#1
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Grading Wood
Hello luthiers,
I had a question in regards to "grading" woods. I'm speaking about the "A" "AAA" or even "AAAAA" ratings that people attach to the woods used for guitars. I've read some debate on this and I was wondering what the consensus was, or if there even is one. Anyways, here are my questions 1) What criteria is used to grade wood? Is it subjective or objective criteria? Can anyone grade wood or do you need to have a designation or experience etc? 2) Is the criteria used to grade wood based on tone or appearance, or a combination of both? 3) Should guitar buyers base their buying decisions on the wood used? I am aware the the builder is probably most important factor, but lets say that it is the same builder and the only difference is in price and one has a AA Sitka top and the other a AAA Sitka top (this is strictly an example)- Will the guitar with the AAA Sitka top usually sound better? P.S I specifically posted the question in this forum as I would imagine luthiers would have the most background and knowledge on this matter, as opposed to players such as myself :-) |
#2
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When you go from AAA to AAAA I believe you are going just for looks. Some would argue that with anything above AA. I've played some GREAT guitars built with AA woods. With tops you have more to judge, degree off quarter, runout, width of grain (sometimes), again I've heard some nice sounding Red Spruce with a very wide grain. The cost difference from AA to AAAA can be dramatic.
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https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-T...56266954411686 http://www.reverbnation.com/jayhowlett http://www.jayhowlett.com Guitars: I'm really happy to have a few nice ones. |
#3
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A-AA-AAA (AAAA is a modern innovation, I had never heard of it until about 15 years ago) is currently a cosmetic grading system. I am not totally in disagreement with this, but it has to be tried to structural excellence to have real meaning for me. AAAA is a cosmetic replacement for what I call master grade. Master grade should mean the masters pick as the best top in a stack, and the master should be highly skilled at assessing the wood structurally, or why/how is he/she a master?
When speaking of guitar top wood, AAA should be cosmetically perfect; creamy colored, straight grained, runoutless, even grain count at 12 to 20 (traditionally), and within 2 degress of quartered everywhere. AA allows structurally irrelevant defect such as minor color, slight runout, slightly curved lines, less even grain count, or up to 5 degrees off quarter at the outside of the wings. A still allows no meaningful structural defect, but there can be quarter between 5 and 15 out, compression grain and actual color blotches, grain count is pretty much non-issue, but runout at this point shouldn't be worse than what AA allows. I am going out on a limb with these parameters as they are my own, but my concept is steeped in the tradition of my craft and is in fact the one I live by. Tonewoods are far more complex because the rules of the modern game have changed so much that the luthier of fifty years ago wouldn't recognize them. I still abide by the old rules, but I am now in such a minority that I hesitate to offer them, it would just start arguments. It is certainly true that though great wood by the old standards is much more rare than it used to be, the standards were in place for good reason. The wood itself has not changed, only the standards of the time, and few of today's practitioners seem to have a deep understanding of why those standards were created. Perhaps it is not as important as the old masters thought, but I for one will continue to run with that ball. |
#4
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Short answer ... Visual grading systems of tone wood have VERY little relevancy on the final tone of the instrument.
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#5
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Bruce and Tim are, or course, spot on. Bruce's perspective offers what tonewood suppliers should be doing to grade their offerings, but, at least IMHO, for the most part they largely ignore in favor of their own, rather subjective, grading system. One dealer's Master Grade or AAAA top is another's AAA; one dealer values the cut and taptone of the wood more than the cosmetics, while another (I'd say the majority) value the visual appearance of the wood more than cut, tap, or relative stiffness. It behooves a luthier to find one or two reputable dealers and become intimately familiar with those specific dealers' grading systems or (better yet) to visit those suppliers and dig through a number of tops till you find what YOU think is Master Grade, AAA, AA, or whatever it is specifically you're looking for.
Aaron Craig |
#6
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Appearance is important in that it gives important clues to what the wood is in terms of cut, grain, structure etc. A quick look is often enough to assess if a piece of wood qualifies as tonewood. However, after that, surprises abound.
