# Instruments and Equipment > Builders and Repair >  fir as tonewood?

## arbarnhart

Someone posted a F in progress a few days ago with a fir top. I searched around on the net and found a few postings in various forums (one on MIMF that discusses a few alternatives) that were fairly positive. I also noticed it is common as a tonewood for harps and pianos. Is tonewood choice largely just traditional? I have heard about the different tones of redwood, cedar and mahogany and I understand that because they are vastly different from each other. Doug fir is not very different from spruce, IMO (sorting mixed scraps would be tough). Doug fir is readily available in tight grained clear boards, while the commercial grade cedar and spruce is often quite knotty. I know I could special order better stock, but for someone who is still learning and screws up some tops (and has a penchant for experimentation) a cheaper alternative would be nice. Anyway, any others have experience with fir?

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## Kbone

The ' Rose" mandolins are made with fir tops.

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## arbarnhart

> The ' Rose" mandolins are made with fir tops.


Any info on those somewhere? The only thing I can find is the picture of the back in the Eye Candy section here.

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## arbarnhart

DOH! I don't know why I didn't search more specific to start with. When I searched for fir soundboards, I got the few hits I referenced above. When I searched for mandolin fir top I got several hits including a number of high end F models and luthiers offering doug fir as an option. Also, one page I read refers to Adirondack spruce and red spruce as "Western firs", so I guess it is more closely related than I thought, if that is correct - are spruces just species of firs?

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## sunburst

> Also, one page I read refers to Adirondack spruce and red spruce as "Western firs", so I guess it is more closely related than I thought, if that is correct - are spruces just species of firs?


You sure you read that right? If so, they're completely wrong.
Red spruce grows in the east, form the southern Appalachians up into Canada. It is not at all closely related to the western firs. Spruces and firs in general are not closely related.
Douglas fir is not even a true fir, if I remember correctly.

Douglas fir has been used in mandolins with great success. It tends to be harder and heavier than spruce (in general, you can't make blanket statements like that about wood without there being many exceptions).
The tone is good. Rolf Gearhart used Doug fir in the Unicorn mandolins he used to build before he build Phoenix mandolins. He liked the tone, but had splitting problems, and switched to spruce. Others report no splitting problems with Doug fir.

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## arbarnhart

I found another listing or two that groups white fir and sub-lapine fir in with spruces, but does put doug fir in a completely different category. This forestry service listing is an example.

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## sunburst

I'm not sure what kind of groupings those are, somehow related to forest types and tree types, and to lumber, it seems.
While the trees are fairly similar in the forest, and the wood can be very similar from firs, spruces, and other soft woods, that doesn't necessarily mean the species are closely related.

Before the woolly aphids destroyed the Frasier firs in the Smokey Mountains, you could climb up the mountains into the spruce/fir forests at the higher elevations, and you had to really know the difference between the red spruce and the Frasier fir to tell them apart.(It's easier now, the firs are the dead ones.)

In the lower elevations, you had to know what to look for to tell the fir from the hemlock.

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## evanreilly

Rolfe Gerhardt also made a run of Fir-topped Pheonix mandolins. I have one. The top split several times. Rolfe won't use Fir any more.

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## PaulD

Douglas Fir is not a true fir. I can't recall for sure, but it's either the only species in the genus Psuedotsuga (false hemlock) or one of a small handful. It is stronger along the grain than many construction timbers, but on flatsawn/plainsawn lumber the grain tends to flake or feather when it's machined. Maybe quartered Doug Fir would work for instrument tops, but it doesn't sound like a good choice to me.

I went back and found the thread on Scotti Adams fir topped Rose mando. It's a long thread but there are some great pics and some discussion about its sound.

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## Paul Hostetter

There are a lot of different trees harvested and marketed as fir. Fir is a very common name and some of them look and work a lot alike in certain ways, as in construction lumber and so on, but not all are potentially great tonewoods. 

