Carpathian spruce and night harvesting
 

Recently I read that Carpathian spruce is often harvested at night and Monks are asked to pray for woodcutters while in the forest. I tried to find this reading again but couldn't locate it. Can anyone help with information about this interesting practice.

I'm not sure about the monks praying, but you will see "Moon Spruce" mentioned every once in a while. I have no experience or understanding how and if it affects anything, but I'll take any story people want to attach to a guitar I'm having built that's fun to tell:)

Ervin Somogyi has something to say on the matter on his blog.

There's a long thread by Rudi or Willi (from Blazer and Henkes) on the UMGF about Alpine spruce, the woodcutters who harvest it, when they cut it and why.

True or not, who knows. It's still a fun idea.

--edit--

Here's the link

hi FF, why is the QWERTY keys layed out like they are ?, look into it and you'll find there's practical reasons for people doing what and when they do.
Woodsmen have harvested timber for millennia so they cut when the trees when it's most practical to do it - requiring less time to 'season', stabilize and sell, they produce timber for all sorts of purposes eg spruce shingles for alpine roofs, now ya dont want these warping and letting the snow melt in :D
folks just wouldn't buy your product and you'd go outa business - practicalities.


http://www.culturalcapitalcounts.eu/...nt=1&detail=79

http://www.culturalcapitalcounts.eu/...awipd42vf6.JPG

Not only on the correct phase of the moon, but also in the winter months. Both events have to do (IMO) with the moisture content of the wood. Drying is a great deal easier and more likely to be successful if there is less moisture in the wood. I don't see why there is such a tendency to look on this as mysticism, it looks more like wisdom to me.

Pushing the drying process is hard on the wood, and nearly all who are trying to recover their investment to reinvest again are in a hurry; it's a numbers game. If the wood is dryer when cut, it stands to reason that less degrade due to drying will be inflicted and therefore the more sound and longer lasting the timber, what ever it is used for. In the case of Lutherie, air dried has always been the thing, and the kiln dried woods that are advertised by virtually all of suppliers seem like a travesty to me. I could write a book on this, so I will stop now.

As I understand it, the practice of having monks pray for the woodcutters has to do with fears about being out at night on the full moon in Transylvania, which is part of the Carpathian range.

Makes sense, YOU MAY RUN INTO THIS GUY!!

http://cdn.buzznet.com/assets/users1...1284081035.jpg

AH, AH, AH.

My upcoming Marklund OM-28 has a Josef Berkmann Euro "Moon" spruce top, the same supplier that Blazer and Henkes use. The explanation seems to make sense to me.

OT I think the QUERTY keyboard was laid out so that the vowels were spaced out, making jamming of the swing arms much less likely. Another anachronism that is totally irrelevant for today's computers. The good news is that hopefully voice recognition software will be good enough in ten years that keyboards will become much less important.

Lots of references in this recent thread...

http://www.acousticguitarforum.com/f...ighlight=Ervin

From what I've read of the old days, this is how I've come to understand this issue:

Trees were harvested in the winter, on the coldest days and nights when the sap was low.

The full moon made it possible to work at night.

Jim McCarthy

I totally get the harvesting in the winter months, Bruce, but could you expand a little on why the phase of the moon might have an effect on the moisture content?

The moon controls the tides...that's ALOT of moisture...I'm sorry, that's the first thing that popped into my mind and I couldn't help saying it. I think working by the light of the moon makes sense though.

Atmospheric tides at ground level are mostly influenced by the sun. Of course, the moon has an impact on the atmosphere as well -- but not nearly as much as it has on sea levels.

The general consensus in the scientific community is that the impact of the moon on the atmosphere is far exceeded by local weather variations.

It doesn't take a science genius to figure that out. If the moon were strong enough to dry the wood to the point that it has an impact on the sound of a guitar, imagine the impact it would have on brain fluids (and a bunch of other body parts).

Tides are a complex thing to study. Any assertions that a high moon "sucks up" the humidity in trees and makes better guitar tops are over amplified, over simplified, and over romanticized.

Luthiers are just like normal people. The scope of beliefs and theories that people abide to is rather large. There are some top names in the industry who believe in this moon spruce theory and sell them at a hefty premium.

I personally don't adhere to any of this. And if a friend or family member were to consider paying a hefty premium for "moon spruce", I would recommend that they think twice about it.

Moisture content is about mass transfer and equilibrium....Look up Fick's laws of diffusion.