Official Luthiers Forum!

I only learned of the chisel/mirror trick a couple of years ago, and the knowledge came from a repeat customer! Now if I could just master short twitch muscle control.

This pear was stained with Pernambuco dye extracted in ammonia and while I've done this with other woods, this result seems exceptional:



No P on the Polish Euro top:





Closer:

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Bruce Sexauer, luthier
http://mojoluthier.com

I like the natural color of the pear wood but the dye really brought out the figure.

What is the back and side purfling? The white in the black/white/black scheme? It looks like curly maple even in that small of a size. It gives it a shimmer almost like abalone would, but it's wood.

It is big leaf maple, both absolutely quarter sawn and densely flamed, about .030” wide. For some time, but not lately, I had called it “poor man’s abalone”.

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Bruce Sexauer, luthier
http://mojoluthier.com

Tnx for the tip bruce . There are leftover pernam shavings in the shop. I have a ngr stain from woodworkers supply . (maple) that is very close to that orange pernam stain pictured . Will test both on some e . maple , Yes that is a vy cool looking back an sides !!

Most Brazilwood dyes are shades of red to pink. Does the ammonia change that to an orange hue or is it a reaction with the pear wood?

P is more or less a chemical reaction stain, so it seems to me. It is red in the jar, purple on most woods when freshly applied, and a variety of colors when dry enough for sealer. On spruce it can be bright yellow if extracted in water. I am a novice with stain of any sort, having generally relied on the beauty of well chosen wood.

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Bruce Sexauer, luthier
http://mojoluthier.com

Bruce, Do you find that European spruce has any of the magical properties that they say it has? I've never tried it. I had Englemann and Sitka all over the place in density and stiffness. I don't suppose Polish spruce is Alpine spruce, but fronts of guitars are seen more than backs, and that set has nice silk and claw too!
The whole instrument is very nicely done.

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Why be normal?

This is my third Pear guitar. The first one, a 000, won JR Rogers’ “Founders Choice” award on the AGF as the best guitar he’d seen all year. It actually brought JR to tears at the Woodstock Event! The second one, an 0, was bought on seeing it by Ben McKee, bassist in the band “Imagine Dragons”. That causeD he and other band members to buy five of my guitars over the next year or so.

So, is that magic? My own opinion is that my Pear guitars, so far, produce an unusually beautiful sound that connects emotionally in a primal way, but I do not know the words that would describe it. More mahogany than rosewood, but further down the path that make some people prefer mahogany. More beautiful.

Rereading the previous post I saw that the subject was Spruce, not Pear. There is nothing magical about EuroSpruce. It is my standard top material, followed by American Red spruce in about 1/4 of my work. I actively dislike Sitka as a fuzzy and distorted tone. Engelmann is okay, but second rate at doing what Euro does. I’ll use WRC or Redwood, but will be disappointed that I failed to bend the customer toward EuroSpruce or Adi, which is where what I call ‘tone’ resides. All opinion, but that’s mine.

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Bruce Sexauer, luthier
http://mojoluthier.com

"Eurospruce" is Picea Abies, A.K.A. Alpine spruce, Norway spruce, German spruce, etc. Engelmann spruce is a close match in it's physical properties, which is why some unscrupulous dealers have sold it as alpine spruce. there is a fair amount of overlap. Engelmann does vary a lot, and some may be better and some may be worse than EuroSpruce.
If you check the Wood Database site you will see how little the "average" properties differ. So if you want to build an average guitar, no need to test your wood.

Poor mans abalone, I like it.

But it just doesn't taste the same....