As mentioned, Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) is not a true fir at all, nor a pine or a spruce. Pseudotsuga means false hemlock, and the woods can closely resemble each other. Doug fir and Western Larch (Larix occidentalis) are often shuffled together in lumberyards and used for house framing and so on. There is a second false hemlock from southern California, Pseudotsuga macrocarpa, AKA Bigcone Douglas-Fir, and Bigcone Spruce!. P. menziesii is also known as P. taxifolia and to make things worse its called Doug fir. Common names are pretty useless!

True hemlocks are Pacific Rim trees, and the American ones include western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) and mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana), AKA black hemlock and hemlock spruce. Mertensiana is considered to be inferior to T. heterophylla as timber and as pulp, but its logged willy-nilly and run through the mills anyway. 

The true firs are of the genus Abies. Some of them are really good spruce substitutes. 

Noble or red fir, SKA larch (Abies procera) is pretty good when the pieces are well chosen. It is probably the largest of all Abies in terms of diameter, height and wood volume.

Grand Fir (Abies grandis) is gorgeous but really hard to find. It grows intermingled with look-alikes such as other true firs, Doug fir and larch and ends up going through mills and winding up in stacks in yards where you never know which board is which. If you ever find something in a stack of Dog fir at a yard and seems really light and lovely and resonant and white, there's a good chance it's grand fir, also known as western white fir. 

If you dont personally know the person who cut the tree the produced the board youre looking at, you really cant be sure of whether what you have is hemlock, false hemlock, true fir or larch. You just have to rely on your instincts, or your luthiers instincts, whether itll be a good top or not. A whole other tonewood source is eastern white pine, which can look and sound great.

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## sunburst

> True hemlocks are Pacific Rim trees, and the American ones include western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) and mountain hemlock (Tsuga mertensiana)


Here in the east we have eastern hemlock (_Tsuga canadensis_), and Carolina hemlock (_Tsuga caroliniana_).

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## arbarnhart

> [much useful content removed ... ]
> 
>  A whole other tonewood source is eastern white pine, which can look and sound great.


Really? That is cheap and very readily available. I don't think I would use it for a mando, but I have made other folk instruments (and will make more). Hmmm...

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## Paul Hostetter

I didn't include the eastern hemlocks because I didn't think (correct me if I'm wrong) that they were commercial timber trees. I think they're both pretty small, as in: yard trees. The other ones I was talking about are all pretty big items that might well find their way into a luthier's or woodworker's hands as "Doug fir."

As far as white pine for a tonewood, you tap it, you cut sheets to check it for stiffness, and so on. A good piece of wood is where you find it. Sometimes it's in weird places. A few years ago I re-bridged one of those J-200s that came with a tune-o-matic that had a western red cedar top. Gibson in Kalamazoo, to my knowledge, had never intentionally used cedar, but they _were_ known for grabbing the next piece of wood on the pile. The cedar was under a typical and really disturbing red sunburst, but the guitar sounded like a million bucks.

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## sunburst

They use hemlock for lumber in the east, sometimes. The trees are actually pretty big, bigger than red spruce most of the time, and in the mountains, grow in dense stands.

The USDA Forest service says of hemlock: 
"The wood is light, soft, brittle, and difficult to work. It is used occasionally for rough or construction lumber, and for pulpwood."

Interestingly, the same publication says only this of red spruce:
"The wood is used for lumber and pulpwood."


BTW, the aphids are taking a toll on hemlock too.

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## Paul Hostetter

So John, have you or anyone you know ever used either of those hemlocks for topwoods? Was it ever used for anything nice, even in the old days when trees were bigger or healthier or more plentiful? Can you find Tsuga canadensis in yards or from dealers there? 

Most spruce is pulpwood, so we know better than to take that skimpy description at face value, right?

