SNIP

 

Brazilian Rosewood is the gold standard for guitar back and sides.  Osage Orange
is called "poor man’s Brazilian Rosewood” because of very similar density and
Janka numbers.  Janka is a little known wood characteristic that instrument
makers look at.  It uses a stylus with a 1/4” steel ball at the end and measures
the pressure needed to embed the ball 1/2 way into the wood.

 

The general rule is that darker woods lighten and lighter woods darken

 

Ed Minch

 

END SNIP

 

 

Ed:

 

Very interesting.  Yes, I know about Brazilian Rosewood.  My Ramirez has that,
with a cedar top.  Jose R. III experimented with cedar instead of spruce and got
a tone that was somewhat smokier and less direct – considered ideal by some of
the great Spaniards of a generation or two ago for playing the music of the
Spanish Romantic era.  They called it “mysterious,” although I don’t quite get
that.  It is lovely, though, and clearly different from spruce.

 

I only wish I could play it more.  In May I flamed a tendon in the left CMC
joint – maybe arthritic related – and although better it is still pretty sore.
Anything requiring a bar hurts like hell, as do certain stretches.  That kind of
limits what can be played.

 

As to Janka, I have seen those numbers in the wood data, and know how they are
derived, but never knew why they were important.  I always figured they were a
measure of dent resistance.  What is the important to instrument makers and
which way on the scale is preferable?  I am not going to build guitars, but as a
years-down-the-road project I have in mind to build a higher-end music box with
a 100+ note movement (if I can afford it), and so have been thinking about
various materials and methods of construction.  I have a couple of good Osage
shorts (about 5” x ¼ x 36”) and had thought to use them somehow, maybe for the
floor to which the movement is connected.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Joe

Joseph Sullivan wrote:
>> .. similar density and Janka numbers.  Janka is a little known wood
characteristic that instrument makers look at.

Janka may be little known the general population of this blue marble, but in the
tiny part
of it you're addressing on this Porch, I suspect it's rather more familiar :-)

    BugBear

Bugbear

You are correct, sir.  I did not mean to offend anyone.

Ed Minch

Joe

The surface hardness of the material effects the sound.  Think of a lead sheet -
heavy but soft.  Different woods sound different ways, but a friend says that
the biggest determinate of the sound coming out of a guitar is the player, and
the second biggest is the strings.  My ears ain’t too good, but I sure can't
pick out different woods, and no one else has proved they can either.


Ed Minch

Heretic! Torches! Pitchforks!

--
Steve in Kokomo
"If I ain't bleedin', I ain't workin'."

Well, yes and no, Ed.  Given a specific guitar, and with failing ears, I’d
usually just be guessing.  But when I have listened to several of them at a
time, the different characteristics do come out.

 

For example, when my old boss Russell Cleveland still owned the famous
“Cleveland Collection,” he’d occasionally put a dozen guitars by famous makers
into his SUV and go out to his cabin.  There, three or four known concert
players would sample them.  I would never play in their presence, but listening
to the same guitar in different hands made the point that the player makes a big
difference, but that the guitar also makes a big difference.  They could all
tell the difference between spruce and cedar, and discussed it at length.
Different bracing also mattered, as did the specifications of the sound hole.


To my ear, spruce and cedar tops on high quality instruments by the same maker
are different, with the spruce being brighter and more direct and the cedar
being more mellow.  There is no question that different guitars have very
different tones and timbres.  It just jumps out at your in a setting like that.
Or, at my house where I have two, one a Ramierz, and the other a 50 year old
Ariana – an early Japanese nylon string guitar.  The Ariana has a very sweet and
mellow voice, but is weak in the trebles.  The Ramirez is bright throughout,
although cedar-mellow, and with strong trebles and a longer sustain.  Is I have
owned both for decades, I could tell you blindfolded, within a few bars, which
was being played.

 

Strings certainly matter.  You get a big change in any guitar when worn strings
are replaced, and I’ve sorted through at least a dozen makers and specifications
looking for… better.  What I get is usually…different, not necessarily better.

