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Old 08-19-2007, 04:54 PM
Jeff M Jeff M is offline
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Oh, regarding the "Braz" and "Adirondac", I have some nagging doubts about them.
Several different species are called "Brazillian Rosewood" by different suppliers.
Some time back the issue of CITES certification of Blueridges "Braz" came up. Last I recall nobody was able to track it down.
Same thing with "Adirondac". You really can't tell one spruce from another just by how it looks when it is cut. You have to trust your supplier.
In the case of products from China, as recent news has shown...this can be an issue.

Anecdote from Frank Ford at his "Frets,com" site.
Frank is a moderator over at the AG Magazine Forum "Luthiers Corner", owns Gryphon Stringed Instruments..a gem of a guitar shop...and is a very well respected repair expert/luthier;


"Various species of spruce have been used for steel string guitar tops over the years, and each have their devotees. I'm not going to get into speculating about predicting the sound of individual species, partly because of the extreme difficulty in making a positive identification.

Time for an anecdote:

I attended the A.S.I.A. Symposium in 1995 and saw a number of vendors selling guitar tops in the exhibition hall. At dinner that evening I sat at a large table with Tom Humphrey, the well known classical guitar builder. Tom was talking to one of the spruce suppliers and describing how he had selected the Adirondack spruce (also known as red spruce) tops he'd bought earlier.

I asked the vendor about his spruce, "Do you know why it's called 'red' and how can you distinguish it from other spruce." He told me," I really don't know. I can't tell it apart from other species. I just have to take the word of the man who brings me the logs. He says it's red spruce." "
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