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## Kbone

Rose mandolins - just click on Icon and site should come up ( eye candy)

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## sunburst

Paul, there is a stand of large hemlocks on my fathers property. I used to look at them years ago and wonder if they would make top wood. Core samples from hemlock trees in the Smokies show even, well spaced growth rings.
Ted Davis is the only person that I know who has tried it for a top wood. He didn't seem to be excited about the results.

I have hemlocks in _my_ yard. They do get used as ornamentals, being "a graceful, lacy-foliaged tree".

I've seen the lumber on rare ocasions, and talked to people who have it for sale, proudly proclaim that their house is framed with it, or that their log cabin is made of it.
A local contractor/cabinet maker had a stack of hemlock in his shop last time I was in there, but it's not a common timber, and the strength and stiffness numbers don't make me want to seek it out for top experiments.

Here's a link to a table of wood strengths, If anyone wants to see how it compares to spruce of fir.

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## arbarnhart

> Rose mandolins - just click on Icon and site should come up ( eye candy)


That one insn't clickable.

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## Paul Hostetter

Its tables like John posted that led me to a couple of the western firs. I guess such tables are helpful, but I wish this one hadnt been prefaced with this remark:

_The table below provides laboratory-derived values for several mechanical properties of wood that are associated with wood strength. Note that due to sampling inadequacies, these values may not necessarily represent average species characteristics._ 

Not even _average_ species characteristics? This is our tax dollars at work? Well, anyway, I still tend to judge each piece of wood on its own merits. Most spruce is too rubbery and weak for guitars, and gets culled (we fondly hope) and turned into newsprint. By charts like this, some woods are pointless (redwood and red cedar), some are just mediocre (Engelmann spruce) and some oughtta be great (loblolly pine). 

I love the idea of using local woods. If I lived in your neck of the woods (  - sorry!) Id be hunting for that perfect chunk of hemlock for a top.

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## PaulD

Paul H. said: 


> a typical and really disturbing red sunburst


I love that description! They have certainly done some distasteful sunbursts over the years. 

So back to an assumption I made about Doug Fir earlier; has anybody tried Douglas Fir as an instrument wood? I used it quite a bit when building my garage/shop for rafters and the frames for 9'6" bi-fold doors on the front (huge, heavy doors... they came out nice, but were more work than they were worth). My impression was that it would not make a good tonewood, but I could be wrong and as you've stated 


> A good piece of wood is where you find it.


pd

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## superc_1

I made my first mandolin out of firewood. (That way when you finish you can burn it!!) Just a joke there, but I did use a $3.00 Doug Fir board from Lowes. I looked through the bend and found a really tight grained quarted sawn board. It has turned out to be a really nice sounding mandolin. I used it since this was my first and I figured if I messed it up that would be alright, but it has turned out to be a great sounding top. I have put it up aganist several high end mando's and it has held its own. The board is not even book matched I turned it end over end and glued it up. p.s. you can see a picture of it under post a pic of your mandolin. That just goes to show you never know!

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## Spruce

_"Doug fir is not very different from spruce, IMO (sorting mixed scraps would be tough)"_

ID'ing Douglas Fir visually (especially with a 30x hand lends) compared to spruce is actually a piece of cake, especially compared to say, telling one species of spruce from another...

One could also do it blindfolded with the ol' lick-n-smell method...

_"If you ever find something in a stack of Dog fir at a yard and seems really light and lovely and resonant and white, there's a good chance it's grand fir, also known as western white fir."_

The true White Fir (_Abies concolor_) is a real tonewood candidate, and rarely used. #
The aforementioned Grand Fir (_Abies grandis_) is as well...

As is the California Red Fir (_Abies magnifica_)...

_"Common names are pretty useless!"_

Ageed...
Everyone seems to have a "white fir", and what that means depends totally on where you are at...

Europeans have their "white firs" as well, and it has found it's way into the tonewood biz occasionally, mixed in with the spruce piles...

It is distinguishable in that it smells like dirt when licked, and lacks any medularies whatsoever...

