Silking?

[Samilyn]

An odd question popped into my head this morning as I was giving the Martie a cleaning.

 

Just wondered if silking contributes the tone of the top or not, or if it's just eye candy.

 

Opinions anyone?

[kwakatak]

Personally I don't know either way but believe that it does - esp. bear claw. IIRC the width of the grains is actually what luthiers look for (specifically narrower and straighter ones) with regards to spruce tops. I don't know what they look for with regardsto cedar, hog or sapele but I'd think it'd be similar.

[Kap'n]

Geezer me thought you were talking about the red thread you used to find on the ball end of guitar strings.

 

I think it's just indicative of the wood used, not that it itself has anything to do with the tone.

 

Lots of silk on Sitka. Virtually none on Adirondack.

[simplygoodmusic]

I find it hard to see the correlation to be honest. My guess is that there is probably an incredibly miniscule effect on the sound, like everything else, but I really highly doubt there is something substantial to it.

[guitarcapo]

Lots of silking means that the top is very quartersawn. It's not a genetic variation like bearclaw. Being "on-quarter" is important because the wood is less apt to warp and not deform uniformly under stress like string tension and humidity. Lately when building guitars, I'm finding lots of talk about the rarity of back and side woods....but you can probably go through a hundred spruce tops to find a really good one. Lot's more criteria to meet.

 

The wood has to have uniform grain lines. On a top with 80-100 grain lines per side, that means the same rainfall and conditions have to happen for that entire time period. Not one fire. Not one dry season. Good luck these days with massive fires happening everywhere and acid rain eating up the eastern spruce. Trees like that never occur except in high altitude dense forrest with lots of trees competing.

It can't have runnout or pin knots. It has to have uniform pale color, lots of lines per inch (forget about that spruce tree in your back yard) and bookmatched. The lines must be straight. It must be quartersawn. And of course it has to be large enough to make the guitar width in 2 pieces.

 

Back and side woods on the other hand have a lot looser standards. The back can be 3 piece if the wood is too small. The middle section doesn't even have to match the wings. People don't even care if the wood has wide or narrow grain lines or is on quarter. You an also dye the back and side woods to correct for poor color or variations in color. There are lots of substitute species that are accptable to make the back and sides out of. Tops...it's only about 5 species of spruce used.

 

Cross silking is considered a good thing and not a defect. That's probably all that matters

[Samilyn]

Geezer me thought you were talking about the red thread you used to find on the ball end of guitar strings.

LOL. I've got those on my Django box. The red is actually quite pretty in contrast to the gold tailpiece.

[Terry Allan Hall]

In a recent issue of Acoustic Guitar, the idea of how narrow the grain should be, as well as the merits of a wider grain, is discussed at great length...pretty interesting article!

[Samilyn]

 

In a recent issue of Acoustic Guitar , the idea of how narrow the grain should be, as well as the merits of a wider grain, is discussed at great length...pretty interesting article!

 

 

Thanks for that, TAH. I'll check it out.

 

Personally, I never really gave grain and/or silking much thought. A git either sounds good or it doesn't; looks good or it doesn't.

 

And I have had non-git people comment on the silking on my Martie, asking me what kind of wood that is or if that's some kind of special wood. I shrug and tell 'em it's just spruce.

[riffmeister]

 

Lots of silking means that the top is very quartersawn. It's not a genetic variation like bearclaw. Being "on-quarter" is important because the wood is less apt to warp and not deform uniformly under stress like string tension and humidity.

 

 

yup, silking is good, it means the wood is probably strong.

 

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