Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Good to hear from you all. My name is Dave Olson, and I’ve been working with PRT on the sonic grading system, measuring density, longitudinal Young’s modulus, and damping, and providing a system for delivering this wood to the community of Luthiers. The work has been helped immeasurably by our frien...

Has someone actually sat down and done some stiffness testing on wood pre and post Torrification? Oh, yes. This report, commissioned by Pacific Rim Tonewoods, compares the 4 extant techniques for thermal modification of Sitka. It examines changes in stiffness, density and damping. As with everythin...

Thanks for posting that DaveO. I have a similar chart with a tighter spread, which just indicates that a lot of selection has gone into the wood before I measure it (so not a random sample). Also, the regression line is lower down the page in my results, indicating lower measured E long values. I p...

Wouldn't end grain structural assessment using a low magnification pocket microscope be a good way to identify the different species? Or do all the spuces exhibit a similar end grain structure? Of course working out the Young's modulus would be the next step for builders. Cheers! Ross The degree of...

from Dave M: "Since you are in the trade you presumably have a sound method for distinguishing between the species. I have always felt that this is pretty difficult for us at the end of the supply chain, and without impugning our suppliers I suspect we don't always get the timber as it is labelled. ...

It is true that spruce has a wide variability in its physical properties. Two important ones mentioned already are Modulus of Elasticity (a measure of intrinsic stiffness) and density. I have measured thousands of pieces for some consulting I do for a tonewood supplier. Enclosed is a graph of a few ...

This is a terrific podcast. Far better, however, was the actual course. I was fortunate to attend this superb 3 day seminar in guitar acoustics, along with Michael Bashkin and about 15 grateful builders. In short, I cannot recommend this workshop more highly, for those interested in understanding ho...