I _think_ I see this wood a lot in, for example, old Washburn guitars.
Ever see an old guitar top cut dead-on quarter with no medularies or silking of any kind and very defined graining?
It _could_ be Euro fir...

_"So John, have you or anyone you know ever used either of those hemlocks for topwoods? "_

There is supposedly an issue with paint (read: varnish) sticking to hemlock...
(This is anecdotal info, by the way)...

_"So back to an assumption I made about Doug Fir earlier; has anybody tried Douglas Fir as an instrument wood?"_

I built 5 or so mandos out of some 100-year old Douglas Fir stair treads, and it worked just fine...

Don't forget that Siminoff recomended Douglas Fir for F5 tops in his original book, which sent a lot of us down that path...

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j. condino

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## Scotti Adams

..I used to be a die hard Englemann man....but after Ive played 2 Rose Mandos with the Fir top Ive been converted...this Rose I have now is absolutely the loudest mando I have ever played.....and the tone is huge, fat and couldnt be more perfect. It may be a little heavier than a spruce top but its not an issue....

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## Paul Hostetter

Bruce - as ever, Abies concolor is what I am after. I hit some small yards up the Feather River toward Mt. Shasta, where you see the trees growing, hoping to get some, but the people there all told me they cut and milled any and all trees that worked the same and never sorted by species, so their heaps were a mish-mosh. It was depressing. So near, yet so far. I never got around to even trying the taste test. 

I've never seen Doug fir that had the transparency that most spruce has, so discerning it from spruce is a slam dunk. Likewise the other things that get bundled with Doug fir also tend to be sort of opaque. 

I wish I could remember the name of the cello maker, a Swiss guy I think, who was interviewed in the Strad some years ago who said he'd only been using _pin oregon_ - Doug fir - for cello tops for years. I don't know how he was able to pick out the good pieces, or where they really came from. Most Oregon pine in Europe is imported, but a fair amount grows in Germany. 

I got a big batch of doug fir guitar tops once from Steve McMinn. The look was like Scotti's mandolin above but they were all like rubber.  I'd use it if I could find some that I believed was good enough.

This is my local hemlock. It's bad in so many ways...

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## Scotti Adams

..the top on that mando above is hard, hard , hard...it doesnt compress at all....a little around the F holes...thats it...I believe that hardness contributes to the sound it has...arbarnhart ...here is Darby Boofers email addy.....he would be glad to talk to you about the use of Fir as a tone wood  Rosemando@wmconnect.com

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## Paul Hostetter

Doug fir is nothing if not bloody hard. As the preeminent framing timber, it's used green for several reasons, all good, and not the least of which is you can only slam a 16 into it when it's green. Once it's dry, you have to predrill each nail hole. It's commonly used as flooring and is nearly as durable as oak. I don't think hardness and tone are necessarily connected though.

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## Spruce

An enterprising individual could do some serious damage in the tonewood biz marketing the various "undiscovered" firs...

Size is not an issue as it tends to be in the Engelmann/Red world, with lots of trees weighing in at 5-6' in diameter...
And a lot of the trees love to split straight...

One thinks of Engelmann as having been around for eons, but in fact it's only been marketed since '78 or so...
So-ooo, an outfit marketing Noble, California Red, White, Grand, and Douglas Firs might generate a lot of interest....

I'm just a little too busy these days to take on 5 new species... #  

Oh, and it terms of the availability of 100-year-old Doug Fir, it's all over the place here in the Pacific NW.
I just looked at a whole barn-full of old beams yesterday, with _lots_ of great wood between the nail-holes...

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## Scotti Adams

..the stiffness of this top along with Darbys's tone bars along with the placement of those gives it its sound..Im sure of it. Ive played many a new mando that couldnt compare to the open-ness and the big wallop it has for being new...well..a couple of months now...it just has that played in sound. If Im not mistaken that top is 100 yrs old...

