Wood & Wood Defects
Depending on the month, the subject of these blogs either comes from a dark place somewhere in my mind, or a bright place (if you believe such a thing exists), a question from someone at the shop, or sometimes a question from one of our valued customers. This month, the subject matter comes from a combination of those. Wood and wood defects…. This is a tough subject as literally books have been written on it, and there are so many different aspects of this subject based on wood species and so on…..I will; as I always do, endeavor to make some sense of this subject in a thousand or so words…..I know, I know….good luck!
First I guess, we have to determine what wood defects are, and where they come from. Wood comes from trees and trees either grow on their own, or in a forest…or somewhere between. Depending on how or where a tree grows, we can guess the quality of lumber that we might obtain from it. Since trees grow anywhere from equatorial forests to mountainsides and the sub-arctic, there is a broad spectrum of environmental contributors to wood quality and use. Everything from the minerals in the soil to the amount of moisture in the soil, to external conditions like the slope of the land, the exposure to wind, the amount of temperature change and obviously insect infestations can and will affect the growth of the tree and therefore the wood harvested from that tree. This also why we use different woods from different regions despite the trees being the same species. For instance we use a lot of poplar these days. We have a ton of poplar trees in Canada, but they are not nearly as commercially viable as the poplar that comes from the southern US. It does not grow the same way, or at the same rate of growth, which changes the wood and how it can be used. Can you cut down a poplar here in Ontario and use the wood? Sure you can….but if you cut a thousand poplar trees here in Ontario, will you get the same yield in lumber as you would from trees grown in a better climate? Nope…hence commercial use dictates a lot when it comes to wood and defects.
If you go back 50 years, what commercial wood lots considered defects was related to what we currently consider defects but there are a couple caveats….when wood was plentiful, the commercial lots could be very picky as to what grade the wood was….now as we have less and less old-growth wood, the commercial lots allow a lot more in their assessments of wood quality. This only makes sense. The point is that commercial lots determine what defects are, and depending on who is in control of the log cutting, stacking and drying, can also cause a number of defects. If the wood is not properly selected for cutting, if they cut lumber from dead logs, if they do not cut out and rot or fungus, forget about insect infestations from borers, termites or beetles or miss burls rind galls etc, there will be issues. Then, if the wood isn’t properly stacked and dried there can be warping, twisting, checking and cracking, making the quality of the lumber drop to very low value. All this happens before you even see the wood at the yard or in a store!
So now you bring your wood home, and take a look at it…maybe even dress it in the planer so you can see what you have. You paid the maximum and bought the best right? Well, knots (depending if they are living or dead knots) may not be a defect depending on size, sap-wood is not a defect, wormholes to a certain size are not defects, mineral staining is not a defect, and to a certain point (depending on whether you have purchased flat sawn or quarter sawn) grain deviation is not a defect. Plus, the grader can only grade on what he sees. There are a variety of issues that can be hidden in the wood, that will only appear in processing.
So what does all this have to do with the Solo Guitar kit you have in your hands….rest assured that the woods used in these kits has been reasonable well selected and you will not have any issues due to natural defects in the woods we use. That said, there are always things we can’t see. This is the part where the customer question comes in….
At times, we have found micro-fractures in the mahogany used in necks and bodies.
I do not think in 50 years I have seen this in any other species of wood. I do not know the cause of it, although I suspect it happens when the trees are dropped during harvesting or during the shipping process where the logs may be dropped and suffer bruising. Mahoganies have a very specific grain structure and I believe this structure is vulnerable to these fractures. Nine times out of 10, you will not have an issue with these fractures…maybe 99 times out of 100. The mahoganies we use do not seem to be affected by these fractures as much as others. Is the neck going to break at that fracture? Unlikely. Will the fracture get worse if there is stress on it (as in a neck where the fracture may be on the back of the neck) also unlikely. Will I have a problem with finishing the neck with that fracture? That depends on each individual fracture. Some will finish without an issue, and others may show through the finish. My advice is to use a thin cyanoacrylate glue (Glue Boost…Super Glue) and soak the fracture before you finish the piece. Of course you will need to be careful and sand the surface properly as the glue soaked wood will not accept stain as well.
Here at Solo Guitars, we do our very best to provide you with guitar and bass kits you can count on being produced from good stable materials. Our manufacturing isn’t perfect, and wood as a natural product also is not perfect. I have tried to explain some of the difficulties in wood grading, but if you have questions on the materials used in your kits, or you feel you have a defect that is going to cause an issue, please feel free to contact us. We will either have an immediate answer for you, or we will get that answer. I personally am third generation in the wood business and have forgotten more about wood than most people will know….and yet, I am still learning. As the earth changes, our plants and trees change as well, so the wood harvested now is much different than wood harvested when I started learning over 50 years ago….and that goes for 2×4’ s you buy to build a house, right up to instrument wood that we buy for bodies necks and tops. We are proud of our products and are certain your experience in building one or more of our kits here at Solo, will be a positive one!!
