Douglas Fir for top wood?

[SteveS]

Originally Posted by sachi

Why? How would that be different from sinker redwood taken from a river?

Redwood does not rot in fresh water. Fir rots in fresh water.

[zabdart]

There's a famous story about the great Spanish luthier Torrez building a guitar with a paper mache top, just to prove that the way you braced the top was more important than what you made it out of. The guitar he built, by all accounts, played and sounded just fine... and stayed together, too.
The skill and experience of the builder can overcome a lot of vagaries in the materials... but only up to an extent. The reason why most acoustics have spruce or cedar tops is because of their high stiffness to weight ratio and their acoustic properties. You can build a perfectly acceptable guitar out of non-traditional materials... if you know what you're doing. But you can only "push the envelope" so far before your results sound bad.

[JohnM]

Originally Posted by zabdart

There's a famous story about the great Spanish luthier Torrez building a guitar with a paper mache top, just to prove that the way you braced the top was more important than what you made it out of. The guitar he built, by all accounts, played and sounded just fine... and stayed together, too.
The skill and experience of the builder can overcome a lot of vagaries in the materials... but only up to an extent. The reason why most acoustics have spruce or cedar tops is because of their high stiffness to weight ratio and their acoustic properties. You can build a perfectly acceptable guitar out of non-traditional materials... if you know what you're doing. But you can only "push the envelope" so far before your results sound bad.

The back and sides were from paper mâché meant to illustrate that the top was the most important aspect.

[sachi]

Originally Posted by SteveS

Redwood does not rot in fresh water. Fir rots in fresh water.

Thanks, Steve. Makes sense.

[zabdart]

Originally Posted by JohnM

The back and sides were from paper mâché meant to illustrate that the top was the most important aspect.

Thanks for correcting me. It's always good to get my facts straight, and since I'm remembering this story from over 30 years ago, you can understand how I got the details wrong.

[Howard Klepper]

The back and sides were actually made of a hard cardboard, similar to what "chipboard" guitar cases are made from. The papier mache thing is an often repeated mistake.

And no one who has played that guitar ever thought it was great. Just that it was OK and sounded like a guitar. Kinda like Taylor's pallet guitar in that way.

I have heard of building with Douglas fir, but have never heard a guitar with a Doug fir top. It is heavier than the more usual top woods. And not native to the UK. And not really a fir.

[Wade Hampton]

I've never knowingly played an instrument made with a Douglas fir top, but the times I was in Scandinavia and Russia I did play a few with tops made from pine, and quite a few with larch tops - the Russians in particular have a longstanding tradition of using larch on stringed instruments.

Even though this is usually little known outside their own countries, there's actually quite a history (in northern nations, at least) of using all sorts of conifer woods for musical instrument construction, not just the cedars and spruces.


whm

[hermithollow]

I think a lot depends on the individual piece of fir and the sound you are looking for. Being "driftwood" might not be a problem if the wood is sound and properly cut. I would not use the top -because - it is driftwood, I might use it -despite- the fact that it was driftwood.
The douglas fir top I was given seems a bit heavier than the engelmann and sitka spruce I have used. I think it might work well for a bouzouki or cittern.

[Acousticado]

I have 8 - 8x10" x 34' long douglas fir beams that came from British Columbia in my white pine log house that I built 28 years ago here in Quebec. I had applied a clear stain on them. They're beautiful. Never thought of douglas fir as a guitar tone wood. I could get a lot of guitar tops out of what I have. I better not tell my neighbour (Sergei de Jonge, lutheir). My house might fall down.

[gmm55]

Indeed, Sergei's a pioneer, and he'd fearlessly give Douglas fir a go. Sergei has to be the only maker to have made a snakewood steel string, and an all spruce steel string (I mean everything, neck, sides, back, and top). Great maker.

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by gmm55

Indeed, Sergei's a pioneer, and he'd fearlessly give Douglas fir a go. Sergei has to be the only maker to have made a snakewood steel string, and an all spruce steel string (I mean everything, neck, sides, back, and top). Great maker.

A couple of issues back in Fretboard Journal (my favorite guitar porn magazine) there was an article about an electric guitar builder in New York City who uses old pine beams salvaged from building restorations for Telecaster-style guitars. I think he uses a harder wood for the fingerboard, but every other piece of wood on the instrument is this old clear pine, some of it a century or two old.

By all accounts, the guitars sound marvelous.


whm