 

Joe

 

Joseph Sullivan

President

JSA

(972) 463-1125

 

 

 

From: Steve Jones [mailto:stjones@k...] 
Sent: Monday, October 16, 2017 7:33 AM
To: Ed Minch 
Cc: joe@j...; OldTools List 
Subject: Re: [OldTools] Guitars, music boxes, Osage Orange

 

Heretic! Torches! Pitchforks!

 

--

Steve in Kokomo

"If I ain't bleedin', I ain't workin'."

 

On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 7:17 AM, Ed Minch mailto:ruby1638@a...">mailto:ruby1638@a...> > wrote:

My ears ain’t too good, but I sure can't pick out different woods, and no one
else has proved they can either.

-

Joe

I was unaware of the Cleveland Collection and listened to a few of the yootoob
offerings.  The 1888 Torres is a wonderful sounding instrument.

I agree that familiarity helps, but to date, I am unaware of any testing that
shows that someone can call out a material from the sound of a guitar.  Mahogany
family is different from Rosewood family is different from maple family etc, but
mostly not much.

I am a rank amateur builder.  I have a very nice Martin Indian Rosewood concert
size guitar that sounds in the top 85% as far as I can tell.  I made a similar
mahogany guitar but deepened the body by 3/4” and I cannot tell the two apart -
sustain, trebles, bass, midrange, everything just sounds the same.

Here are 2 shots

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/37696661156/in/album-72157633913
590767/">https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/37696661156/in/album-72157633913
590767/ <https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/37696661156/in/albu
m-72157633913590767/">https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/37696661156/in/albu
m-72157633913590767/>

so you can listen with your eyes

Ed Minch

SNIP

 

Ed Said:

 

I agree that familiarity helps, but to date, I am unaware of any testing that
shows that someone can call out a material from the sound of a guitar.  Mahogany
family is different from Rosewood family is different from maple family etc, but
mostly not much.

 

END SNIP

 

Ed:

 

Yes, well, I agree, to a point.  I don’t know anyone who can sit blindfolded and
identify, say, Spanish Cedar or Sitka Spruce.  However, I do know (slightly,
through Russ Cleveland), concert guitarists who will say words to the effect of
“That is a very mellow, romantic tone – is it cedar?” or “wow, that has the
clarity and directness of the best spruce.”  And they’re right.  So they
identify the timbre and associate it with certain wood.  Mostly the tops,
though.  I have heard discussion of the sound quality of rosewood bodies et al,
but nobody who could tell, with one exception.  Almost everybody, even me
sometimes when my ear was in tune, could call out cypress.  There is nothing
quite like the tone of a cypress guitar.  The gypsies and flamenco musicians
love of for its cutting edge.  Of course, a cypress flamenco guitar is usually
all cypress, body and top, or I should say that those I have seen are.

 

Then they want to know about the bracing.

 

Not to appear to boast, because I have nothing to boast about except that I
worked for Russ for 10 years – but he is a very wealthy investment manager who
lives for the guitar and is a musician himself but is not much of a guitarist.
He has a very good ear.  He had a choice of music or tennis scholarships to Penn
back in the 60s, but he was a clarinetist.  Somehow he got a passion for
guitars.  So he haunted shows and shops for about 25 years.  About three or four
years ago he was going to auction off all but a select handful, but Guitar Salon
got wind and cut him a very large check for the lot, a multiple of what he had
paid.

 

Sitting on the end of a couch and facing another one in front of a fireplace in
a cedar lodge and listening to three guys sitting only feet away, all of whom
have soloed in Carnegie Hall play his instruments was a life high point for me.
Another was when Parkening played in the Symphony Hall here, and borrowed
Segovia’s personal Jose Ramirez A-1 from Russ for the performance.  Russ gave me
tickets front row center, about 5 feet from Parkening.  Wonderful.

 

The guitars you made are lovely.  I have long envied your craftsmanship.