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## Jeff Arey

I've played one of Darby's Rose creations, and it was as Scotti has stated. They are loud, full-bodied tone, and very well balanced. The E string rang as loud and clear as the G. One of my previous mandos was one of Rolfe's Unicorns and it was the same way, and it had a "Douglas fir" top.

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## PaulD

Scotti; I'm confused. When I read the original "Rose is Blooming" thread I assumed that the top was a _true fir_ as opposed to _Douglas Fir_. This discussion implies to me that it's Douglas Fir... do you know if that's the case? I could see that with as pronounced as the grain is. 

PaulH; Are you referring to timber framing? I did use DF for rafters and the garage door header in my garage/shop to keep the width of the lumber to a minimum for the span. It's hard, but we didn't do any predrilling. The frames for the doors were a b!7ch, though! 5/8" pinned mortise & tenon joints, 3 per stile over 4 doors... 24 joints I had to cut! You aren't kidding that stuff is hard! I was _very_ burned out on joinery by the time I got those doors done.

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## Scotti Adams

Paul..Im not sure what species of Fir it is....I dont believe Darby and I discussed that.....I just trusted his judgement and Im glad I did....Maybe the man himself will chime in here to clarify..

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## sunburst

Several years ago, I got a call for a sawmill job. (I have a woodmizer, and I used do some custom sawing.)
There is a museum of frontier culture In the Shenandoah valley, over the moubtain from me, and they had ordered Douglas fir beams for a "historical structure".
Never mind that they likely couldn't have had that timber in Virginia in the days when it was the frontier. I guess they aren't real sticklers for historical accuracy.

Anyway, they ordered them too big, so my job was to resaw them to the right size. There was a pretty good size pile of odd thickness boards when I was done. I asked if I could keep some, and they said "sure".
There wasn't very much there that didn't have w-i-d-e grain, but here's a board that I have around that I _might_ use for a top someday. I have so much wood that's so much better than this that I might _not_ use it.

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## sunburst

BTW, that's the refrigerator magnet used for scale, _not_ the case sticker.

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## Scotti Adams

..yea John..that grain is pretty wide..even wider than mine....hopefully you will find a use for it..

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## Spruce

_"I assumed that the top was a true fir as opposed to Douglas Fir. This discussion implies to me that it's Douglas Fir... do you know if that's the case?"_

That's Doug Fir in the Rose mando pic...

And from a woodcutter's prospective, it's some of the raunchiest Doug Fir I've ever seen in an instrument top... # 

Usually one tries to avoid compression wood in instrument tops, even in small amounts, as it tends to be less stable...

But hey, if it sounds great and is indeed 100 years old, what's the difference?

Here's a definition of compression wood I found on the web which fits the Rose top perfectly...

_"Abnormal wood formed on the lower side of branches and inclined trunks of softwood (fir & pine) trees. #Compression wood can be identified by its relatively wide annual rings, typically eccentric, relatively large amount of summerwood, and its lack of demarcation between springwood and summerwood in the same annual rings."_

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## sunburst

Bruce, is this compression wood? 
It's red spruce, and it apparently sounds fine under a dark sunburst in a guitar top. I've had some of lying around for a while and it seems stable. I've sold some of this wood to some well known guitar builders. (cheap)
I don't want to steer this thread too far from the subject (doug fir), but since the subject came up...

PaulH, if it all gets to be too much, I suppose you'd have a potential use for your local hemlock, but I wouldn't advise it!

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## Scotti Adams

Well..Bruce,,I dont know how to take your last reply...even tho you put the little winky guy there...something doesnt make sense......when I sent you the pics of that wood you said you would like to use that kind of wood in a top and that it should be used more often...what gives?....raunchy..yea..right...all I know is that it sounds great...its more stable feeling than red spruce or Englemann.....and it kicks ###...so....I dont think your analogy is correct in all cases. Theres no question that you are the wood authority here..Im not questioning your ensight....Im just trying to understand why you told me something and then post something completely different here...no ill intentions here...just looking for answers...

