To summarise, AAA grade will be evenly coloured, with even, straight annular rings whatever the spacing and good cross grain stiffness. AA may show some colour variation and variation in ring spacing. A grade is good tonewood, but may have wide grain spacing, less cross grain stiffness and thicker “winter” grain (the dark part of the annular rings).
BLANK SIZES
Guitar tops for classical guitar are at least 191mm wide. For larger steel strings – OM, Dreadnought or Jumbo, they are at least 205 mm wide. All are more than long enough for most tops.
Rosewood guitar backs are usually big enough for steel string guitar. Generally the blank size is 610mm x 225mm x 5mm. Sometimes I hear of exceptional quality in slightly shorter or narrower sizes and will stock some.
Rosewood guitar sides are ordered at 860mm x 125mm x 5mm, big enough for dreadnought and jumbo guitars, but often arrive at 120mm wide. This size can still be used for the big guitars with care and is more than adequate for classical or smaller steel strings. I also have sides up to 135 mm wide.
Guitar fingerboard blanks are usually 500 – 550mm long tapering from 70mm to 60mm wide and 8-9 mm thick. We can thickness sand and cut fret slots for some of the more common scale lengths. Please enquire.
Electric Bass fingerboard blanks are usually 660mm x 70/60mm x 9mm for 4 string. We also stock 5 and 6 string bass fingerboards at 660 x 90/70 x 9mm.
Bridge blanks come in various sizes. Nowadays I buy 200mm x 45mm x 17mm. Well and truly oversized for most bridges. As well as Ebony and Rosewood I also keep bridge blanks in Padauk, which I like to use in some of my guitars for its light weight, strength and great treble response.
OTHER LUTHERIE SUPPLIES
FRETWIRE
Currently we have medium fretwire – 2 mm wide, 1.1mm high and jumbo sized wire for Gibson or bass guitar. It is very hard and outlasts all the standard American frets.
BONE NUT AND SADDLE BLANKS
We keep many widths thicknesses and lengths of bone. Please call.
PURFLING
The black white black violin purfling is 800mm long , 1.5mm deep and 1.2mm thick. The black layers are vulcanized fibre with white birch centre. This purfling bends easily without breaking. The guitar purfling is 800 x 2 x 1.6.
The range of multilayered and decorative strips is growing all the time. Please call.
TUNING MACHINES
We carry Grover 102 and Sperzel which are used on my slab head steel strings. We also have the wonderful Gotoh SD70 slot head tuners. These are all premium tuning gears at very competitive prices.
For classicals we carry Van Gent and various grades of Schaller and Gotoh tuners.
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