Timber Talk 2

So you'll notice that a lot of my guitars share a common material element: Black Walnut (juglans nigra).This majestic tree furnishes the rich chocolate-brown timber used somehow in almost all of my guitars. In life, its broad spreading canopy provides us with shade and delicious nuts. For more information on this and other locally grown nut trees, visit: ECSONG. Here's a modest example growing in Waupoos, Ontario:

About 12 years ago, I had the opportunity to purchase a whole walnut log- a new highway onramp was being built on what used to be a long century-old farm laneway. What I got was an enormous tree trunk over three feet across and eight feet long. After splitting it into eight wedges the majority got put into storage to slowly air-dry. Walnut has distinctly lighter-coloured sapwood a few centimetres thick; to remedy this, most commercial lumber is kiln-dried. This has the advantage of evening out the colour; it has the drawback of evening out the colour! Wood like mine that has been exclusively air-dried has much better colour- deep warm chocolate brown with occasional golden stripes and highlights. Ten years after it was felled, I hired a portable sawmill to finish the job. It was thrilling to see plank after plank of beautiful clear lumber being revealed:

The upshot is that I've ended up with enough heirloom-quality lumber to make literally dozens of guitars, not to mention several pieces of furniture including my one-of-a-kind woodshop workbench (more on that in another post sometime).

Until very recently black walnut has been one of the most overlooked and underrated of tonewoods. Despite centuries of use in the best furniture and a reputation as the premier carving wood of the new world, somehow guitar builders felt compelled to use tropical timbers instead. In the second half of the 20th century, precious Cuban Mahogany (swietenia mahoganii) was in short supply. In searching for a substitute, they settled on the related Honduras Mahogany (swietenia macrophylla). But it's not the same thing! It is lighter in weight and colour, weaker and coarser in texture. Take a look at a pre-war mahogany guitar and you can see the difference. They could have done better: Black Walnut is among the most stable woods, rarely warping or cracking. It is stiff and low damping, but moderate in density. (full mechanical specifications here). In terms of the acoustic tone of a guitar, its influence is warm but assertive. The colour is dark, the wood is easy to work and finish, and often displays great chatoyance when the grain is wavy. It should rightfully be regarded as the new Mahogany, albeit far more sustainably grown. And it's just gorgeous:

New series: Timber Talk

We all love to talk about our guitars. And one of the favourite talking points is "what's it made of?" We attribute near-magical properties to those slabs of old rosewood that make up the body of an old Martin, or the chunk of mahogany underpinning the tone of a golden era Gibson, but what of that is real and what is hype? I can't really answer that, but I can show you a little about what my own guitars are made of (hype is entirely up to you).

This will be the first entry in a series about the woods I use. I'll be showcasing the trees that grow around here and provide the local, sustainable timber that I prefer to use whenever possible. Some will be obscure, gems growing in plain sight; others, familiar standbyes used successfully by generations of luthiers. Our first is definitely an old favourite: the Maples.

This is a magnificent old Sugar Maple (Acer Saccharum) growing near my house. It is one of the more common trees of eastern and central Ontario. It's famously the source of maple syrup and brilliant red fall foliage, and its timber (also sometimes called rock maple) is favoured for everything from fine furniture to bowling alley floors. It is smooth, creamy white, lustrous, stable and strong (click here for the USDA data sheet on the mechanical properties of maples).

There are a few other species of maple that grow locally and can be used for guitars. Red Maple (Acer Rubrum) is similar to sugar maple, but generally a little lighter, weaker, and often more tan in colour. Little-known fact: many classic Gibsons, including the legendary original Les Paul model, were made of it, though it was referred to as "michigan maple". The Silver Maple (Acer Saccharinium) grows quickly to enourmous sizes, but it is lighter and weaker still. One famous Canadian guitar company has successfully used it for thousands of guitar necks though. Last and least is the little Manitoba Maple (also called Boxelder, Acer Negundo), which would be of little use except that it often harbours a mold that has the habit of creating attractive bright pink stripes throughout the wood. A photo, clockwise from top, of figured sugar maple, boxelder, and spalted red maple:

This illustrates one of the most prized attributes of maple: the variety of appearances it can take. Our local maples are occasionally discovered with striped fiddleback (also called "flamed") figure. Sugar Maple is sometimes found with birdseye figure instead. These are caused by the cells in the living tree growing in an undulating pattern. When sawn, the light reflects and refracts differently from the cells depending on their orientation, creating that incredible 3D effect called "chatoyance". Spalting, on the other hand, is a natural process that can occur after the maple has been felled. If it is left and allowed to rot just slightly, molds will invade and create striking ink-black lines (or pink in the case of Boxelder) throughout the wood. Sawing and quickly drying at just the right point arrests the rot before the strength and integrity of the wood is affected too badly.

So with what magical properties does this fine wood imbue a guitar? It's hard to say. In the world of electric guitars, it is the most ubiquitous neck wood, the benchmark any others would be measured against, and so in that respect is neutral. In the realm of acoustic guitars, it's a middleweight: lighter than the rosewoods, denser than mahoganies (but not much stiffer) and with a higher damping factor than either, it is said to encourage a brighter, cutting tone. This of course would be measurable if all things were equal. In lutherie, they never are; so let's just appreciate it for it's abudance and beauty: