Aged Wood

MichaelHorowitz

Having played a number of vintage guitars and new guitars built with "aged wood," it got me thinking about the tonal qualities of older woods. Now a days we have so many amazing Lutheirs building Selmers probably better then the originals: Shelley Park, Michael Collins, AJL, Manouche, Gallato, Dell Arte, etc. But one thing I often hear from people is that "the new ones just don't sound the same." In general I think that's true, old guitars definitely have a maturity of tone that's hard to explain. After talking with local guitar guru John Saba, I've come to find out that as wood ages it undergoes a chemical process which makes the wood consistent and even. That apparently result in more efficient vibration and better tone.

I'm sure some of the luthiers on this site could explain this better then I.

Anyway, the two top French lutheirs, Favino and Dupont, both build with aged woods. The Dupont VR is built with 40 year old wood...and I've heard that J.P. Favino builds with a stash of wood he inherited from his father, most likely just as old. With craftsmanship so high now, maybe one of the few advantages the French luthiers have is just a horde of choice wood? These guitars built with aged wood probably sound better right out of the shop then a Selmer or Favino built in the 1940s which was probably built with freshly harvested wood. Just a guess....

Anyway...it would be interesting to hear other peoples thoughts..

MichaelHorowitz

Hi Elliot...I asked John Saba about that and he said that he felt usually there was a noticeable difference between the aged wood and the kiln dried. But who knows....it's all so subjective!

Elliot

Hi Mike,

Sorry, I deleted my post to find the original source of my reference from the UK forum (since it gets me out of the burden of having to defend an opinion of my own, tee-hee) so here it was:

In my mind, the question is not the existence of old tone wood but how much better does it actually get by being aged beyond a certain point. My guess is an eighth inch thick piece of wood is pretty much as stable as it will get in five - ten years. At a certain point equalibrium is reached and thats it. Not to pooh-pooh the Dupont Reserve which by all accounts is a very fine guitar, but is there really an advantage to a piece that is fifty years old besides bragging rights?



Personally, I don't have the experience to comment confidently, all I know is that I'm in love with the expressiveness of my Manouche, and cannot imagine a guitar sounding any sweeter!

MichaelHorowitz

Yes, the Manouche has the same explosive power that the high end Duponts have. If you like the real trad. Selmer sound and don't want to put out $5K or more for a Dupont, I'd say the Manouche and the Gallato are your best bets. Incredible value for the money...and they have very similar qualities to the high end French made guitars.

Josh Hegg

When I was studying violin building under Karl Roy he talked about wood age one day in class for about an hour. He explained that the stability of the wood due to the aging process was the important part. Wood that is aged by time is not only more work and time but is much less apt to change making a more stable instrument. All wood used for instruments should be aged but allot of wood now is aged in a kiln but if you want the time aged stuff you sure pay for it. Most top builders have their own stash that they have been aging or have inherited a stash from a luthier they study under and work with.

Cheers,
Josh

Bob Holo

Well, most of the stuff I've bought is fairly well aged. By that - I mean that it's >3 yrs. I only have one stash of about 20 soundboards that are relatively new (somewhere between 1 & 2 years) Actually - most of mine is about 12 years - some 15. Maybe that's lucky - but the way I've purchased is to go in to the wood shops and say: "Hey, can I look through your old stuff? Don't get me wrong - I'm not looking through their premium aged stock - but rather through the dusty back shelves. 15 or 20 years ago you could find flawless wood and so the pieces with tiny pin knots or odd color just didn't sell - even if it tapped out impeccably - and even if the flaws were "out of pattern" (in other words - they'd get cut away when you cut out the pattern of the guitar top/back/side/neck/whatever). It's odd. I started collecting tonewood about the same time I started collecting vinyl (albums) maybe 6 years ago. Over the last 6 years, all the "hidden stashes" of old dusty amazing tonewood and minty clean Verve recordings of Miles Davis have all been found... well... most have. I'm in Kapaa Kauai right now in the JavaKai coffee shop - flying back to Portland tonight. I went out and visited Mickey Sussman, a local luthier who has a wonderful stash of wood - that you'd expect of a 30 year veteran luthier. Nice guy - but not willing to part with any of his wood and I don't blame him a bit. Very very cool person. So I bumped around the island a bit and found another nice gent named Jamie who does have wood to sell and he let me go through his old stack. So, God & UPS willing I should have 4 or 5 nice aged Koa sets heading to Portland right now. But that's the way it goes finding aged wood these days. You have to know what you want and not get freaked out by what looks like flaws. Once you learn what wood should sound like - bend like - weigh... then if you're willing to take time to get with it and scrounge - you can still find stashes. I used to find them monthly. Now I find them yearly. Ah well.

Now - to completely throw a wrench in what I just said. I recently purchased a half billet of 60 year aged Sitka spruce... didn't like it at all - shipped it back and exchanged it for the new wood mentioned earlier. In m humble and imperfect opinion - the new wood I received in exchange for the returned 60 year old wood... is vastly superior. It taps better - it's stiffer - it's more even in grain & stiffness - it's better quartered (though that has to do with the talent of the cutter)

So - is older wood better? Past a certain point (a couple of 5 or so years) I don't think so. It's true that wood turns to cellulose over time but we're talking decades and there are so many good guitars made from wood younger than that. I once had the privilege of speaking with some Amish (sp?) craftsmen who naturally age their wood billets 7 years before working it. I asked "why 7? why not 3 or 30?" The answer they gave me was simply "Because it gets more stable for about 7 years and then doesn't seem to get any better after that." Man, if you can't trust the Amish - who can you trust, right?



Aloha.

-Bob

a

the dupot vr brazilian that i've played sounds better than any guitar i've ever come across. that said, the craftsmanship (at least on the outside) isn't perfect. i really wonder what makes it sound so good. maybe it has something to do with the way he braces the instrument, but my guess is the wood. it's got a very balanced sound across the fretboard. i've noticed that it's tone is very sensitive to bridge adjustments as well. i've played some amazing gypsy guitars recently, but even the best of them have a certain harshness when compared to the vr.

it's almost like the difference between preamp overdrive and power amp distortion.

Ken Bloom

I think it's a mistake to take a great instrument and say "it's the wood" or "it's the genius of the maker" or "it's the varnish" etc.
There are so many things that go into making an instrument great. A great instrument is the sum all of these components and more. Ithink the most important factor is the care that an individual maker puts into each and every step. I'm sure this is the major factor in why the Vielle Reserve Duponts sound better than the instruments that are half the price. You are paying for the care and experience of the maker.
So much of great instrument making is intuitive andf experience. Juswt my 2p.

Ken Bloom