Redwood Tap Tone Variance

[Jakes Dad]

This weekend I set my band saw up for resaw and made a lot of thin wood from thicker pieces including Osage Orange for bridge plates, Spalted Maple for head piece overlays and rosettes, Ebony for tail wedges and rosette pieces, and a substantial slab of salvaged straight grained Redwood for top sets.

I've always assumed that one pairs up the adjacent pieces to make a nicely book matched set. In this case the grain is so straight and vertical that there isn't much difference in appearance. When I started tapping the pieces I noticed that some of the pieces sound significantly different from others that were adjacent in the slab. There is some variation in thickness but for the most part they are all close to the same.

Is there any reason not to pair slices 1 and 3 or 2 and 5 if they have similar tap tones?

[ken cierp]

First -- under finish you will likely see a mis-match using non adjacent pieces for appearance -- true book match is best for symmetry.

It does not take much re-saw variance to effect the tap tone of different pieces of wood -- I'd suggest that you do your tap testing "after" the halves are thickness sanded. Sanding, joining and even cutting in the sound hole can change the tonal characteristic of a sound-board.

All that said -- there are no rules, just common practices, heck there's makers that use two different wood types for each half of the sound board and as a matter of fact each half of the back are different too!

[Jakes Dad]

Ken,

Thanks. I'll wait until I have all the boards are thicknessed before I do anything radical.

The grain is so vertical and consistent there doesn't appear to be much difference between them except for the very first and very last slices. I'm not too worried about the book match since my long term every day guitar is a truly beat late 50's Gibson SJ that originally had a tobacco burst finish for good reason. The top is not well matched but it sounds pretty good in an old bluesy way. Not a Lowden or McPhearson or Santa Cruz but comfortable.

At this point I'm just tap playing - a long way from tap testing. I've been amazed at the ringing tones I get from woods I never expected like Myrtle and Cherry.