 

J

 

Joseph Sullivan

Ed:

I tae that partly back.  Just looked at a bunch of Flamenco guitars and they hav
cypress bodies and spruce tops.  The cypress does make a difference.

J

Joseph Sullivan

 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: OldTools [mailto:oldtools-bounces@s...] On Behalf Of Joseph Sullivan
Sent: Sunday, October 15, 2017 10:22 AM
To: 'Ed Minch' 
Cc: 'OldTools List' 
Subject: [OldTools] Guitars, music boxes, Osage Orange

SNIP

 

Brazilian Rosewood is the gold standard for guitar back and sides.  Osage Orange
is called "poor man’s Brazilian Rosewood” because of very similar density and
Janka numbers.  Janka is a little known wood characteristic that instrument
makers look at.  It uses a stylus with a 1/4” steel ball at the end and measures
the pressure needed to embed the ball 1/2 way into the wood.

 

The general rule is that darker woods lighten and lighter woods darken

 

Ed Minch

 

END SNIP

 

 

Ed:

 

Very interesting.  Yes, I know about Brazilian Rosewood.  My Ramirez has that,
with a cedar top.  Jose R. III experimented with cedar instead of spruce and got
a tone that was somewhat smokier and less direct – considered ideal by some of
the great Spaniards of a generation or two ago for playing the music of the
Spanish Romantic era.  They called it “mysterious,” although I don’t quite get
that.  It is lovely, though, and clearly different from spruce.

 

I only wish I could play it more.  In May I flamed a tendon in the left CMC
joint – maybe arthritic related – and although better it is still pretty sore.
Anything requiring a bar hurts like hell, as do certain stretches.  That kind of
limits what can be played.

 

As to Janka, I have seen those numbers in the wood data, and know how they are
derived, but never knew why they were important.  I always figured they were a
measure of dent resistance.  What is the important to instrument makers and
which way on the scale is preferable?  I am not going to build guitars, but as a
years-down-the-road project I have in mind to build a higher-end music box with
a 100+ note movement (if I can afford it), and so have been thinking about
various materials and methods of construction.  I have a couple of good Osage
shorts (about 5” x ¼ x 36”) and had thought to use them somehow, maybe for the
floor to which the movement is connected.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Joe





 

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OldTools is a mailing list catering to the interests of hand tool aficionados,
both collectors and users, to discuss the history, usage, value, location,
availability, collectibility, and restoration of traditional handtools,
especially woodworking tools.

To change your subscription options:
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To read the FAQ:
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OldTools archive: https://swingleydev.com/ot/

OldTools@s...

I use a little parlor guitar made of plain maple and stenciled, when I 
play acoustic.
http://users.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/images/Instruments/parlor1.jpg

   Its not much, but I have been able to make people cry.

  Its not the ax
   yours Scott

-- 
*******************************
    Scott Grandstaff
    Box 409 Happy Camp, Ca  96039
    scottg@s...
    http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/
    http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/hpages/index.html

Ed:

Once you reminded me, I went back and listened to the 1888 Torres.  It is truly
a superb instrument.  It was one of the ones I heard played at Russ' lodge that
day.  Of course, as the seller notes, the instrument is superb, but it is an
accepted fact that a well-made instrument, kept in tune ad played regularly,
gets better with age.  Nobody seems to be quite sure why; perhaps the vibrations
work on the wood over time in sympathetic ways.

I have included the link in case anybody else is interested in what we are
talking about:

https://www.guitarsalon.com/store/p5101-1888-antonio-de-torres-ex-
matilde-cuervas-emilio-pujol-
spmh.html">https://www.guitarsalon.com/store/p5101-1888-antonio-de-torres-ex-
matilde-cuervas-emilio-pujol-spmh.html

And here is a link to Segovia's Ramirez that I heard Parkening play that
evening:

  https://www.guitarsalon.com/store/p4903-1969-jose-ramirez-1a-
quotamquot-cdcsar-ex-andres-
segovia.html">https://www.guitarsalon.com/store/p4903-1969-jose-ramirez-1a-
quotamquot-cdcsar-ex-andres-segovia.html

Talk about an instrument with presence.  Segovia thought that the cedar gave a
timbre well suited to the Spanish Romantic.  However, he was never happy with
certain tones on any guitar and had a long debate with Jose Ramirez by mail and
in person.  Here is a quote: "[T]here are two notes on the first string [of my
guitar] that do not have the same intensity as the others. I would like you to
repair it for me."