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## Paul Hostetter

I'm waiting for Bruce's answer to this. I like the reference on his linked page about compression that shows a section of Sitka grown in Scotland. 

John, how did you get a refrigerator magnet to stick to that board? Is there a lot of iron in it?

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## Spruce

_"Bruce, is this compression wood? "_

Yep...
Actually, it's compression wood in that one 5-year band, flanked by some fairly normal looking graining...
Very common in Red....

_"...what gives?"_

Well, there's the "perfect" wood that I seek out as a wood dealer that everyone jumps on like flies on feces, and then there's the wood with lots of character and "flaws" that appeals to me personally as a maker...
Two _entirely_ different tastes... #

As an example, when I first started cutting wood, bearclaw was considered to be a defect and yet I sought it out because it appealed to me in a big way...
These days it's sought after by a lot of makers....

I happen to like pin-knots in the upper bout of a fine violin too, but try convincing others on that one...

No, I _love_ the fact that someone would use a piece of fir that violates all the rules of tonewood cutting, and yet gets it to sound great...

It shows confidence as a maker and a healthy respect for the resource...

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## Scotti Adams

...thanks Bruce..I couldnt have asked for a better reply..you are a class act...I hope in my journeys we can meet...this forum is a better place with you...

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## peter.coombe

I have made one mandolin from Fir. #Douglas Fir is imported into Australia as construction timber. #I believe most of it now comes from plantation grown trees from New Zealand (useless for musical instruments), but occasionally a pack arrives from the USA. #I always keep an eye out for the good stuff which is really rare nowadays. #Found a 2" board about 6m long, only 2 knots, cut perfectly on the quarter from end to end, and with fine even grain right across, a few years ago. #Zero twist, and no runout right through the whole board. #Complete fluke, the hardware store had no idea what they had. #Still have it, and will probably use it for some instruments eventually. #Is enough wood for quite a few mando tops. #Was green when I bought it, but is now nice and dry.

The one mandolin I made was probably the loudest I have made and was real sweet, but with more fundamental and less overtones than my Spruce mandolins. #I quite liked it, but it look longer to sell, so I have not repeated the experiment.

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## futrconslr

I have a fir topped mando. Its woofy with alot of bass. Its also loud. You dont have to hit it very hard to hear it and when you do hit it hard you can really hear it.

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## Dale Ludewig

This has been a great discussion. I've just been reading with much interest. I know my local lumberyard, a place i would not seek tonewood from, lumps all "that stuff" as what they call SPF - "Spruce, Pine, Fir". From what I've seen, they are bringing in Doug Fir. My experience with it is that the difference if density between the early and late wood is so significant that it'd be hard to get a level surface on in when sanding with anything finer that 80 grit. Plus I've had much experience with separation of the wood at those growth stages. Is that the cause of splitting referenced above? Or am I mistaken about what I'm looking at from the local yard, in that it might not be Douglas Fir? Maybe it's just been grown too fast by the "replanters"? The stuff John showed (and Scotti) looked like it had grown up in a drier/ colder climate than what I'm used to seeing. Help?

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## Spruce

_" Maybe it's just been grown too fast by the "replanters"?"_

No, we're all dealing with old growth here...
You don't even want to know what second growth Doug Fir looks like... # 

_" My experience with it is that the difference if density between the early and late wood is so significant that it'd be hard to get a level surface on in when sanding with anything finer that 80 grit. "_

Most of the DF I've dealt with is _very_ fine-grained (30-40 GPI or so) and works very nicely...

_"Plus I've had much experience with separation of the wood at those growth stages. #Is that the cause of splitting referenced above?"_

There's been a lot of rumors here and elsewhere about the tendency of DF to split...
I'm not aware of this trait...

I _have_ seen a lot of wind-shake in DF, which is the tendency of a given tree to split consistantly on the same grain-line, but that is usually pretty predictable in a given piece of wood...

