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| Can anyone identify this guitar? http://luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=49262 |
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| Author: | Alaska Splty Woods [ Mon Apr 17, 2017 3:09 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Can anyone identify this guitar? |
Can anyone identify this guitar and who the luthier is/was that built it? The Picture taken at the 1999 GAL symposium in Tacoma Wa.. While we are at it, lets have a discussion about soundboard quality. I think this is a stunningly beautiful instrument. The low grade top by industry standards according to the aesthetics of color, has been used, and complimented with a rosette, to create this beauty. This perfectly VG cut booklet, as evidenced by the strong medularies from a 400+/- yr old, old growth Sitka Spruce tree with it's natural color is a quality soundboard. And I believe this to be a quality instrument. |
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| Author: | Chris Ensor [ Mon Apr 17, 2017 3:25 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Can anyone identify this guitar? |
My first instinct says Steve Kinnard. I might be way off.... |
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| Author: | Glen H [ Mon Apr 17, 2017 4:07 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Can anyone identify this guitar? |
Yep, concur. I think Chris nailed it. |
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| Author: | Alaska Splty Woods [ Mon Apr 17, 2017 4:11 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Can anyone identify this guitar? |
Well I wonder, does Steve hang out around these parts and gonna chime in and take claim? |
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| Author: | bcombs510 [ Mon Apr 17, 2017 5:05 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Can anyone identify this guitar? |
http://www.stephenkinnaird.com/rosettegallery.html I think this guitar is the third in the list. "Spalted Boxelder bordered with black / white lines in Engelmann Spruce" From the site: Contact Us By Mail Stephen Kinnaird 485 County Rd 630 Nacogdoches, TX 75964 By Phone 936-560-5342 By Email info@stephenkinnaird.com The internet is such a great thing. 
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| Author: | Alaska Splty Woods [ Mon Apr 17, 2017 5:23 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Can anyone identify this guitar? |
Well Steve, thank you for chiming in! The rosette certainly compliments the soundboard. I would like to know more about the soundboard and with the help of this instrument change how soundboard quality is defined. We are also working on some other parameters of criteria as well. All this to get better utilization of the diminishing ancient temperate old growth rainforest of SE Alaska. |
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| Author: | bcombs510 [ Mon Apr 17, 2017 5:26 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Can anyone identify this guitar? |
To be clear... I'm just a data miner and sent you that info so you could contact him directly.
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| Author: | Alaska Splty Woods [ Mon Apr 17, 2017 7:38 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Can anyone identify this guitar? |
bcombs510 wrote: To be clear... I'm just a data miner and sent you that info so you could contact him directly. Sure enough, I should look at those things before writing stupid crap. 
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| Author: | Clay S. [ Mon Apr 17, 2017 8:20 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Can anyone identify this guitar? |
Good luck trying to change people's perceptions of what makes a first quality top. |
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| Author: | Mike OMelia [ Mon Apr 17, 2017 8:53 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Can anyone identify this guitar? |
I love that top |
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| Author: | Alaska Splty Woods [ Mon Apr 17, 2017 9:31 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Can anyone identify this guitar? |
Clay S. wrote: Good luck trying to change people's perceptions of what makes a first quality top. Clay, It will happen anyway, whether I am able to help or not. I would hope the changes will happen before the last old growth Sitka spruce tree is cut, rather than later. Just as Red Spruce criteria of quality has loosened, so will Sitka- Old Growth Sitka. Because there is no soundboard producible fiber in 95 yr rotation managed temperate Rain Forest. I have been involved with a request from the Local Forest Ranger, who is the chief of the 2 districts of the Tongass on Prince of Wales Island. He came to a meeting to ask for local input to the Tongass Land Management Plan for the next 15 yrs. which phases out Old Growth Timber harvest into a young growth timber harvest. I volunteered because there was nobody else from wood products or timber industry at the table. It's a huge project and we have been meeting one day Each month for the last year. Each meeting eats up a whole day from 8AM-4:30PM. What I've learned is the current inventory of harvest-able Old Growth timber on POW Island and vicinity is aprox. 