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Old 12-04-2013, 11:17 PM
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fazool fazool is offline
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Default examples of bad topwood and runout

There was a recent discussion, with some nice diagram examples given that illustrated runout. This post extends that conversation.

I recently order a small soundboard piece. What I ordered was AAAA/AAAAA or Builder's Reserve Master Grade Western Red Cedar. I am attaching this to a genuine piece from "The Tree" and was very serious and deliberate about wanting high grade cedar.

What I got was deck planking. But I thought it could be used to illustrate several different flaws and quality problems.

Since the tonewood supplier responded very rapidly with a refund to make things right, I will not disparage their name. They are not a known AGF sponsor nor are they active here in these forums.

The way I would describe "runout" is to compare it to a submarine: As the sub moves ahead, if it starts rising to break through the surface, it will break through the surface. That trail it leaves behind and how it breaks through the surface and is partly underwater and partly above is what happens when a wood grain starts rising toward the surface.

This picture shows a HUGE runout, indicative of a big grain that is "rising" along the length of the piece. Midway, it breaks the surface, leaving agrain that is incomplete and therefore looks blemished. This one happens to be a dark grain.



The side view shows clearly how the grains are severely angled and not parallel to the surface. Or, better said, the surface cut is not parallel to the grain.



The end of the board had terrible tearout from the cutoff saw. Cedar is prone to this but technique can avoid this and this is a terrible example of a rookie cut.



The other end had some sort of putty colored stains on it.



The top was supposed to be Master Grade (AAAAA+) finished to a .125"-.130" thickness. One side was unfinished and the board was 1/4" thick.
Worse yet the thickness varied greatly across a very small width. The thickness changed .020" over a 4" length.






So, firstly - it was cathartic to rant about this a little bit here - this was there top of the line Master Grade Builder's Reserve, finished cedar top wood!

But, if anything good might come from this, I thought it might be educational to illustrate some quality flaws.

(I did get my money back, but I'm still aghast at their "quality")
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Old 12-05-2013, 01:32 AM
jeff crisp jeff crisp is offline
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Well at the very least it's not quartered very well. At what point do we call something riff sawn? For that reason alone I wouldn't build with it.
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Old 12-05-2013, 03:51 AM
Tom West Tom West is offline
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Not sure why you would order a top finished to .125"-.130" especially in Cedar. You may want to leave it that thick and still you have to join. I much prefer tops closer to the actual thickness you received. It very common to have tops come with a lot of the things you mentioned. Fuzzy ends and surface, variation in thickness etc are run of the mill, pardon pun. Runout does not look that bad to me. Killers for me would be the off quarter, color and wavy grain. Certainly low quality wood in my opinion.
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Old 12-05-2013, 06:03 AM
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Hate to see their student grade.
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Old 12-05-2013, 07:17 AM
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Originally Posted by Tom West View Post
Not sure why you would order a top finished to .125"-.130" especially in Cedar.
I'm not actually building a guitar with it.

I am building a guitar accessory box (think jewelry box) but making it look like a guitar with all the same binding and purfling and woods and even internal bracing.
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Old 12-05-2013, 07:22 AM
jeff crisp jeff crisp is offline
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I'm not actually building a guitar with it.

I am building a guitar accessory box (think jewelry box) but making it look like a guitar with all the same binding and purfling and woods and even internal bracing.
Did you let the vendor know that when you ordered it?
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Old 12-05-2013, 08:43 AM
charles Tauber charles Tauber is offline
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I respectfully suggest that a jewellery box really doesn't require a "builders' reserve, super deluxe, AAAAAAAAA, Master grade" guitar top. I've purchased 2x8" cedar decking, and resawed it, that is still the best cedar I've ever seen or heard. Any straight-grained, quartered, blemish-free piece of cedar would work wonderfully for your box top. Check out your local fence/deck supply stores. You'll pay a fraction of the price than for "builders' reserve" guitar tops.

Last edited by charles Tauber; 12-05-2013 at 02:01 PM.
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Old 12-05-2013, 09:30 AM
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Yes I did tell him what I wanted very specifically.

Good idea Charles.

Some more info on this project:

Last year, I wanted a very decorative, high-quality desktop box for my guitar accessories (capo, Snark, picks, etc.). I also specifically wanted it to scream “acoustic guitar”. And this was a good excuse for me to practice some beginner luthiery techniques.

So I made my it out of rosewood sides, with a sitka top, ivoroid binding and abalam purfling. I made my own kerfing strips for the inside and carved some braces for the lid.

It came out well and sits proudly, in use, on my desk. It looks exactly like a very traditional acoustic guitar – albeit rectangular, but it evokes that whole “acoustic guitar” image. As my first attempt, I see some areas I would like to improve upon (corner finish, binding miters, etc.)

Along comes my new knowledge of “The Tree” and I am smitten. My modest talent and small collection could not justify a whole guitar made from “The Tree” but I very much want a piece of that luthiery history.

