Grade your Guitar Wood

[Iain1231]

What do you think of Wood Grades. According to this guide :http://www.exotichardwoods.co.uk/doc...WOODS-LIST.pdf, A quartersawn wood would be an AAA grade for mahagony. What grade would you give your guitar's wood and why?

[AndrewG]

I've seen a lot of variation in wood grading from various manufacturers. There doesn't seem to be an accepted standard-and anyway, how could there be when what we find attractive is so subjective? Martin grades their tops for appearance and, I don't know if they still do, but they used to mark the grades on tops in pencil. I don't have a mirror to check if mine is so marked.

[Ernesto]

This is a very complicated subject I think as there are so many variations and designations.
As a general rule, for me, the highest grade should always be truly «quartersawn» wood. There is also a lot of confusion about this term. Oftentimes guitar wood is called «quartersawn» if it has straight running (vertical) grain, but a set of wood can be flat- or riftsawn and still have vertical grain, even though this is not often the case; and it can be quartersawn and not have completely vertical grain. The only true indicator for quartersawn wood are medullary rays. What I find incorrect is if a flat sawn peace of wood revealing the typical cathedral or triangular pattern is announced to customers as «amazing figure» etc.
What I just said goes for the exotic woods especially, and rosewoods in particular. Other species are still available as truly quartersawn.
I hope I got this right, I'm not a wood expert, just a guitar freak who did a lot of research.

[Parlorman]

Most of my guitars are almost a century or more old. The woods are probably off the chart.

[Mbroady]

According to the builder the woods on 2 of my guitars are AAAA/Master grade, but I would just say that the wood is A-OK, or give it a thumbs-Up, or perhaps Killer, maybe even say Niiiiiiiiice

But the word that best describes the wood is vibrant. That goes for the other guitars as well

[Iain1231]

Perhaps they well are! If they are premium guitars they better be AAA and better

[tadol]

Thats a problem with grading - they are trying to mix an aesthetic call with actual specific cut info, and having to adjust their standards for different species and grain patterns. It’s a difficult thing - I prefer when you get a picture of the actual set.

[Tony Burns]

Thank you so very much for this wood grading article.
Very nice ! I'm kind of a stickler for wood ( i work with wood everyday- love wood
-even have special stuff put away for a future project -or just to look at !)

Typically older instruments used better grades - tighter tops , more wood rays -
and its selected with better care than your typical guitar you buy now a days from your average music store .
I have been hearing a'lot of chatter about how wood is wood and how its cut isn't important
-guess because its cheaper for a manufacturer to mass produce a guitar of average quality
than taking the time to select the right wood - to make a guitar something special .

[Paddy1951]

It seems to me that most grading of wood is about appearance. There may be some grading that takes in other factors. Strength, tone, etc.

How would you know?

I go on faith that makers of guitars want me to have a good sounding, reliable instrument. It is not good if I am unhappy because of some wood grading issue.

If only cosmetics are the concern, a triple A rating may not mean that much.

Didn't Taylor build a guitar from wooden pallets? I think it sounded good too, as I recall.

For my own guitars...
I would say between AAA and A. That may not be accurate at all though. How do you grade some kinds of wood?

[zombywoof]

The appearance of the top wood is one of the least important characteristics of a guitar when it comes to sound. It is more a matter of aesthetics than tone. So if that kind of stuff is important to you it will be worth laying out the extra bucks. A truly skilled builder can fashion a top out of popsicle sticks.

[charles Tauber]

Originally Posted by Ernesto

Oftentimes guitar wood is called «quartersawn» if it has straight running (vertical) grain, but a set of wood can be flat- or riftsawn and still have vertical grain, even though this is not often the case; and it can be quartersawn and not have completely vertical grain.

The term "quarter sawn" can refer to what sequence was used to cut a tree into boards. It can also refer to the end grain of the cut board being within 30 degrees of its face. These are two different things: one how the tree was cut into boards, the other, the end result of the orientation of the end grain. What guitar makers are referring to as "quarter sawn" is that the end grain is "vertical" (i.e. at 90 degrees to its face).

Similarly, the terms "flat sawn", or "slab cut", and "rift sawn" can refer to what sequence was used to cut a tree into boards or it can refer to the angle that the end grain makes with the face of the board. Again, two different things. If one is referring to cut boards, flat or slab cut means that the end grain is more or less parallel to the face of the board, an orientation that produces "cathedral" or "V" shaped grain on the face. If one is referring to cut boards, rift sawn means that the end grain is neither parallel or perpendicular ("vertical") to the face, an orientation that can produce straight grain on the face.

