European Spruce

[ozziebluesman]

Hi there,

I bought some European Spruce wedges from Stew Mac for my latest Archtop build. Joining the top plates was not an easy job as they where cupped. I am carving the top presently and have discovered it is very soft and not very stiff either!

My gut feeling tells me I need to leave the top thicker and beef up the parallel bracing. The first Archtop build was a Lutz top and so different to what I am carving now.

Any thoughts and advice would be great thanks.

Cheers

Alan

[Allen]

No experience with it as a archie Alan, but I've just put strings on my first Euro Spruce Baritone and the top I have looks more like Adirondack than any other spruce I've got. Softer than Adirondack, but not by all that much. Certainly harder than Engelmann. I was able to take it thinner than Sitka or Engelmann and the sound is truly amazing.

[Nick]

Without having the wood in me paws (I'm a very tactile builder & let the wood tell me where it wants to be) & going on what you have described, my thoughts would be to carve as usual & just leave it a bit thicker in the recurve area than you normally would pre scrape & adjust this area with the usual methods (pushing on the bridge area) when it comes to scraping the recurve. You have to not think of it as you would with a flattop, the shape of an archtop is an extremely strong & self suporting structure & deceptively so as compared to a flatop, so the spruce's 'hardness' is less of a factor, it's the recurve that is the really 'critical' area. My first archtop used StewMac's Euro spruce and this was carved using Bob Benedetto's sizings & I had no problems, it's still holding it's shape & sounding sweet after five years.
Leaving the top thicker & bracing bigger will have an effect on the output & tone, which could be on the negative side of the ledger

[ozziebluesman]

Thanks Allen for your thoughts!

Nick: Good advice mate! Because I have little experience with Archies I will follow the Benedetto book rough specs again. I would go as far as saying the Euro is as soft as cedar.

Cheers

Alan

[Paul B]

Benedetto says in his videos that he uses European spruce for his tops.

[peter.coombe]

I would go as far as saying the Euro is as soft as cedar.

Mmm, don't like the sound of that. If it was me I would send it back and get the (really, really) good stuff from Florinette (http://www.tonewood.ch) in Switzerland. Guaranteed to be the genuine stuff and FSC certified so is sustainably logged. I been using their Spruce with great success ever since they first started cutting tonewood. There is far too much work involved in carved top instruments to be using sub standard wood. I have used a lot of European Spruce from various parts of Europe, and none has been anywhere near as soft as cedar. It does vary a lot in that some is very light, other pieces can be heavy and stiff. Some is indistinguishable from US Red Spruce, so soft and floppy it ain't. It is my favourite Spruce for oval hole mandolins, and the good stuff is at least as good as US Red Spruce for F hole mandolins and guitars. It is wonderful stuff soundwise, but I would throw the soft and floppy stuff in the bin. Light and stiff or heavier and stiffer is what you want. Carve it according to the stiffness and weight, so floppier bits get carved thicker. Florinette's wood is mostly light and stiff.

[kiwigeo]

Swiss and European spruce are one and the same (picea abies) as far as I can gather. The swiss spruce I used on my lute was not as soft as cedar and granted their are more braces on a lute top than a guitar but around the rosette my top is around 1.3mm thick.

Alan...it doesn't sound like Stewmac supplied you with great wood there.

[charangohabsburg]

I would go as far as saying the Euro is as soft as cedar.

Although I don't know how hard cedar can be (the few cedar tops I have in my stash are not too far from the "hardness" of balsa) I'd say that maybe Stewmac mistakenly picked out an Engelmann top for you (or maybe their provider did). Who knows. But Picea abies is far from being soft as "typical" cedar (Thuja plicata).

[ozziebluesman]

The other thing I have noticed is that when you carve with the grain on one half it carves nice but if you go the same way on the other half the plane takes out big chunks. I would of thought that if the two halves where book matched pair they should both carve well with the grain the same way. I could be wrong here!