400MMBF[Thgat's 400 Million Board Feet]. The one mill here that has the pockets to build roads and get a helicopter here to do any logging needs 22MMBF to meet it's production needs. Plus they provide 200+ jobs directly and indirectly, which equates to a population the size of the village of Klawock. The rest of the small operators require another 8MMbf/yr. We at ASW are not harvesters of green timber, but rather the salvage. So our needs of under 100mbf is small, the other operators do use green timber. Even so, without the other operators, there is no access or machinery for us to get the salvage. We are quite a family of timber people here. The Tongass is 60% hemlock and only 20% Sitka. Of coarse only a small percentage of that sitka is suitable for soundboard production. Anyway volume of harvest needed to sustain our small island timber economy is 30mmbf. That means in 13 yrs all remaining Harvest-able and accessible old growth timber will be gone. The young growth will not be adequate to sustain any significant timber industry for at least another 20+ yrs. I want to see reasonable harvest and use. I would like to see slow down and more value added products coming from our forest, rather than just semi-milled products. There are log breakdown mills more than finished wood product type mills. We started out as log breakdown outfit, breaking log into re-sawable block sold to soundboard producers in Lower 48, Canada, Asia, and Europe. But we don't do that anymore, and produces end-user product from all our fiber. It irks me, the willingness to let go to waste, this extremely limited, important and valuable resource, simply because it does not meet someones expectations of pretty, Especially when sound is the target. And it not just not the 500 yr old trees either. Its a whole eco-stystem that took more than 1000 yrs to develop. And it's an eco-system that produces the slow growing trees and fine grained fiber that fast growing tree farms just cannot do, let alone support all the other species of life dependent on the old growth habitat. So yes, perception of quality will change. I like what Bryan Galloup is doing with his dynamic sound profiling, and we want to implement his system to help the change happen. I really would like for my grand-kids and great grand-kids to be able to harvest some old growth sitka to make products for your grand-kids and great grand-kids to make acoustic instruments with. |
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| Author: | Joe Beaver [ Mon Apr 17, 2017 9:57 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Can anyone identify this guitar? |
The bridge, rosette, and label all pretty much say Steve Kinnard. I think I can see TEXAS through the soundhole |
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| Author: | Steve Kinnaird [ Mon Apr 17, 2017 10:24 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Can anyone identify this guitar? |
I can speak for the builder and say *hey*...I think I did that... One of the freedoms we have as builders--when we get the chance to build what we'd like--is to use material like this. When the red-striped Ambrosia maple back and sides were chosen for the body, this top was a no-brainer. Yes that's right: thanks to lacquer fumes I have no brain. Now personally, I love the look. And it sounded just fine. Oh, by the way, it is Engelmann spruce for the record. Thanks, Steve |
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| Author: | Clay S. [ Wed Apr 19, 2017 1:57 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Can anyone identify this guitar? |
Hi Brent, I believe you are right. As resources get depleted people have to settle for less. It is then they will realize that what they have been told by the timber merchants is required of a first quality top isn't necessarily true. To a great extent it is the luthier supply business that has sold the idea that the finest tops have uniform color,absolutely no "runout", straight tight grain lines with uniform spacing across the entire top - and only stiffness as a secondary consideration to grading. That a limited number of tops have those qualities allows them to be called "Master Grade" and have prices well above the "lower grades". There is one virtue to the present system for the buyer who doesn't subscribe to that nonsense. Many perfectly fine soundboards can be purchased at bargain basement prices because they don't meet all those criteria. |
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| Author: | david farmer [ Wed Apr 19, 2017 4:34 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Can anyone identify this guitar? |
fretless Flamenco? Attachment: WIN_20170419_14_56_49_Pro - Copy.jpg Just before this thread, I was turning some jet-black Ebony into shavings and thinking about this scarcity dilemma. I'm feeling low on good bridge and fingerboard blanks and have been contemplating trying to snatch up a bunch so I can continue to replace parts with like quality. Joining the mad grab for what's still around sure doesn't feel like part of the solution.  I don't think we can count on markets to keep from driving guitar resources into oblivion. Is it sacrilegious here to say that music and old growth forests are more important to me than pretty guitars? |
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| Author: | Alaska Splty Woods [ Wed Apr 19, 2017 5:15 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Can anyone identify this guitar? |
David, I sure hope the consensus would be like your thoughts, broad, and NOT be of sacrilegious nature. That the natural beauty of a natural product is worked with and even enhanced with artistic creativity, and that the sound be the paramount goal to achieve from the "soundboard". And doing this while protecting our last remaining old growth temperate Rainforest with responsible, sustainable harvest and utilization. We'll continue do what we do, with what the forest gives up naturally, and dissect the material into great tonewood products, that craftspeople and artisans, will turn into fine works of musical art. |
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| Author: | Haans [ Wed Apr 19, 2017 5:20 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Can anyone identify this guitar? |
Steve Kinnaird wrote: One of the freedoms we have as builders--when we get the chance to build what we'd like--is to use material like this. Steve Amen to that! I'd even go further and say get out of the rut, build what you like, use wood that appeals to you. You will never be able to compete with Corporations anyway...they give awa...have things like "endorsements" and "advertising budgets". They will beat you down. At least having a guitar in a shop that isn't another Dreadnot on a wall of Dreadnots will set you apart... |
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| Author: | Steve Kinnaird [ Wed Apr 19, 2017 9:41 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: Can anyone identify this guitar? |
Ok, here's the back of the guitar. And you bet, I used what appealed to me! 
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