Official Luthiers Forum!

Hey Guys,

Cool wood, cool story....

I work for a company that specializes in anti-submarine warfare sensors, things called sonobuoys. Many of our founding engineers used to work at a company called Sparton Electronics, who has produced huge quantities of sonobuoys over the last 6 decades or so. Well, in the early 2000's Sparton closed their R&D facility and condensed everything to their Florida location. What does this have to do with guitars....

Well, at their R&D facility, they had two huge California Redwood tanks, one being 18' diameter, 20' deep. These tanks were installed in the 50's, used extensively in underwater acoustic source and receive tests, pressure loaded during explosive source testing, etc...They saw the development of the sensors that eliminated much of the secrecy during the Cold War. These tanks were drained in the late 90's, and when Sparton closed this location the building went to auction and things were salvaged for scrap. One tank was removed prior to the some teenagers setting the building on fire, causing a catastrophic loss of everything else in the building (inlcuding the chestnut sub structure that was installed in the mid 19th century when the building was built and the reason why the buyer bought the building).

I have been tracking this redwood for years, every since I lost to chance to auction on the tank in 2007. I found it, and was able to get one board. Of the whole tank, there are only 3 boards that are wide enough for guitar tops. The lumber is clear, quartersawn within 5 degrees and less, and has about 24 - 30 grain lines per inch. It is beautifully silky, and overall just stunning. Some of it does have mineral stains though. You can see the variation in the sets in the pictures below.

I am strongly debating getting the the other two boards, because I feel like they just need to be turned into guitars so as to finish their careers in another, more pleasurable side of acoustics

Would this wood interest any of you?

Thanks!
Stephen

_________________
www.ziegenfussguitars.com

Wow, very cool story. The third one down is gorgeous IMO. If they looked like that, I would be interested.

_________________
Jason McGowan
M&S Guitars
_____________________________
United States of America, looks like another silent night
As we're sung to sleep by philosophies that save the trees and kill the children....
Casting Crowns

I would be interested! Making something with wood that has a story behind it is great. Have you thought about getting narrower boards as well? You could make 3 or 4 piece tops as well.

Alex

_________________
"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Stephen,

Those boards look AWESOME, specially the 3rd picture! Im definitely interested!

on your find!

Jonathan

5 degrees off quarter is fairly steep for a guitar top IMO. Also, being from sawn planks instead of split billets means there may be a significant amount of invisible runout,which is important in a redwood top. Despite the awesome back story, I would pass on these boards.

_________________
Old growth, shmold growth!

You could also make ukulele tops out of smaller planks!

Particularly for redwood. It gets really floppy across the grain.

Hope you get some good sets out of it though. It can be great wood.

_________________
http://www.chassonguitars.com

Yeah, the runout does get up the the 5 degrees on a few sections, but much of it is perfectly quartered. I will throw up some pictures. The 3 sets that are shown a a good cross section of the board, both longitudinally and depth wise, so you can see the the runout present across that particular board.


Thank for looking!
Stephen

_________________
www.ziegenfussguitars.com