Is there a Way to Tell the Age of Wood?

[Floridapicker]

Happy Weekend everyone. Its there a way to approximate the age of the tree's used in ones guitar. Meaning Front and Back. I only know of the old "Count the ring theory" Which does not apply in this case. Insight or thoughts would be intriguing. I've heard that some of the Sitka Spruce and Indian Rosewood used by Martin could be 300-400 years old. Is that true?

Best,

FP

[Tube Sound]

One option would be to hack off a chunk of your guitar and send it to these folks for radiocarbon dating.

https://www.radiocarbon.com/ams-dating-wood.htm

[Osage]

There is no way to do it visually that I'm aware of.


As for Sitka, there is plenty of old grown left so a 300 year old tree is totally reasonable. Some are older, some younger.

Exported Indian Rosewood is all plantation grown at this point and is not very old at all.

[Arthur Slowhand]

If the top or back of the guitar was made from one piece of wood you could count the 'rings', (or stripes - one for each year) as it were, but you still wouldn't know how big or small a section of the original timber that piece was taken from.

I just sold a barn that we lived in for five years, where the timbers were dated by a dendrochronologist - the oak was felled in the autumn of 1451 and the barn built in 1452. A little after the Chinese, supposedly, and before Columbus, undoubtedly, discovered America. Fascinating stuff... but for going off-topic, I apologise.

[DownUpDave]

Buy it dinner, a few drinks then ask politely

[Cool555]

Originally Posted by Floridapicker

Happy Weekend everyone. Its there a way to approximate the age of the tree's used in ones guitar. Meaning Front and Back. I only know of the old "Count the ring theory" Which does not apply in this case. Insight or thoughts would be intriguing. I've heard that some of the Sitka Spruce and Indian Rosewood used by Martin could be 300-400 years old. Is that true?

Best,

FP

Hi FP, This is an interesting question as I would also like to know how old (the age) especially of the top wood of my guitars are. But for mass produced guitars which the majority of people own, I doubt if the large guitar-makers (like Martin, Taylor or even Yamaha) would bother answering such trivial questions. Unless they are promoting their high-end guitars, then they may add the age of the wood they are using. Reasons they do not answer could be because they do not ask the suppliers the age of the wood they had purchased. As long as the wood is resonant and are suitable tone woods, then that is more important for making guitars.

However, some individuals who are prepared to pay for custom made guitars or are friends (acquaintances) of custom guitar-makers, they are usually told where their “yet-to-be-built” guitar’s top wood (neck, b/s) come from and their ages. I guess they are entitled to know for the amount of money they are investing in such precious instruments.

The above is based on my own speculation and assumption, which may be totally incorrect. So please pardon me if I am wrong.

[Osage]

Originally Posted by Cool555

Hi FP, This is an interesting question as I would also like to know how old (the age) especially of the top wood of my guitars are. But for mass produced guitars which the majority of people own, I doubt if the large guitar-makers (like Martin, Taylor or even Yamaha) would bother answering such trivial questions. Unless they are promoting their high-end guitars, then they may add the age of the wood they are using. Reasons they do not answer could be because they do not ask the suppliers the age of the wood they had purchased. As long as the wood is resonant and are suitable tone woods, then that is more important for making guitars.

However, some individuals who are prepared to pay for custom made guitars or are friends (acquaintances) of custom guitar-makers, they are usually told where their “yet-to-be-built” guitar’s top wood (neck, b/s) come from and their ages. I guess they are entitled to know for the amount of money they are investing in such precious instruments.

The above is based on my own speculation and assumption, which may be totally incorrect. So please pardon me if I am wrong.

I've bought well over 100 sets of wood for builds from probably 15-20 different wood suppliers and have never once been told the age of the tree. I'd be shocked if the wood dealers knew. Maybe one or two of them that are small operations who fell, mill, cure and sell the wood would know but I wouldn't bet on it and it's honestly something that has never come up.

[Tony Burns]

Yes if you know the history of the wood, like when the tree was cut down -
but no if you dont -
I have some very black walnut in my shop , that i know came from a tree that was fell about a hundred years ago - i know it was from a local clockmaker in my area. so that would be my ticket on that wood.

[mcduffnw]

Originally Posted by Cool555

Hi FP, This is an interesting question as I would also like to know how old (the age) especially of the top wood of my guitars are. But for mass produced guitars which the majority of people own, I doubt if the large guitar-makers (like Martin, Taylor or even Yamaha) would bother answering such trivial questions. Unless they are promoting their high-end guitars, then they may add the age of the wood they are using. Reasons they do not answer could be because they do not ask the suppliers the age of the wood they had purchased. As long as the wood is resonant and are suitable tone woods, then that is more important for making guitars.

