Sustainable TONE
Katalox bridge and “diaperwood” top on a Martin Sustainable Wood OM.
Bob Taylor says as spruce trees get
smaller, makers will adapt, and players will
“just get okay with it. Maybe by the time
we wake up and smell the coffee, we’ve
already chopped down all the [big] spruce
trees. At that point guitar makers would
just start looking at four-piece tops instead
of two-piece tops. That’s just what guitars
will be then.”
Cedar is another popular top wood for
acoustic guitars, but Herrod says it’s not
for every player: “Cedar may actually be
more plentiful than spruce, but it doesn’t
work on a lot of different guitars. It has a
great sound on some fingerstyle guitars
and classical guitars, but it’s not a really
good choice for a hard-driving, flat-picking
or strumming guitar. It just doesn’t quite
work that way.”
Richard Hoover says Santa Cruz has
made it a practice to look for supplies of
wood that come from “reclaimed sources
like fallen trees and even old structures;
and there are an awful lot of spruce-like
trees with similar degrees of tonal potential and workability.”
One small builder finding alternate supplies of spruce is Bob Long, who often
uses old piano soundboards. “These pianos are typically between 80 and 100 years
old when they start to need a rebuild.” he
says. “Usually, one that’s rebuilt is a really
good quality piano because it’s so expensive to rebuild one, so the soundboard
has had really good care.” [See sidebar on
how Long processes piano soundboards.]
Australian builder Cole Clark is using
bunya, a tree native to Australia, for
many of their tops. Bunya, according to
Bradley Clark, is “ 18 percent stronger than
Spruce, and gives nothing up for sound.”
Approximately ninety-five percent of the
bunya they use is plantation grown, and
the other five percent is recovered from
locally felled trees. Clark says, “I love it
for acoustic guitar tops and backs, ukuleles and electric bodies. It is light, stable,
resonate, machines very well, is relatively
quick growing, indigenous to Australia,
looks cool, and is plantation grown! By the
way, the bunya nut is quite edible. You can
shade, fuel, build, play [guitars], eat and
tie up carbon,” all from just one tree.
Necks, Fretboards and Bridges
Necks perform some very important functions for guitars. Not only do they have to
stand up to 150 pounds of string tension,
but they also contribute to a guitar’s tone,
look and playability. Maple, walnut, mahogany, and cherry are common choices, with
mahogany being the only one of those that
anyone would expect to see on the endangered list any time soon.
100 PREMIER GUITAR JULY 2009
As for fingerboards and bridges, ebony
is the gold standard for a great acoustic,
with rosewood a close second. But there
are some options emerging from the new,
more sustainable logging practices. One of
those practices is to clear-cut one acre in the
middle of a forest and take everything out.
This is a minor wound in the forest that heals
over time, but causes less disruption to the
forest ecosystem than traditional methods.
The companies that clear-cut this way need
to find commercial uses for every stick of
lumber they get in order to make a profit.
One recent success story is katalox, which
Martin has used for fingerboards and bridges
on some of the guitars in their Sustainable
Wood series. It’s comparable to ebony for
density, and polishes very well. Its dark purple and brown grain also make a subtle but
beautiful accent.
A wood that compares nicely to rosewood
is jacaranda, which Long likes to use as
much as he can. It’s an ornamental tree
seen around plantations in Africa and South
America. According to Long, “it polishes
very lustrous. Beautiful tap tones. Everything
about it I think is as good as any rosewood
for a bridge or fingerboard.”
Although some high-end electrics have had
great success with carbon fiber fingerboards,
acoustic guitarists are extremely resistant to
a synthetic. Hoover takes it in stride: “This is