So, I hatch a plan: I will make a new and improved guitar accessory box – this time incorporating higher quality materials and my favorite elements: “The Tree” sides, cedar top, paua abalone purfling, nitro finish. I procured some high quality “The Tree” cutoffs of the perfect size and am sourcing the rest. I just ordered my Paua abalone this week. The only main element I can’t decide on is which binding (I am thinking ebony or bloodwood).


And this is a great and fun activity for those long winter days inside the house.
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Old 12-05-2013, 12:00 PM
Alan Carruth Alan Carruth is offline
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I'd agree that that is not a high-grade top, but I'd beg to differ with almost all of the conclusions you have drawn regarding it. I see, for example, no convincing evidence of 'run out' in the photos. This is not to say it doesn't have any, just that the things that are making you think it does are not really symptoms of run out. I will say that it can take along time to lean to 'read' wood properly, and it's easy to make mistakes.

The best cedar top I ever saw was a shingle that one of my students picked up and used to make a tenor uke. It was light and stiff, with fine, uniform grain and color, and no run out. If he'd had two you could almost have joined them for a guitar top. Good wood is where you find it, if you know how to look.
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Old 12-05-2013, 12:08 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Carruth View Post
...not really symptoms of run out.
Run out occurs when the cut is made obliquely to the run of the grain. If you take a cylinder and slice it at an angle, you get an ellipse at the plane of intersection. If the cut is made obliquely to the run of the grain you will see grains that do not run the length of the wood, because they are not parallel.

In the photo, one grain line in particular is very dark and happens to be very short-cut because its on a huge angle to the cut plane.

If you look at the edge photo, particularly on the lower left, you can clearly see the grains diving down through the depth of the wood.

I'm not sure how you can disagree, with most of my statements. I requested and ordered a finished .13" thick top board. What I got was a board, unfinished on one side that ran .22"-.26".

It was undeniably terrible quality.
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Old 12-05-2013, 12:09 PM
Howard Klepper Howard Klepper is offline
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Fazool, I'm posting this not to rain on your parade, but because I don't want inexperienced readers of this forum to get a bunch of wrong ideas about tops. Sorry, but almost everything you wrote about the top is wrong if it is being judged as a guitar top (rather than a piece of finished box wood).
Quote:
Originally Posted by fazool View Post
This picture shows a HUGE runout, indicative of a big grain that is "rising" along the length of the piece. Midway, it breaks the surface, leaving agrain that is incomplete and therefore looks blemished. This one happens to be a dark grain.

At most this photo shows extremely minor runout (it depends a bit on the depth of the dark line). That dark color line appear goes half the length of the top before running out. If the top were thinned to .125" it would run through over a length of 5-6". Experienced builders try to avoid grain that runs through the finished top in less than 2-3", or in other terms, a runout slope of less than 5% is OK. Your top's runout indicated by that color streak (which is itself a cosmetic downgrade) is about 2%--entirely acceptable.

Quote:
Originally Posted by fazool View Post
The side view shows clearly how the grains are severely angled and not parallel to the surface. Or, better said, the surface cut is not parallel to the grain.

It's a mistake to try to see runout slope by looking at grain lines (annular rings) on the side of a top, because even with zero runout, they will follow a slope if the cut is not perfectly parallel to the grain (a near impossibility). But even so, the slope of those lines is at a very mild and acceptable amount--good enough for a top grade top. What it does show, since you are seeing so many thin lines on the side edge, is that the top is sawn well off from quarter.

Quote:
Originally Posted by fazool View Post
The end of the board had terrible tearout from the cutoff saw. Cedar is prone to this but technique can avoid this and this is a terrible example of a rookie cut.

That is not tearout from a cutoff saw. It is some roughness from the bandsawing of the top on a resaw. It shows at the edge because the top is a few thousandths of an inch thinner there, and it has been sanded--the sander missed right at the edge. This does not show any mistake in the production of the top; it is irrelevant to the builder.

Quote:
Originally Posted by fazool View Post
The other end had some sort of putty colored stains on it.

Irrelevant to a builder. It is outside the guitar pattern. Not a downgrade.

Quote:
Originally Posted by fazool View Post
The top was supposed to be Master Grade (AAAAA+) finished to a .125"-.130" thickness. One side was unfinished and the board was 1/4" thick.
Worse yet the thickness varied greatly across a very small width. The thickness changed .020" over a 4" length.
Again, irrelevant and not any kind of downgrade. You can find this on a Mastergrade top. What I am seeing is that you thought you were buying a finished product that was supposed to be made perfectly. A guitar top from the supplier is not a finished product, it's a raw material. The supplier's only obligation is to furnish you the material from which a competent builder can make a finished guitar top. A Master grade top can have much greater variations in thickness (along with the bandsaw marks, stained ends, etc. so long as there is enough wood for those things to be removed in the construction process.

What you didn't mention is the most serious flaw, the rift cut, which makes this a low grade top. It's not hard to find dead quartered cedar. I would expect this top to be floppy; cedar varies a lot in cross grain stiffness and well-quartered wood is essential. The dark lines are a cosmetic downgrade, as I mentioned earlier. So you are absolutely right that you did not get a AAAAA Mastergrade top. Actually, I avoid any dealer who uses more than 4 A's. By old-school grading, AAAA IS Mastergrade--a perfect top.