Since both rift and quartered wood produce straight grain on the face of the board, it is impossible to differentiate the two without looking at the end grain. (The exception is if the board changes from rift to flat across the width of the board: the presence of "V" grain towards the edge of the board that becomes flat sawn gives it away.)

The only true indicator for quartersawn wood are medullary rays.

All wood has medullary rays: the size of the medullary rays varies from one species to another. When a board has the end grain at 90 degrees to its face, in species with medullary rays large enough to be seen with the naked eye, the medullary rays will appear as "silk". Seeing that does indicate that the end grain is "vertical" (i.e. 90 degrees to its face).

What I find incorrect is if a flat sawn peace of wood revealing the typical cathedral or triangular pattern is announced to customers as «amazing figure» etc.

A piece of flat sawn wood might have an amazing figure: stating that it does is "correct". Stating that it is "quarter sawn" is a different issue.

Originally Posted by Parlorman

Most of my guitars are almost a century or more old. The woods are probably off the chart.

Some of the worst looking wood I've ever seen has been on old guitars. Just because an instrument is "old" or "vintage" doesn't guarantee that it was made from "first quality" wood. Many were, many weren't.

Originally Posted by tadol

Thats a problem with grading - they are trying to mix an aesthetic call with actual specific cut info, and having to adjust their standards for different species and grain patterns. It’s a difficult thing - I prefer when you get a picture of the actual set.

Entirely agree.

If one is buying, say, 1000 sets of guitar woods at a time, having some generic grading is probably helpful: "I'll take a 1000 "AAAAAAAAAAA" grade".


Regarding the OP and the grading scheme posted there, aside from what criteria one uses for grading, the grading scheme should be relatively simple to understand. The supplier uses grading numbers 1 through 8 for guitar tops. That seems fine and straight-forward what criteria he is used for each grade.

However, when he gets to backs and sides, it goes sideways. He uses all A's. Then he throws in up to three asterisks. So we can have A, A*, A**, A***, AA, AA*, AA**, AA*** and so on. That's too complicated, and too vague.

I'm not sure who decided that all wood is "grade A" and above. That's like being a teacher and stating that every student has a grade of A and above. Some students get A, some AA, some AAA, some AAAA. Grading of A, B, C, D... is much easier to distinguish. (If one adds in the silly asterisk, it's nuts: some students get a grade of A, some A*, some AA**, some AAA***...)

When I buy guitar tops, I don't pay any attention to the grade the seller has assigned. I look through the tops, one-by-one to select what meets my criteria for "quality". I have, for example, consistently found that the "AAA" red spruce I have seen available, at my suppliers, is a solid "C" compared to, for example the Engelmann, cedar, redwood... that is A or higher. (That's not to suggest that red spruce is inferior: it's a comment on grading.)

There is grading for cosmetics and appearance and there is grading for technical properties - stiffness, runout .... Most wood grades are based on cosmetics.

[Wade Hampton]

I don’t and won’t grade the wood in my guitars: they’re not in school. Although I suppose you can say that I use the pass/fail approach: if they pass (sound really good) I buy them, if they fail I don’t.

While I appreciate the glories of gorgeous wood as much as the next person, to my mind the cosmetic appearance is actually irrelevant when it comes to judging a musical instrument. Yeah, I can enjoy the dazzling grain patterns of rare and costly oingo-boingo wood, but it’s not enough to make me buy a guitar.


Wade Hampton Miller

[bufflehead]

I look closely for silking in topwood, not only because I enjoy the aesthetic, but because it indicates good quarter-sawing. That's not as important to me in terms of tonewoods, especially with mahogany, where plain, straight grain is acoustically fine. While I admire guitars with tonewoods that look fiddled or flamed, I'm unwilling to shell out thousands of dollars extra for a guitar that looks great in places where an audience never sees it. However, I doubt I'd ever again purchase a guitar where the top wasn't nicely silked.

I endorse Wade's unwillingness to grade his guitars. After 21 years in the classroom, I've had my fill of assessment.

[Tnfiddler]

I’ll let each of you grade my Bourgeois for me. What grade does it get?

[charles Tauber]

Originally Posted by Tnfiddler

I’ll let each of you grade my Bourgeois for me. What grade does it get?

It's wood, it's a guitar, it looks nice. If it sounds pleasing, plays well, it passes.

I don't care for the pick guard, however. (You asked.)