Way To Know If Wood Is Good Quality?

[That90'sGuy]

Re: Way To Know If Wood Is Good Quality?

I don't think weight is a good indicator. I think builders tap on the wood, like picking out a good watermelon. I don't know what to listen for, though. I was at this website last night: http://www.zacharyguitars.com/
He has some neat ideas about wood, like using knotty pine, etc...I think a good builder can make anything sound good though.

Many high end luthiers do this. Terry McInturff and Don Grosh are two that do this. I don't have the slightest idea how this works, but I guess tapping helps pick more resonant wood which translates to better tone and projection.

[Grandor]

Re: Way To Know If Wood Is Good Quality?

Way to know if wood is good quality?


:::: wait for it......







You can hang your hat on it!

I'm sorry I just always wanted to use that! hahaha

[hacker]

Re: Way To Know If Wood Is Good Quality?

tapping on wood to determine quality is something that goes back hundreds of years, Stradavarius and company would select the wood for their violins like that.

Some of them would take wood from trees that live in extreme weather conditions, up on mountains close to the tree line where they are subjected to high winds and cold temperatures. This supposedly toughened the wood.

[Guitarist]

Re: Way To Know If Wood Is Good Quality?

How can you tell if a piece of wood is good quality?

Is there any visible way? I know that any holes are bad news.

Is there a secret way, like tapping on it and seeing how it responds or whatever?

Actually, one hole is pretty normal as far as I know. About the tapping on it idea, usually it will begin to get harder and longer...

I think it's all about opinion though...

[Hot _Grits]

Re: Way To Know If Wood Is Good Quality?

I'm a firm believer in lighter weight equalling better tone, at least for solid electric guitars. It's pretty simple, really: the denser (heavier) the wood is, the more lower frequencies will not resonate through. Heavier woods usually mean a greater preponderance toward upper mids and highs. Of course, this can be a good thing if you like a bright tone, or need to cut through a dense mix, but overall I find heavy guitars a bit fatiguing to listen to over the course of a gig.

As far as figuring goes, what you have there is disruption in the grain of the wood. the straighter the grain, the more tones can resonate easily and fully. That's why fender went to great lengths to find unfigured maple for the original teles and strats.

For both of these principles, let's look at a real-life example: the 59 LP std.

Aficionados of the 58-50 LP std tend to agree that for tone, the lightest guitars with the least figured tops are the best sounding guitars.

[Mincer]

Re: Way To Know If Wood Is Good Quality?

I'm a firm believer in lighter weight equalling better tone, at least for solid electric guitars.

I gotta say I agree. Lighter guitars always sounded more complex to me. Just richer.

As far as figure, I am not that big a fan of it, really. It doesn't do anything for me one what or the other.

I do like the idea of using non-traditional woods. Or no wood at all. Whatever gets the job done with the least impact on the environment.

[Thurisarz]

Re: Way To Know If Wood Is Good Quality?

Some of them would take wood from trees that live in extreme weather conditions, up on mountains close to the tree line where they are subjected to high winds and cold temperatures. This supposedly toughened the wood.

I wanna see Fender climb mountains just to get perfect wood!

[Zerberus]

Re: Way To Know If Wood Is Good Quality?

Grading wood: Unbelievably in-depth topic, more than you can probably imagine (was 6 months out of my 3 year apprenticeship), therefore I will not go into it here, as it ywould for the most part implode the forum.

But...

tapping on wood to determine quality is something that goes back hundreds of years, Stradavarius and company would select the wood for their violins like that. ....d.

There is unfortunately very little truth to this (some, yes). Tap-toning, aka. Pitch matching, is not in any real way a method to see the quality of the wood, but a way to HEAR itīs resonant frequency. Why, you may ask? Because if you have a neck and a body with a similar resonant frequency, worse the exact same, you get "wolf tones", notes that seem unproportionally louder than all of the others. Proper tap tuning is a way to help avoid this by matching the woods by res. Freq. No more, no less

How the woods are "tuned" to each other is a matter of luthierīs preference. Fourths and thirds are most common, but some use fifths. I personally match the neck and body in fourths and if feasible use a fretboard eiuther a third above or a third below. Otherwise I try to pick a fretboard a fifth above or below

Unfortunately, it has become quite rare in production axes, other than John Suhr I couldnīt name one off the top of my head that I know for a fact still does it.

Hope it helps clear things up a bit