Official Luthiers Forum!

Is Red Spruce worth the extra cost when building a dread for bluegrass. It seems that a decent top is appx. twice the cost of Lutz or Sitka. Thanx, Vic.

Vic: All three can make very good dreads,but it is hard to top the Red Spruce.The Red may not come up to the standard of looks as the Lutz and Sitka. Stand by for other opinions and others spruces.......!!
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Kinda, sorta, maybe, it depends. Personally, I have six nice Adi tops from the good people at Old Standard, but haven't had a chance to use any yet, so I can't give you first hand impressions.
The best info I have is from John Greven, who says, today's Adi is not like the first growth that Martin etc. used. It has great headroom but gets muddy. If you want a sound like the old
Martin dreads, the best choice is Lutz. Shane at high Mountain can fix you up with some nice tops. And he's a real nice guy to deal with, even if it's hard to get a hold of him at times.

Brent

Well this is anecdotal but I just completed #53, my first dred with a BZ body and Red spruce top. The wood was sent to me by the client and was a master grade top from Old Standard and the BZ was a very old straight grained dark set that was really something to behold. He said he got it from Robert Ruck years ago.

Have I become a believer? Hell yes! Was I nervous working with such valuable wood? Absolutely! Will I use the same combo again? You bet!

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

put me down as a believer in Red tops

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

John, do you use Red Spruce for your bracing as well ? I thought I heard something about Martin using Sitka bracing on Red Spruce tops.
Any info on this would be appreciated.

Brent

Thousands of prewar dreads can't be wrong...

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Mountain Song Guitars www.mountainsongguitars.com

Ken, I had always assumed that the pre-war guitars were red spruce tops and bracing. A few months ago, I read somewhere that
many had sitka bracing. It was someone who has done a lot of repair work, possibly Greven(?) I thought John Hall would know,
or maybe Todd could jump in here.

Brent

Or Mario.

I also read that Sitka spruce was used for brace material in old Martin's because it was cheaper. Can't say it's correct, just what I read.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

Martin used the sitka for braces . There are a few rare examples but 99% are sitka. Modern times Martin has done Red braces as an upgrade.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I have a suspicion that in the 30's lots of Sitka was widely used for aircraft and was in sizes and grades easily cut up for bracing material. Top material,because it was not as widely use was procured as close to home as possible. The use of Sitka bracing just carried on in the shift to Sitka tops until the new Red Spruce trend. That would be my take on the Sitka bracing.
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Lots of valid comments here from my own perspective. What hasn't been stated yet is that there's a lot of variation between samples of any given species of spruce. In other words, a given Sitka top could be stiffer and lighter than a given Adi top. So you really need to have an idea of what you're looking for in terms of stiffness to weight ratio, and measure the tops. One way is to measure the density of a top, in weight per volume (I use grams per cubic inch). Experts on this forum have implied that density is a pretty good proxy for stiffness to weight ratio (assumuing quartersawn tops) Other folks use deflection testing as a means to test stiffness.

Every top is different. And, as was stated earlier, prices on tops have a lot to do with how they appear.