The wedges where cupped very bad when they first arrived from the US and I was almost going to send them back because of that. It was a big job to get a succesful join too! The grain is not very fine either. Here is a picture.



Maybe an email to Stew Mac customer service is in order!

Cheers

Alan

[kiwigeo]

Alan it sounds like youve got some runout happening.

[Allen]

Certainly it's runout happening.

The Euro Spruce tops I have are all very prominent in their grain. Very much like Adi Red Spruce, but not as hard as that. But never would I say it was as soft....or even close to Western Red Cedar.

[peter.coombe]

Looking closely at the picture if I had to guess I would say it was Engelmann, but it is very hard to pick Spruce species unless it is Sitka so may still be European. However, if it is as soft as Cedar that makes it even more likely it is Engelmann. You definately have runout. Engelmann is usually carved a bit thicker, and you might make the arch a little bit higher as well. Engelmann will still sound nice, just different from European Spruce.

European Spruce very often has prominent grain, but I have had a small number of pieces with less prominent grain and light and soft like Engelmann.

[ozziebluesman]

Closed the box on Archtop number two today. The top ended up 6 mm thick and it taps nicely. It is very soft and I have to be careful not to mark it. The runout caused some headaches but I just went at it slowly and got to where I wanted in the end. The body itself is very light so it will be interesting to see how it sounds againt Archtop number one.
Body is Queensland Kauri and the top is I think, European Spruce.

Cheers
Alan

[simso]

The other thing I have noticed is that when you carve with the grain on one half it carves nice but if you go the same way on the other half the plane takes out big chunks. I would of thought that if the two halves where book matched pair they should both carve well with the grain the same way.

Thats not that uncommon mate, I always when I book match a top do test cuts on both sides, Ive found a few where I will need to plane in opposite directions to bring it down to thickness

Whoops replied to your post from 2 months ago, ps it looks good now

[Kim]

The other thing I have noticed is that when you carve with the grain on one half it carves nice but if you go the same way on the other half the plane takes out big chunks. I would of thought that if the two halves where book matched pair they should both carve well with the grain the same way.

Thats not that uncommon mate, I always when I book match a top do test cuts on both sides, Ive found a few where I will need to plane in opposite directions to bring it down to thickness

Whoops replied to your post from 2 months ago, ps it looks good now

To avoid breakout, runout is something to watch for when removing a bridge also. Many times you need to work the spatula from the back of the bridge on one side, say bass side, and then from the front of the bridge on the treble. Fortunately once under a finish its pretty easy to tell which way you need to go by the dark side/ light side effect caused by light refraction. If it's hard to tell one from the other no matter which way you look at the guitar then you don't need to worry about which way you approach the removal because that is a sign of little to no runout.

As for the original issue regarding the spruce, I think Markus is on the money. The colour of that spruce is very white just like englemann. All the euro I have is quite hard and has a very light creamy hue to it, and it is rare to find an englemann log that has not grown with a twist so runout in sets is very common because its so difficult to split a face from the rounds.

Must also agree with Peter. The swiss spruce from Florinett is the real deal, but its gonna hurt and if you want their Master Grade then you have a 12 months waiting list at a maximum of three tops per customer...but it is lovely wood.

Cheers

Kim

[ozziebluesman]

Kim: My issue was the spruce wedges came from Stew Mac and were sold to me as AA European Spruce.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bodies,_nec ... _Tops.html

I sent them an email and complained about the runout and stated I thought the wood was very soft. More like Englemann than European Spruce. They where quite happy to replace the wedges but I had spent a lot of time on them to the point I thought I may as well keep carving the top and see what happens. It has turned out good but I don't think it was European spruce. I noticed at the time I bought the wedges they where having some specials on Englemann A grade wedges. I reckon that is what has been sent to me but no way of really proving that.

Cheers

Alan

[kiwigeo]

That guitar is looking really good Alan.....look forward to seeing it all together.