What I see is a communication problem. You wanted a finished board for making a box. You should have bought it from a hobby shop supplier. Tonewood suppliers are not in the business of supplying finished wood.

Sorry for all the corrections, but this is an opportunity for education, and I don't want to see a lot of misinformation propagated.
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Old 12-05-2013, 12:26 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Howard Klepper View Post
Fazool, I'm posting this not to rain on your parade, but because I don't want inexperienced readers of this forum to get a bunch of wrong ideas about tops. Sorry,
Apology not necessary - I want to discuss it factually.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Howard Klepper View Post
At most this photo shows extremely minor runout. ...Your top's runout indicated by that color streak (which is itself a cosmetic downgrade) is about 2%--entirely acceptable.
Valid point, and maybe its not clearly visible in the photos but it is cosmetically unacceptable. I can respect your metric for percentage of runout but this one sample is definitely not acceptable (to me anyway).


Quote:
Originally Posted by Howard Klepper View Post
It's a mistake to try to see runout slope by looking at grain lines (annular rings) on the side of a top, because even with zero runout, they will follow a slope if the cut is not perfectly parallel to the grain (a near impossibility).
Yes I wasn't judging runout solely by edge-view. I was simply using that as secondary "evidence". If you look at the left siude and especially the lower more visible grains, I feel they are at quite an angle.



Quote:
Originally Posted by Howard Klepper View Post
…What it does show, since you are seeing so many thin lines on the side edge, is that the top is sawn well off from quarter.
I would not have known to pick up on that. I think that was stated earlier as well.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Howard Klepper View Post
That is not tearout from a cutoff saw. It is some roughness from the bandsawing of the top on a resaw. It shows at the edge because the top is a few thousandths of an inch thinner there, and it has been sanded--the sander missed right at the edge. This does not show any mistake in the production of the top; it is irrelevant to the builder..
Agreed. My point was that it looked careless and sloppy, especially when I ordered a finished piece.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Howard Klepper View Post
What you didn't mention is the most serious flaw, the rift cut, which makes this a low grade top. It's not hard to find dead quartered cedar. I would expect this top to be floppy;
Yes, you are dead-on accurate. Even I was shocked at how “floppy” this small thick board was. I couldn’t put my finger on it until you wrote that but EXACTLY right.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Howard Klepper View Post
What I see is a communication problem. You wanted a finished board for making a box. You should have bought it from a hobby shop supplier. Tonewood suppliers are not in the business of supplying finished wood.
Yes very true. I have ordered topwood from Stewart McDonald, LMII and two private luthiers before and gotten exactly what I wanted. I was very deliberate in what I (think I) ordered.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Howard Klepper View Post
Sorry for all the corrections, but this is an opportunity for education, and I don't want to see a lot of misinformation propagated.

Again, apology not necessary. I respect most of what you said with one important caveat: As the buying customer, I had a stated expectation for a finished piece of top-quality wood. What I got was significantly not that.
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Last edited by fazool; 12-05-2013 at 01:00 PM.
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Old 12-05-2013, 02:13 PM
arie arie is offline
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indeed. that wood is cut pretty far off quarter.




these might be helpful:
http://www.nhla.com/assets/1603/2011_rules_book.pdf

http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-.../dp/1561583588

Last edited by arie; 12-05-2013 at 02:26 PM.
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Old 12-05-2013, 02:40 PM
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fazool fazool is offline
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I might get that book.

The rules PDF seemed pretty generally for non-luthiery applications. The wood selections were different, it didn't discuss runout nor did it include comparable grading. I think the general topics are relevant but only coarsely so.
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Old 12-05-2013, 05:47 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by charles Tauber View Post
I respectfully suggest that a jewellery box really doesn't require a "builders' reserve, super deluxe, AAAAAAAAA, Master grade" guitar top. I've purchased 2x8" cedar decking, and resawed it, that is still the best cedar I've ever seen or heard. Any straight-grained, quartered, blemish-free piece of cedar would work wonderfully for your box top. Check out your local fence/deck supply stores. You'll pay a fraction of the price than for "builders' reserve" guitar tops.


The left piece is wood sold as a guitar top, the one on the right is a 2x6 fence board I saw some promise in. Mind you it took some looking for it. Along the way I found some cedar that was not cut on quarter that would not be suitable for a guitar but the grain and color was so nice that I had to pick it up in case I wanted to make a small ornamental something in the future. For under $3, why not?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Carruth View Post
The best cedar top I ever saw was a shingle that one of my students picked up and used to make a tenor uke. It was light and stiff, with fine, uniform grain and color, and no run out. If he'd had two you could almost have joined them for a guitar top. Good wood is where you find it, if you know how to look.
Found a couple of pieces of cedar siding in my mother's garage when she wanted it cleaned out. Might make a mini archtop.

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