However, some individuals who are prepared to pay for custom made guitars or are friends (acquaintances) of custom guitar-makers, they are usually told where their “yet-to-be-built” guitar’s top wood (neck, b/s) come from and their ages. I guess they are entitled to know for the amount of money they are investing in such precious instruments.

The above is based on my own speculation and assumption, which may be totally incorrect. So please pardon me if I am wrong.

There is not really any easy way to know, for sure, how old the wood in anyone's guitar really is. Whether it came from a factory maker, like Martin, a boutique maker, like Collings, or a solo luthier like James Olson.

The only folks who would have a chance to know, and again, not likely precisely, would be the loggers who felled the trees in the first place, or maybe the mill that first processed the raw cut logs. The loggers and the millers might know, or could just more likely give a good educated guess, but the wood brokers selling it to the makers, and the guitar makers could put whatever "marketing spin" they want on the wood after they receive it.

Sitka Spruce trees can live to be between 1000 to 2000 years old...maybe more for true primeval old growth trees, but there are only very very few left of those trees, and they are in places too hard to get into to log them and/or they are on federal or state lands and protected from logging. So the Sitka that is still readily available is really "younger mid growth" trees.

As AGF member Osage said, the Indian Rosewood now used is almost entirely blow down trees raised for shading tea plants on plantations in India. There is very very little, if any, true forest old growth Indian Rosewood left out there, in the tonewood marketplace, except mostly in the stashes of some builders who bought it years and years ago.

More importantly, just cuz the wood is old, does not make it superior in sonic properties. There is old growth tonewood out there that looks great...even graded as Mastergrade...whatever that really means...but would still make just a fair to midlin' guitar at best.

Why would it be important to know how old the wood in your guitar is, as if you could really honestly and easily find out?...is it enough to know that it "made the grade" for some builder to use it to make your guitar? Good enough for Martin, Collings, Olson, etc....good enough for you?

good enough for me....


duff
Be A Player...Not A Polisher

[Cool555]

Originally Posted by mcduffnw

There is not really any easy way to know, for sure, how old the wood in anyone's guitar really is. Whether it came from a factory maker, like Martin, a boutique maker, like Collings, or a solo luthier like James Olson.



The only folks who would have a chance to know, and again, not likely precisely, would be the loggers who felled the trees in the first place, or maybe the mill that first processed the raw cut logs. The loggers and the millers might know, or could just more likely give a good educated guess, but the wood brokers selling it to the makers, and the guitar makers could put whatever "marketing spin" they want on the wood after they receive it.



Sitka Spruce trees can live to be between 1000 to 2000 years old...maybe more for true primeval old growth trees, but there are only very very few left of those trees, and they are in places to hard to get into to log them and/or they are on federal or state lands and protected from logging. So the Sitka that is still readily available is really "younger mid growth" trees.



As AGF member Osage said, the Indian Rosewood now used is almost entirely blow down trees raised for shading tea plants on plantations in India. There is very very little, if any, true forest old growth Indian Rosewood left out there, except in the stashes of some builders who bought it often years and years ago.



More importantly, just cuz the wood is old, does not make it superior in sonic properties. There is old growth tonewood out there that looks great...even graded as Mastergrade...whatever that really means...but would still make just a fair to midlin' guitar at best.



Why would it be important to know how old the wood in your guitar is, as if you could really honestly and easily fine out?...is it enough to know that it "made the grade" for some builder to use it to make your guitar? Good enough for Martin, Collings, Olson, etc....good enough for you?



good enough for me....





duff

Be A Player...Not A Polisher

Yes. Agree with what you’ve said. It is really hard to be certain and not really that important to know how old or where exactly the wood from our guitars came from. As long the wood is good enough for the guitar-makers and we like how they look and sound, that should be good enough.

As long as we enjoy the music and inspiration the guitar gives us, that should be reason enough to make us happy when we strum our guitars and make music with them... :guitar

[Shortfinger]

The oldest parts of my guitars are the plastic bindings, made with oil that began as plants and trees way back in the age of dinosaurs.

[Mycroft]

Are you asking how old the tree was then it died, or are you asking what year that it died?

[J185-4Me]

Count the tree growth rings...?

[justonwo]

The more PR and lore that surrounds the wood, the newer it is.

[Paraclete]

There’s a video out there of the Larrivée company and a particular dead spruce tree that was carefully observed and harvested. It was massive, so I’d guess many hundreds of years.