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Location: Shotley Bridge, Northern England | With the current 'Age of the OFC' poll in mind, and enjoying the somewhat poetic contribution some time ago on this board about the past of seasoned guitar wood (references to snow, wind and cold: was that by MWoody?), I decided to count the growth rings on my 84 Collectors top to see how old the wood was. Result? It has 108 rings (stripes actually, since the wood is quartersawn) from the centre of the soundboard to the edge of the lower bout (108 rings in just over 7.5 inches; these are good spruce tops!). That means the spruce on my guitar dates back to at least 1876 (not allowing for seasoning time for the wood after felling). It may well be much older than that, depending upon how big the original spruce log was. So this wood is a contemporary of Jesse James, Queen Victoria, the Wright Brothers, both World Wars, Man on the Moon etc.
Makes you think...
Sounds good, looks good and is history in your hand.
HW |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | My Custom Adamas has 120... |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | But how is the silking ??? |
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Location: Upper Left USA | :D
Remember that the soundboard didn't go all the way to the bark. Most Spruce trees harvested will be about 200 years of growth. |
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Location: Alberta, Canada | Originally posted by Tupperware:
But how is the silking ??? Explain? :confused:
The 1112 is 135 rings, with a touch of Bear Claw and lots of flecks or rays or whatever they're called. |
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Location: South of most, North of few | I've tried to find the rings on the Adamas. Are they in the back or what? |
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Location: ranson,wva | jim. on the adamii critters you gotta count the rings on the braces and multiply that number by 67...hope that hepls...jason |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | How old is my Academy ? Hey wait - WHERE is my Academy ??? |
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Location: Midland, MI | How are you guys getting 100+ rings? Are you counting dark+light+dark+...? Because I'm just counting the dark lines and only have 66 from the center line to the edge of the lower bass bout. Regardless, my Elite still kicks, uh, boo-tay in the sound department. |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | 155 in the cedar top on my 1713. The center is really close grained, but the outer had some years with faster growth. |
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Location: Shotley Bridge, Northern England | Cruster, I'm counting just the dark lines in the wood from the centre line to the edge of the bout to get my total. Spruce is graded from A to AAAA depending upon how closely and consistently the rings are grouped, and how accurately (avoiding runout) the wood was cut.
HW |
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Location: Shotley Bridge, Northern England | Duh! I just realised that Dave was winding up JeffW, not being serious...
... and I nearly bit!
AAAAAAAHHHHH!
HW |
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Location: closely held secret | Nearly? |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | HW,
Have you tried Dave's StringTubes yet? |
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Location: NW NJ | Originally posted by Jeff W.:
HW,
Have you tried Dave's StringTubes yet? Or his sound reflective bowl paint? Or ... |
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| Speaking of aged wood...I was doing custom paint and stain in a nice home in North Carolina. All the furnishings were contemporary except the floors; they were yellow pine-wood that had been removed from a structure which was built during the civil war. We speculated the wood had been planted well before the pilgrims came over on the Mayflower...beautiful wood, by the way... |
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Location: Marlton, NJ | 116 on my '05 collectors |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | I'm in the process of making a Longbow from Osage Orange (Woody you should check this wood out for your PGs- quarter sawn, it's stunning) that came from a large timber from a Granary built in 1871. The tree from which the timber was made was well over a hundred years old. This is a an amazing piece of wood.
(The bow is for target shooting only... and redneck neighbors) |
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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | If you ever have the opportunity, be sure to visit the Sequoia National Park east of Fresno in California. They have cross-cut displays of fallen trees showing rings that were growing before the birth of Christ. |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | I've been to Sequoia NP. Mindblowing.
True story:
A Forest Service employee was making core samples from Juniper (Bristlecone) trees in Utah I believe, when his coring tool got stuck in a tree. To retrieve the tool he cut the tree down. As it turned out it was the oldest living thing in North America. 4000+ years old. |
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Location: NJ | ". . As it turned out it was the oldest living thing in North America . ."
. . . and he killed it. |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | Yup. Killed it dead. |
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Location: Upper Left USA | I knew a girl that was rotten to the core...
but she was just fine to the fleet.
M(Groooan)Woody |
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Location: puerto vallarta, mexico | jeff and i were just talking about this at namm. i posted about a particular guitar a couple of years ago, that now belongs to one of my students. it was a 1983 collectors series and it had the tightest grain i have ever seen in a top. i only measured an inch in a couple of places and there were around 38-40 rings average per inch. there were areas where the grain was slightly wavy. the guitar is still very close and if anyone is really interested i can take a photo of the top. btw the kid who has it plays it every day (very well i might add)and loves it as much as i loved my first O. and i have lifetime visitation rights. |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | 38-40 rings is phenominal...
0ver 12 is the mark many luthiers use to grade as AAAA or MasterGrade |
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Location: puerto vallarta, mexico | it is really an amazing piece of wood. i will try to photo it next time i see it and post a closeup.
i wish you could have seen a few of the riff anvil protos before you left ca. also some pretty spectacular wood. thanks again for the med runs and sorry again for the night of a thousand flushes. |
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Location: Shotley Bridge, Northern England | Wabbit, JeffW: you are mean, mean chaps to make fun like that. :) Stringtubes? - I may be a little gullible, but that's beyond the pail!
Worshipleader: that's also mean! :) I expected more from you ;)
Looks like I may have to learn to roll with the punches here!
Good thing I was able to edit my earlier post about Dave's comment on silking before these lads got to it...
HW |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | Wouldn't be much fun round here if there wasn't the occasional yank on the leg (DOWN! Witko! DOWN! Boy). kinda wish you went for the "StringTubes"
....
Russ,
Yeah, I wish I'd had a chance to see the protos. And I'd love to see the top on that Collector's. You are most certainly welcome for the PharmCare. I'm sorry I couldn't hang to help you out the rest of the way, but sounds like Fred came thru. I spoke with Joey W on Friday... I'll email you two each the other's info... |
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Location: NJ | Have y'heard about Glen Campbell's Mom??? . . . |
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Location: SoCal | Didn't she work at the factory? |
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Location: NJ | ShoNuff . . . |
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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | We asked GC personally if his mother ever worked at the factory during our backstage visit last month. He said, "You mean up in Hartford? Nope." If she worked there, he doesn't know it. |
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Location: NJ | It was during the "Cloudy Years" . . . |
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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | I tried to count the rings on the 1651 and the Book Elite. The 1651 is too dark in places and the rings on the elite are just too close for my eyes. I reached well over a hundred on each before giving up. |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | I had a friend whose cousin, knew a guy whose sister-in-law's friend's mother worked with GC's mom at the factory. |
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Location: Upper Left USA | "...and that, son, is why Bob's your Uncle..." |
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Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | On my CA1624 I counted an astounding 174 rings(bookmatched, counting from the center of the bookmatching outwards) The guitar was made in 1976. This means that the tree was planted before the American Revolution! Man, it is such a sweet guitar, and just became sweeter. |
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Location: CT | My '83 Collector's grain is very tight, but doesn't come close to 38-40 rings per inch. It varies from about 24 on the loose grains to about 30-32 on the tight ones. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe these used the same top wood as the Custom Legends of that era, but it's too hard to count rings on mine without getting lost. Also, It looks like the Collector is a 3 piece top, where the C.Legend is 2.
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How old is the top on your 'O'? Count the growthrings and see...