Ramirez correctly tried to explain to the  maestro that the issue had to do with
the sympathetic vibrations from the harmonic resonances of the six strings,
which is not fully balanced to the 12-note chromatic scale.  Segovia never
listened, just demanded.  Then when Narcisso Yepes had Ramirez solve the problem
by making a ten-string guitar that allowed full resonance for all strings and
notes, Segovia made fun of both of them and what he saw as a big, fat, ungainly
guitar.  Here is another quote:  "The only thing that this 10-string monstrosity
accomplishes is to transform the guitar from a voluptuous femme into a matronly
hausfrau."

Here is Yepes on the ten-string:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy9O7mfQU60

To be honest, while Yepes is a great master, I am not especially fond of his
style.  But even in a weak recording like this you can see and listen to the
guitar.

There is your next challenge, Ed:  A nylon ten-string with a tuned body.


Joseph Sullivan

On 2017-10-16 7:13 PM, Joseph Sullivan wrote:
> I have heard discussion of the sound quality of rosewood bodies et al, but
nobody who could tell, with one exception.

I have always been drawn to the sound of fiddle-back maple-bodied 
guitars, usually with spruce tops. I believe I can distinguish them from 
others, but I can't prove it!

Don

-- 
Friday the 13th is just a dumb superstition. At least that’s what my horoscope
said.
– Matt Nedostup

"You can tell a man that boozes by the company he chooses"
The Famous Pig Song, Clarke Van Ness

Joe

I was unaware that you had such a great association.  Sounds like a high point
to here these people playing.  I had never heard of an all-cypress guitar, but
found several when I googled it.  This one is lovely

https://www.luthierhouse.com/product/paco-castillo-215f-flamenco-
guitar">https://www.luthierhouse.com/product/paco-castillo-215f-flamenco-
guitar <https://www.luthierhouse.com/product/paco-castillo-215f-
flamenco-guitar">https://www.luthierhouse.com/product/paco-castillo-215f-
flamenco-guitar>

I am not familiar with the intricacies of these instruments, although I have
followed some of the top bracing and traditional details.  This one has
something I have not noticed - look at the picture of the back showing the heel
of the neck.  The neck is glued up from a 1 inch or so thick board with a scarf
cut and the end piece flipped and re-glued to form the head.  This board has
various pieces glued along the center for strength and decoration, but the heel
does not have them.

I have been collecting wood for my next instrument.  When I built boats in the
70’s and early 80’s, we always tried to use Alaskan Yellow Cedar somewhere
because it is a great contrast in color to most other woods, and plus it is the
best smelling wood there is IMHO.  So I have  AYC for top,back, sides and neck.
I will use abalone for purfling and rosette and ebony for binding, head plate,
fingerboard, and bridge.  I haven’t decided whether I should go crazy on the
fretboard inlay or keep it rather austere except for the abalone.

Ed Minch

Don

If by fiddle-back you mean arched and carved as opposed to flat, yes those
guitars usually have a slightly different sound to them because of the shape of
the body.  And for some reason, virtually all of them are maple, and most of the
maple is fiddle backed.  The first steel stringed guitars were like this, made
by Gibson, who had a violin background.  He made mandolins and guitars but made
them the same way as violins - down to the “f” shaped soundholes.

