Wood Question for Luthiers

[Alan Carruth]

Bob: Just eyeballing my data those averages look about right. to give an idea of the ranges, I've got:

European spruce from about 340 kg/m^3 and 9 GPa to 550/19

Sitka from 415/ 12 to 510/18

Engelmann from 350/11 to 500/16.5.

Again, this was just a quick pick off some charts that don't include everything I've tested. I'd be willing to bet I've got some other samples a bit outside of those ranges.

As stringjunky says, just tell the luthier what you want and let them pick the wood. These days I hardly pay attention to the species.

[iim7V7IM7]

Thanks for sharing your average dried weight data. The ranges for each species in your sample populations are quite wide as suspected and I am sure that there are some sets out there beyond +/- 3 sigma. I have no idea of the provenance of the average data that I posted. It is from The Wood Database which collects data from a variety of sources and sample sizes.

Personally, I have become a bit species agnostic. On my most current build, Mark will go through his sets and pick based on a target density and ratio of the long-grain to short grain stiffness. Whichever sets meet the criteria are the one that he'll choose regardless of species.

Originally Posted by Alan Carruth

Bob: Just eyeballing my data those averages look about right. to give an idea of the ranges, I've got:

European spruce from about 340 kg/m^3 and 9 GPa to 550/19

Sitka from 415/ 12 to 510/18

Engelmann from 350/11 to 500/16.5.

Again, this was just a quick pick off some charts that don't include everything I've tested. I'd be willing to bet I've got some other samples a bit outside of those ranges.

As stringjunky says, just tell the luthier what you want and let them pick the wood. These days I hardly pay attention to the species.