European Spruce top

[rwh4]

I ordered an A5 kit from stu-mac and the top wood is European spruce.I want to use the Loar specs for carving, but Red spruce was used on Loars.
How should I carve the European spruce to make it have
the same sound as Red spruce.
Can you get a good bluegrass sound European spruce or
should I get a piece of Red spruce.

[Yonkle]

If you look further into this builders topic, there are a lot of threads on Spruce Tops,Loar Spec,Grauating the plates,tone differences in woods, ect. Should answer all you questions. jd

[Spruce]

"I want to use the Loar specs for carving, but Red spruce was used on Loars."

I'd bet the farm that a good percentage of the Loars are actually made from European spruce...

There's no way to actually prove this, however....

On the flip side, there's no real way to prove that they're Red Spruce, either...

[wdknudson]

Actually Stew-Mac mandolin tops are made with European spruce not Sitka. #I've discussed this with Don MacRostie. #They get the top material from a source in Germany and 'European' is as close as they can nail it.

Yonkle's right, there's no shortage of discussion on woods and thicknessing. #There even debate on the top woods for Loars. #There is no absolute truth about any of it, that is unless you include the concept of 'variance'. #Read up, then get in there and carve the top. #One thing that I've learned is that the Stew-Mac drawings are little bit on the thick side for top graduations. #It being your first mandolin, don't sweat it, use the the Stew-mac wood. #One thing's for sure once you've finishing the first one, you'll be thinking about what to do on the next one!

Also, I don't know that spruce species alone will disqualify the instrument's sound as being 'Bluegrass' appropriate. I've played sweet examples that had red spruce, Sitka, Engelmann, Blue spruce, German spruce and Italian spruce.

-Bill

[rwh4]

Thanks for the insight and encouragement.I will use the
top I got with the kit do some reading and start carving.

Richard

[Bluemando]

good luck on your carving rwh4, I just finished mine. It is easy to take off too much material, but if you are trying to carve to loar specs, then thinner (especially in the center) is better, compared to the specs I've seen compared to stew-mac's print.
I went .02" thinner than the stew-mac print for this same reason.