Here is one with great provenance and really well played:

https://www.youtube.com/wa
tch?v=8XZi1MFVmxE ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XZi1MFVmxE>


Might go for $50,000+.  Here is one of the best mandolins - yow $175,000:

https://cartervintage.com/collections/loar-signed/products/1923-gibson-
f-6?variant=23455852867">https://cartervintage.com/collections/loar-
signed/products/1923-gibson-f-6?variant=23455852867 <https://cartervintage.com/collections/loar-signed/products/1923-gibson-f-6
?variant=23455852867">https://cartervintage.com/collections/loar-
signed/products/1923-gibson-f-6?variant=23455852867>

That whole maple/carved body thing got out of hand in the 20’s when there were
entire bands of just mandolin instruments:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/37043297674/in/dateposted-
public/">https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/37043297674/in/dateposted-
public/ <https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/37043297674/in
/dateposted-public/">https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/37043297674/in
/dateposted-public/>

Here are mandolins (violin sized) mandolas (viola), mandocellos (cello) and even
a rare mando-bass (bass).  This was a fad right before ukulele’s and just after
banjo’s - must have been quite an experience.  Here are 7 different sizes -
check the contra-bass:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/37043366244/in/dateposted-
public/">https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/37043366244/in/dateposted-
public/ <https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/37043366244/in
/dateposted-public/">https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/37043366244/in
/dateposted-public/>

People are amazing

Ed Minch

> On Oct 16, 2017, at 10:56 PM, Joseph Sullivan  wrote:
> 
> There is your next challenge, Ed:  A nylon ten-string with a tuned body.


Joe

This is the one I want to take a crack at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR-
64Sdn_CM">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR-64Sdn_CM <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR-
64Sdn_CM">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR-64Sdn_CM>

Linda Manzer built for Pat Metheny the experimental guitarist

Seriously - some great skill shown and my ears certainly cannot tell that the
guitar with 10 strings in better than the one with 6 strings

Thanks

Ed Minch

Neat stuff.

 

Ed, in that clip, my ears can't hear a difference either.  I think it comes
down to what Segovia complained about; with six strings, a few notes are
duller than others.  Yepes and the luthiers noticed that, too and realized
that it was due to the harmonics and sympathetic vibrations.  For most
people and purposes, it doesn't matter.  As for me, my six-string
instruments are capable of far more than I can ask them for, so it is
utterly irrelevant; just a matter of curiosity at the intersection of
physics/harmonics and performance.

 

J

 

Joseph Sullivan

 

 

 

From: Ed Minch [mailto:ruby1638@a...] 
Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2017 9:52 AM
To: joe@j...
Cc: OldTools List 
Subject: Re: [OldTools] Guitars, music boxes, Osage Orange

 





On Oct 16, 2017, at 10:56 PM, Joseph Sullivan mailto:joe@j...> > wrote:

 

There is your next challenge, Ed:  A nylon ten-string with a tuned body.

 

 

Joe

 

This is the one I want to take a crack at:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR-64Sdn_CM

 

Linda Manzer built for Pat Metheny the experimental guitarist

 

Seriously - some great skill shown and my ears certainly cannot tell that
the guitar with 10 strings in better than the one with 6 strings

 

Thanks

 

Ed Minch

Ed  If I understand it, flamenco guitars are expected to wear out quick and be
replaced often.  Also, (again, as I understand)  they're not built to sustain,
they're built for attack and projection. And if I have it right, they only last
a few years, in use. Cypress may be a better wood for those instruments than for
instruments intended to resonate, linger, and perform in the 'piano' volume
range.

How horrible it is to have so many people killed!---And what a blessing one
cares for none of them!
Jane Austen

      From: Joseph Sullivan 
 To: joe@j...; 'Ed Minch'  
Cc: 'OldTools List' 
 Sent: Monday, October 16, 2017 7:18 PM
 Subject: Re: [OldTools] Guitars, music boxes, Osage Orange
   
Ed:

I tae that partly back.  Just looked at a bunch of Flamenco guitars and they hav
cypress bodies and spruce tops.  The cypress does make a difference.