_"Or am I mistaken about what I'm looking at from the local yard, in that it might not be Douglas Fir?"_

The next time you cut a piece of plywood on a table saw, memorize "that" smell...
For the most part it is the smell of DF, and is very distinctive...

_That_ is the way to ID Doug Fir, whether it be a board in a lumber yard or a log on a beach...

Thanks for the kind words, Scotti....
Love to see and play that mando someday, as the wood selection is right up my alley...

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## Dale Ludewig

_I have seen a lot of wind-shake in DF, which is the tendency of a given tree to split consistantly on the same grain-line, but that is usually pretty predictable in a given piece of wood..._

Living here in the flat plains of northern Illinois, I don't see much old growth DF! &lt;g&gt; But some years ago, some clients wanted me to make them some big entertainment sized cabs out of some walnut grown on their family property. Evidently, from what I have been told by the local sawmill, the walnut was not in a grove of trees, but standing by itself and developed the "shake" syndrome. Man, I didn't see it until I started to cut the boards up. What a disaster. Most of it was just firewood. Beautiful walnut, but there's no way to fix that problem. 

So Bruce, I shall have my nose sensor on next time I cut anything that I've been told is DF. I can smell a lot of woods when cut from 50 feet away, but I'll have to be more alert to that. By the way, can you smell the diff between red, sitka, engleman- any of the spruce's? I've not paid attention closely. Thanks.

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## Spruce

_"By the way, can you smell the diff between red, sitka, engleman- any of the spruce's? "_

What a great question...

I _think_ I can, but I wouldn't want to bet the farm on it...

I think Sitka smells the most distinctive and different, but because I can ID it in other ways I haven't needed to depend on my nose...

Anyone else?
Love to know if anyone else has tried to ID spruce via their sniffer...

I _do_ know that if the taste of the pitch in a pitch pocket is a dead-wringer for Dentyne chewing gum, it's Red. #They used to make chewing gum from the pitch...

But I wouldn't advise it if it's Engelmann, 'cause it will ruin your day...

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## Dale Ludewig

_I do know that if the taste of the pitch in a pitch pocket is a dead-wringer for Dentyne chewing gum, it's Red. They used to make chewing gum from the pitch..._

Are you serious? That's a hoot. Of course, I'm sure there's other products with backgrounds we'd just as well not know about.

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## Spruce

Here ya go, Dale....

I've broken off large globules of Red Spruce sap and tucked them between cheek and gum, and had them turn into a wonderful purplish chewing gum with oodles of flavor....

I've also tried it with Engelmann and thought I was gonna lose my upper colon after it disolved my lower palate....
Not a good thing at all...

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## Dale Ludewig

Ok, I just went to that link. I don't know what to say.! I'm getting light-headed just thinking about it all. Where do you find this stuff on the net? I- yai-yai! By the way, I've already bookmarked that site and shall soon go back and waste a whole bunch of time there. Thanks a lot!

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## sunburst

> John, how did you get a refrigerator magnet to stick to that board? Is there a lot of iron in it?


Must be why it's so hard.

Dale, that walnut might have been lightning struck. Open grown trees are in more danger of it. 
I've sawed walnut trees that had been hit by lightning and one whole side was split, under the bark, into 2 or 3 inch squares and various shapes. I've heard of lightning-killed walnuts shattering into tooth picks when they hit the ground after being cut.

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## Dale Ludewig

John- no, this was shake; at least it would seem so. Most all of the boards, and the tree must have been about 24" in diameter,- the outside boards, let's say almost all the way in to the center, were loose where the growth rings joined. Junk. Shame, because the wood had been air dried and had this beautiful purple color in it. The folks at the sawmill said that the tree had probably been standing alone, or at least not sheltered, and had been wind blown for years, waving back and forth with the weight of the walnut "crown", and the growth rings just couldn't get a grip on each other. First time I'd ever seen it, although I'd heard of it.

