Interesting Opinion by Paul Woolson Re: BRW

[TomB'sox]

What a great thread I pick for my first post....I have been lurking a while, but recently signed up...coming from a completely different perspective here, someone trained in science and objective data and a consumer having just commissioned my first pure custom build.

Although I understand the concepts regarding BRW cracking on older guitars, scientifically that statement can not really be considered fact at all without statistical analysis, ie. since we seem to be talking mostly about pre-war Martins as the classic example of the BRW problem, I believe that almost all pre-war Martins (and the majority of most other quality instruments of the time period) were made with BRW, therefore problems with those will be more common just speaking statistically than say a guitar made with Maple from the same time period. If 90% of all guitars from a certain time period are made of the same wood, than naturally, any problem with cracking will be mostly seen in that 90% rather than the remaining 10%. So to say I have seen "x" number of problems within this 90% really means nothing without statistical analysis of those numbers, no conclusions can be drawn whatsoever based on subjective numbers or impressions. What will we say about Ziricote for example in 50 years? I personally will be dead by then, so the rest of you will have to wait to find out.

Now from the consumer side, I can not afford 5 or 6 Olsons (insert your favorite builder here) of various wood combinations. I can afford one beautiful dream guitar, I have one choice to get it "right". Therefore, I have chosen what the vast majority of people have concluded is the best tone wood out there, the one that all else is compared to, BWR. No one can argue that BRW seems to be the tonewood that all others are measured against. Since my builder has it, legally obtained it, and I can build one guitar, this is what I have chosen (Italian spruce as the top wood).

As mentioned above, if you draw out the concept over many years, all woods of luthier quality are unsustainable. The Italian spruce takes 200 years to grow large enough due to their short growing periods (100 days per season), to attain a size suitable for top wood. Lets see, we harvest all of those and then wait a mere 10 generations and we can build again...We could all go to plastics and carbon fiber, but then again that takes a lot of petroleum to manufacture...

First post, that was a mouthful....

[dberkowitz]

Because we need some humor....

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by dberkowitz

Because we need some humor....

That was REALLY good! I'm still smiling...

- Glenn

[Kent Chasson]

Gotta watch that again. Happy New year to you all!