J

Joseph Sullivan

 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: OldTools [mailto:oldtools-bounces@s...] On Behalf Of Joseph Sullivan
Sent: Sunday, October 15, 2017 10:22 AM
To: 'Ed Minch' 
Cc: 'OldTools List' 
Subject: [OldTools] Guitars, music boxes, Osage Orange

SNIP

 

Brazilian Rosewood is the gold standard for guitar back and sides.  Osage Orange
is called "poor man’s Brazilian Rosewood” because of very similar density and
Janka numbers.  Janka is a little known wood characteristic that instrument
makers look at.  It uses a stylus with a 1/4” steel ball at the end and measures
the pressure needed to embed the ball 1/2 way into the wood.

 

The general rule is that darker woods lighten and lighter woods darken

 

Ed Minch

 

END SNIP

 

 

Ed:

 

Very interesting.  Yes, I know about Brazilian Rosewood.  My Ramirez has that,
with a cedar top.  Jose R. III experimented with cedar instead of spruce and got
a tone that was somewhat smokier and less direct – considered ideal by some of
the great Spaniards of a generation or two ago for playing the music of the
Spanish Romantic era.  They called it “mysterious,” although I don’t quite get
that.  It is lovely, though, and clearly different from spruce.

 

I only wish I could play it more.  In May I flamed a tendon in the left CMC
joint – maybe arthritic related – and although better it is still pretty sore.
Anything requiring a bar hurts like hell, as do certain stretches.  That kind of
limits what can be played.

 

As to Janka, I have seen those numbers in the wood data, and know how they are
derived, but never knew why they were important.  I always figured they were a
measure of dent resistance.  What is the important to instrument makers and
which way on the scale is preferable?  I am not going to build guitars, but as a
years-down-the-road project I have in mind to build a higher-end music box with
a 100+ note movement (if I can afford it), and so have been thinking about
various materials and methods of construction.  I have a couple of good Osage
shorts (about 5” x ¼ x 36”) and had thought to use them somehow, maybe for the
floor to which the movement is connected.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Joe





 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
OldTools is a mailing list catering to the interests of hand tool aficionados,
both collectors and users, to discuss the history, usage, value, location,
availability, collectibility, and restoration of traditional handtools,
especially woodworking tools.

To change your subscription options:
https://oldtools.swingleydev.com/mailman/listinfo/oldtools

To read the FAQ:
https://swingleydev.com/archive/faq.html

OldTools archive: https://swingleydev.com/ot/

OldTools@s...

------------------------------------------------------------------------
OldTools is a mailing list catering to the interests of hand tool
aficionados, both collectors and users, to discuss the history, usage,
value, location, availability, collectibility, and restoration of
traditional handtools, especially woodworking tools.

To change your subscription options:
https://oldtools.swingleydev.com/mailman/listinfo/oldtools

To read the FAQ:
https://swingleydev.com/archive/faq.html

OldTools archive: https://swingleydev.com/ot/

OldTools@s...

Interesting.  They are built for a different style and sound.  Maybe they do
wear out quickly  -- have to be a pretty special kind of performer to pay $12k
for a throwaway guitar, wouldn’t you?

 

J

 

Joseph Sullivan

 

 

From: gary may [mailto:garyallanmay@y...] 
Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2017 1:03 PM
To: joe@j...; 'Ed Minch' 
Cc: 'OldTools List' 
Subject: Re: [OldTools] Guitars, music boxes, Osage Orange

 

Ed

  If I understand it, flamenco guitars are expected to wear out quick and be
replaced often.  Also, (again, as I understand)  they're not built to sustain,
they're built for attack and projection. And if I have it right, they only last
a few years, in use. Cypress may be a better wood for those instruments than for
instruments intended to resonate, linger, and perform in the 'piano' volume
range.