I have also seen lightning struck trees that you couldn't imagine the damage done by looking at it. But this weren't that. From your experience with your Wood-Mizer, I'll bet you've seen all sorts of things.

My, we're wondering off topic again, aren't we? Ah, what fun. I was wondering about that refrigerator magnet also. I have an Elvis one. I wonder if he'd stick to that board.?

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## Mario Proulx

Has anyone tried Balsam Fir as a mando top, yet? Is it a true fir, BTW?

I've used Balsam for back braces on many of my guitars, and I've also used it for a violin top, and while I'm no hot-shoe fiddle maker, this one has great tone, and a friend who plays at a symphony took it over to show their head violinist, who played it for 20 minutes, like a kid with a new toy, and proclaimed it as being very, very good. Still sounds like dog-do when I play it, but that's another story...

Anyhow, I'm always on the lookout for a piece large enough to try on a mandolin, as it holds much promise. Stuff is fairly light(about the weight of the densest red spruce I've handled), pretty, and very lively. One of my neighbors has a large enough(for mandolins) one in his yard, but I think he'd miss it....

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## sunburst

Mario, Balsam fir (_Abies balsamea_) is a true fir. It is almost identical to the Frasier fir (_Abies fraserie_) that I'm more familiar with.
Neither gets used much for lumber, and I haven't seen any big pieces of the wood, but the samples I've seen look like they would make an attractive top. I'd try it. The "numbers" look a little better than Engelmann spruce.

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## Mario Proulx

_Neither gets used much for lumber_

 Around here(I'm surrounded by lumber, plywood, and paper mills...), Balsam gets trucked in to the mill yards and lumped in with the spruce and pines. As lumber, it's all the same to them(that's the "SPF" rating thing...), but paper mills hate them, for their pitch screws up the paper machine's wet felts.
 I've seen 2x10's of balsam(easy to find in the pile by its weight and smell and distinct growth rings), but none were quartered right across(enough for a violin, though &lt;bg&gt :Wink: .

I've never looked at the numbers, as I don't believe in them anyhow(too general to mean anything, as wood varies so much), but the stuff has alwayd struck me as being very musical and lively, espcially when old and seasoned.

Just need to find that one big log in the mill yard...., or glue up 4 pieces for a top.

Thanks for clarifying that it is indeed a true Fir; always wondered about that!

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## sunburst

If you find that tree, let me know. I'd like to try some.
How easy would it be to buy a standing tree somewhere?

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## arbarnhart

I found a pretty good, though somewhat limited, page on tonewoods at Wings Guitar. It has numbers and observations. The doug fir info is admittedly second hand, though.

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## Carly

Quote: "I found a pretty good, though somewhat limited, page on tonewoods at Wings Guitar. It has numbers and observations. The doug fir info is admittedly second hand, though."

What is 'limited' and 'second hand' about it?

Carly

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## Spruce

_"What is 'limited' and 'second hand' about it?"_

It is limited in the sense that it only contained info on _certain_ tonewoods, and didn't really discuss, for example, redwood, cedar, European spruce, etc. etc...
No big deal, but you did _ask_...

It's "second hand" in it's discussion of the usage of Douglas Fir for tonewood by it's own admission, namely:

_"We don't have any experience with it yet"_

I did enjoy reading their take on tonewoods, however, especially this little paragraph:

_"We use quarter-sawn Eastern Clear White Pine with close parallel grain structures, 
from split billets. #And we really like the sound of it. It sounds a little warmer, and with a 
little better bass response (due to it's being a little less stiff), #than the Spruces, and it 
looks superb. Also, like Spruce, a Clear Pine top sounds better with age, after all the 
wood's resins have crystallized. When properly quartered, it is an excellent 
"tonewood", and a wonderful alternative to spruce. Eastern Clear White Pine, has a 
light to yellowish color, and looks very similar to Red Spruce. Grain patterns are similar.
This is our preferred topwood."_

Very interesting....

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