Tonewood dealers never grade in terms of tone. Not only tone is subjective, but dealers are not builders and they certainly do not have the time to go through their piles, tap every piece and decide (subjectively) on the tonal quality of the wood. In short, wood is solely graded on quality & appearance (cut, evenness, colour) and rarity (species, figure). It is impossible to state that a AAA top would sound better or worse than a AAAA top: it depends on the particular piece and is entirely in the hands of the builder.
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Laurent Brondel "Faiseur d'instruments" |
#7
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I second what's been said so far: all the grading I've seen is done on a cosmetic basis, there is no real 'standard' (although I'd go for Bruce's as a good basis), and it has little, if anything, to do with how good a guitar you can make from the wood. I've spent big bucks on 'high grade' wood that was just barely usable, and gotten tonally terrific wood thrown in as packing material because it doesn't meet cosmetic standards.
It's possible, with enough practice, to grade wood for tonal/structural merit by tapping and flexing, but some objective tests I've heard about indicate that most people are not nearly as good at it as they think they are. There are objective mechanical tests that can tell you a lot, but, as Laurent says, they take time. Some suppliers do at least some testing of this sort, but most don't. They'd have to charge a fair amount extra on all the wood to cover the cost of testing, and I don't think the market would bear it. Given the prevelance of the current cosmetic standard it would be difficult to justify: customers would probably resist being charged high prices for instruments with 'low grade' (cosmetically imperfect) tops, no matter how good they sounded. As we see in the case of 'alternative woods', it's difficult for luthiers to impose a standard no matter how much sense it makes objectively. |
#8
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As Alan points out, there are indeed some suppliers that do grade, at least in part, based on the tapetone/musicality/stiffness of specific wood. Mario of Sprucetonewood.com, who sends samples of wood off for objective testing and "Q" factor ratings, comes to mind. David Maize is another builder and supplier of reclaimed tonewoods (excellent redwood sets at very good prices, by the way) that has told me he puts the quality of the cut, stiffness, and tapetone ahead of normally accepted appearence standards when grading his tonewoods. I have received "master grade" red wood tops ($60) from him that don't really fit the usual master grade appearance criteria, but which are uniformly very stiff and have a better than average ring to them.
Last edited by ACraig; 08-22-2011 at 12:06 PM. |
#9
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One of the greatest confidence building experiences of my life is relevant to this conversation.
I participate in a Bay Area Luthier's group we call NCAL, Northern California Association of Luthiers, and once a year or so I host a meeting in my shop. Several years ago Brian Burns, a luthier perhaps best known for his quantification of the finer structural points of top wood (not unlike Al Carruth), came to the meeting with a stack of perhaps 40 European Spruce tops under his arm. During the meeting he told us that he had carefully measured all each of the tops and documented the data, including "Q" which is a measure of internal damping as I inadequately understand it, and he then proposed a game. Those who wished to do so were invite to handle the top and make notes as to which were thought to be the best, arming us with the knowledge that 2 only measured in a category of their own as truly stellar. I chose to play and spent about 10 seconds with each top. I would like to tell you that all of the qualified luthiers there were able to pull the two tops from the pile, but alas, I was the only one. Brian had not expected anyone to be able to do it, and was suitably impressed. I am a true believer in "mastergrade" as I described it a few post back, but then I was a believer before the "test" as well. |
#10
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To say all grading is "cosmetic" is IMO to be seriously misleading, since this implies that there is no difference in quality between grades. I suspect that what a knowledgeable builder like Alan means is that for most sellers all grading is visual. Among the things that can be visually detected are vertical (quartersawn) cut and (sometimes with an assist from poking at the fibers) the amount of runout. These are measures of quality that are visually determined.
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"Still a man hears what he wants to hear, and disregards the rest." --Paul Simon |
#11
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Thanks to everybody for their replies, it makes for fascinating reading.
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