 



How horrible it is to have so many people killed!---And what a blessing one
cares for none of them!
Jane Austen

 

  _____  

From: Joseph Sullivan mailto:joe@j...> >
To: joe@j... <mailto:joe@j...> ; 'Ed Minch'
mailto:ruby1638@a...> >
Cc: 'OldTools List' mailto:oldtools@s...> >
Sent: Monday, October 16, 2017 7:18 PM
Subject: Re: [OldTools] Guitars, music boxes, Osage Orange

 

Ed:

I tae that partly back.  Just looked at a bunch of Flamenco guitars and they hav
cypress bodies and spruce tops.  The cypress does make a difference.

J

Joseph Sullivan



-----Original Message-----
From: OldTools [mailto:oldtools-
bounces@s... <mailto:oldtools-
bounces@s...> ] On Behalf Of Joseph Sullivan
Sent: Sunday, October 15, 2017 10:22 AM
To: 'Ed Minch' mailto:ruby1638@a...> >
Cc: 'OldTools List' mailto:oldtools@s...> >
Subject: [OldTools] Guitars, music boxes, Osage Orange

SNIP



Brazilian Rosewood is the gold standard for guitar back and sides.  Osage Orange
is called "poor man’s Brazilian Rosewood” because of very similar density and
Janka numbers.  Janka is a little known wood characteristic that instrument
makers look at.  It uses a stylus with a 1/4” steel ball at the end and measures
the pressure needed to embed the ball 1/2 way into the wood.



The general rule is that darker woods lighten and lighter woods darken



Ed Minch



END SNIP





Ed:



Very interesting.  Yes, I know about Brazilian Rosewood.  My Ramirez has that,
with a cedar top.  Jose R. III experimented with cedar instead of spruce and got
a tone that was somewhat smokier and less direct – considered ideal by some of
the great Spaniards of a generation or two ago for playing the music of the
Spanish Romantic era.  They called it “mysterious,” although I don’t quite get
that.  It is lovely, though, and clearly different from spruce.



I only wish I could play it more.  In May I flamed a tendon in the left CMC
joint – maybe arthritic related – and although better it is still pretty sore.
Anything requiring a bar hurts like hell, as do certain stretches.  That kind of
limits what can be played.



As to Janka, I have seen those numbers in the wood data, and know how they are
derived, but never knew why they were important.  I always figured they were a
measure of dent resistance.  What is the important to instrument makers and
which way on the scale is preferable?  I am not going to build guitars, but as a
years-down-the-road project I have in mind to build a higher-end music box with
a 100+ note movement (if I can afford it), and so have been thinking about
various materials and methods of construction.  I have a couple of good Osage
shorts (about 5” x ¼ x 36”) and had thought to use them somehow, maybe for the
floor to which the movement is connected.



Any thoughts?



Joe







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both collectors and users, to discuss the history, usage, value, location,
availability, collectibility, and restoration of traditional handtools,
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
OldTools is a mailing list catering to the interests of hand tool
aficionados, both collectors and users, to discuss the history, usage,
value, location, availability, collectibility, and restoration of
traditional handtools, especially woodworking tools.

To change your subscription options:
https://oldtools.swingleydev.com/mailman/listinfo/oldtools

To read the FAQ:
https://swingleydev.com/archive/faq.html

OldTools archive: https://swingleydev.com/ot/

OldTools@s... 

Gary

here’s hoping my Alaskan Yellow Cedar guitar is not one of those momentary
things.

There is a fellow who has gotten a name for himself building copies of 10-20’s
guitars that were mostly used by early blues players:

http://fraulini.com <http://fraulini.com/>

My daughter the blues player introduced me to him and he has been very helpful
and generous with questions I have.  He had a fellow order a guitar and said he
wanted the top to be as thin and lightly braced as possible to give more
response.  He said he didn't care if he had to put a new top on it every couple
of years, he wanted the response.  My daughter had it in for repair at about a
year old - one of the braces had come loose.  The owner knew the repair was his
responsibility and he didn’t care because he dearly loved the guitar.  I got a
chance to spend a few minutes with it and it was VERY LOUD and very responsive.

For a pleasant few minutes, read the blog about Lonnie Johnson at the upper
right of the web site.  This man is a galoot for sure.

Ed Minch