Anybody know about Bear Claw Spruce? - Page 2

cpmusic · #16 02-21-2002, 11:19 PM

When I took the Taylor tour a while back, our guide told us that the curl in maple, koa, walnut, and some other woods comes from trees that are so large and heavy that their weight actually compresses the trunk, so there may be something to the notion of bear claw spruce being denser. I never thought of it that way because the curls in bearclaw spruce are so random and short.

DavesWoodstock · #17 02-22-2002, 12:19 PM

Anybody wonder why Bob Taylor doesn't offer Bear Claw???

cpmusic · #18 02-22-2002, 12:22 PM

I don't know if bear claw is offered as an option, but I've seen a few Taylors over the past year that had it. Interestingly, they were all 300 series. One of them, a 355, was very heavily figured.

chtaylo2 · #19 02-22-2002, 01:55 PM

I'd also like to see examples of bearclaw spruce. I have a 99 410 that was a wavy pattern in the spruce top parallel with the bridge. It stretches across the whole soundboard. I'm not sure what to call it.

-Chris

cpmusic · #20 02-22-2002, 03:58 PM

My 615 has a single claw mark about 1.5" long on the left side of the top at the waist. It's not mirrored on the right side, but the top is bookmatched, so it must been right on the edge of a clawed section of the tree. I don't think it'll make much of a photographic example, though.

Chris, what you've got may be what's known as "silking," which is found in some Sitka spruce and occasionally in cedar and redwood as well (I don't know about Engelmann). There's another thread here somewhere that had links to some pictures.

DavesWoodstock · #21 02-22-2002, 06:49 PM

Not the best photo, but here's a pic...

Bear Claw Spruce

BillM · #22 02-22-2002, 06:51 PM

Wow, that looks almost quilted!

BTW, Taylorman, I just noticed that you're only a few posts away from being a "vet".

Bill

chtaylo2 · #23 02-22-2002, 06:54 PM

Here are two pictures of the top of my 410. Would you say this is silking or bearclaw?

410 Pictures

-Chris

BillM · #24 02-22-2002, 06:58 PM

I'd say it looks like Jack Nicholson as "The Joker"!

Seriously, very cool.

Bill

cpmusic · #25 02-22-2002, 07:18 PM

Chris, that's very cool, but I'm not sure what it would be called. It looks like a major league curl. Maybe Bob T will log on one of these days and give us some better info.

DavesWoodstock · #26 02-22-2002, 07:25 PM

I agree, that's not Bear Claw.....so what is it?

C'mon Bob, help us out!

hhammond · #27 02-24-2002, 12:36 AM

It looks like "knot shadow" to me. Knot shadow is a distortion in the grain caused by proximity to a knot. The knot is, of course, the intersection of a side branch with the main trunk and it sets up stresses in the wood which distorts the grain in the surrounding region. I agree though, that it's very pretty wood.

The fine lines running across the grain that cover the rest of the top, BTW, is the silking. From the photo, that top seems to have some of the heaviest silk that I've seen (which usually doesn't show up to well on web pages).

Silk is an indicator of quality for a number of reasons. First, it's caused by medullary rays in the wood which are cells with a cross grain orientation (think spokes on a bicycle wheel). Since the strongest and stiffest direction of wood is along the grain, the presence of a lot of silk contributes to the stiffness of the wood in what is typically the weaker direction.

Second, the silk indicates that wood has very little runout in the grain. That is, the grain is parallel to the surface of the top. Theoretically that also makes it stonger (a little at least, in what is already the strongest direction). Maybe what's more important though, is that the lack of runout reduces the color differences across the two halves of the book match seam (light half, dark half, turn the guitar end for end and the light and dark colors reverse). That the silk shows up well is just side benefit of well-processed wood.

And that brings up the third benefit of silk, which is that many people think that it makes the top look more interesting. Since it's also tangible evidence of well sawn wood, that's even better. Some spruce has it, some doesn't even if the wood is perfectly processed; so if your guitar lacks silk, don't fret.

But at the end of the day, what matters most is how the guitar sounds not some checklist of characteristics exhibited by the materials. If it sounds (and looks good), who cares if an engineer could measure some small reduction in the theoretical breaking strength of the wood because of how it was sawn (unless you're planning to use your guitar to prop up a broken bed or use it as a wheel chock...).

HH

bob taylor · #28 02-24-2002, 11:26 AM

Aruthas, don't worry, that's how we learn. Just jump in. Taylorman, your explaination is really good. Only bearclaw happens in soft spruce just the same as hard. I've seen it in REALLY soft wide-grained spruce lots of times.

If you were to pull the bark off a tree in the forest, that had bearclaw, you'd be looking at the bearclaw on edge. As a guitar buyer you view the face of the bearclaw. On edge, under the bark, while the tree is still a tree it looks as though a bear clawed the tree, only under the bark. You know those bears are really pure ecologists, they carefully remove the bark, claw up the tree, and then replace the bark without leaving a trace. LOL!

But that's why it's called bear claw. It's a logger's term.

It makes a fine sounding guitar because it's ......drum roll.....SPRUCE.

My friends, "the best of the best of the best" is almost always cosmetic. I've seen guitars made from the most common grades of wood that sound out of this world. And even THAT is subjective. But in anything natural, like a gem or a plant or an animal, there is an aesthetic that we all sort of naturally agree on, from the classic beauty of a man or a woman to which piece spruce or koa is the "most perfect." The most "perfect" is usually the unspotted lamb worthy of sacrifice. We've been grading everything on the earth that God gave us since we could grunt out our first words. It's what we do. From diamonds to Victoria's Secret models, to cuts of beef to spruce; we grade.

I grade, therefore I am.

I guess that's what this forum is all about in the end, huh? Otherwise what would there be to talk about?

I have tthhhhpoken! Ha ha!

DavesWoodstock · #29 02-24-2002, 04:00 PM

Thanks for the great input Bob!
Just wondering though.... howz come you don't ever offer a nice Bearclaw or Adirondack, or German Spruce?

TIA

bob taylor · #30 02-24-2002, 04:36 PM

Well, we use bearclaw when it comes through. We make too many guitars to offer a model with bearclaw. I don't consider it a thing unto itself and it wouldn't be feasable either on the marketing or the material procurement side to box myself in to a strickly bearclaw topped model. To me, it's just spruce and I don't put it in the same category as, say, flame or quilt in maple.

As for the other spieces I got Englemann in my own back yard, so to speak. Engelmann and German are too close to each other to offer German. Plus German is too expensive and I won't compete with the violin market for the spruce they use. Adirondak, as well, is too limited and too expensive. It's just hard business cutting/selling/buying the stuff. There are no trees. Way too many disappointed people in the chain. Either the cutter or the broker or the guitar maker is upset by the time the business is done. When you talk Adirondak you're talking in terms of 10 ot 20 tops....that's a purchase; a whole deal. I can use that many tops on my way to lunch, and if I made more than 100 guitars I'd have used all the good stuff there is.

BTW, I'll have to let the tour guides know that flame doesn't happen by a tree being heavy and squoosing itself. Sheesh. A tree is flamey or quiled, or it's not. It's a genetic thing. It doesn't have anything to do with weight.