Importance Of Quartersawn Wood

[guitar_player]

I am going to be building an acoustic in a month or two probably. I would like to have rosewood sides and back, I have heard the sides need to be quartersawn but if I go here they are not http://www.westpennhardwoods.com/shop/cart...ategory_id=1063. I can't get any rosewood quartersawn so would it be ok to use flatsawn or not? Also I am going to be getting a bunch of sitka spruce tops do these have to be quartersawn or is flatsawn ok? Should I just try to use the closest to quartersawn piece I can? Thanks for any help, I am new to building acoustic guitars.

[guitar_player]

I just found out that all the spruce is quarter sawn and since I'm getting a good deal on it I'm going to be stocking up on soundboards might even try an electric with it.

[Geo]

There's a reason quartersawn wood is used. Check out a book about acoustic guitar building, it will explain it right at the beginning. Melvyn Hiscock's book about electrics explains it as well. Basically, it's more stable than flatsawn wood.

[guitar_player]

There's a reason quartersawn wood is used. Check out a book about acoustic guitar building, it will explain it right at the beginning. Melvyn Hiscock's book about electrics explains it as well. Basically, it's more stable than flatsawn wood.

I understand that quartersawn wood is more stable, what I would like too know is how bad is it to have the back and sides flatsawn or as far from flatsawn as possible. The website I linked to is selling flatsawn back and side sets so I take it it's ok to use?

[Southpa]

All acoustic backs and sides are flatsawn anyway. Have a look at this picture. It depends on what sort of stresses the wood is undergoing and what measures are taken to alleviate those stresses. All guitar tops are q-sawn, easy to tell by what the grain looks like ie. parallel lines 1/16th to 1/8" apart. The top wood has to be q-sawn for its natural stability and its ability to deal with direct string tension while using as little bracing as possible.

[guitar_player]

All acoustic backs and sides are flatsawn anyway. Have a look at this picture. It depends on what sort of stresses the wood is undergoing and what measures are taken to alleviate those stresses. All guitar tops are q-sawn, easy to tell by what the grain looks like ie. parallel lines 1/16th to 1/8" apart. The top wood has to be q-sawn for its natural stability and its ability to deal with direct string tension while using as little bracing as possible.

So, the back and sides are fine not to be quartersawn? I know on my augustion AR-60 the sides are quartersawn and the back is close to quartersawn. That's the only acoustic I have to look at besides $50 ones.

[Hector]

with some woods we can't be so picky about using quartersawn stuff. some are just hard to find.

I prefer 1/4 sawn, but I've seen some nice guitars with flatsawn backs and sides.

for the tops, I never use anything other than quartersawn wood.

[fryovanni]

All acoustic backs and sides are flatsawn anyway. Have a look at this picture. It depends on what sort of stresses the wood is undergoing and what measures are taken to alleviate those stresses. All guitar tops are q-sawn, easy to tell by what the grain looks like ie. parallel lines 1/16th to 1/8" apart. The top wood has to be q-sawn for its natural stability and its ability to deal with direct string tension while using as little bracing as possible.

So, the back and sides are fine not to be quartersawn? I know on my augustion AR-60 the sides are quartersawn and the back is close to quartersawn. That's the only acoustic I have to look at besides $50 ones.

Quartersawn is prefered for stability, and the traditional choice. As Hector points out though, most of the back and side woods are getting harder to get (there is also cases where looks come into play over stability). Most would prefer to use at least quartersawn sides if possible even if wider backs are not possible, again it is about the stability of quarter over rift to flat. You can certainly use flat saw or rift(these are sometimes all we can get), just be mindful of the potential stability issue.