[nacluth]

Alohachris,

To answer your question succinctly is no we have not seen any repair work due to a flatsawn back. Of course Steve has only been building instruments for the last 40 years. The vast majority of these were for people in our local climate until the last 15 years or so when our business became much broader (truly worldwide).

Two things:
1.) Despite the pictures that might catch your notice, still a majority of our instruments are built from straight grained wood.

2.) One benefit of building high-end customs is the care that the customers show to their instrument. Unlike mass produced instruments where variability is minimized and the expectation of little home care is expected, we believe our clients protect their investment by keeping their guitars properly humidified at all times.

Over time, we have made adjustments to some of our instruments due to environmental changes, but as far as I can remember, none have been a back issue.

We do stabilize and season our wood for years before building typically. Only twice in our production has a back “potato chipped” to a point where it became unsuitable for use. In those situations, we laminated the back to stabilize it. While stability is always a concern, we have yet to see issues that have made us consider not using gorgeous pieces of wood.