Old growth wood

[coltoncc]

My first Santa Cruz was an early 1929 00 with some of the prettiest old growth flamed mahogany.  At the time I was told that old growth mahogany was standard on this model which I (probably mistakenly) took to mean that old growth was standard at SCGC. The last couple of years I’ve seen the premium for old growth take off, which got me thinking about if there was a time when old growth was standard at SCGC.

That 1929 turned into trade bait for a few different sc’s over the years that I swapped through until I found my perfect Style 1 with adirondack top built in 2008.  Adi just floors me on SC guitars and this one is so exceptionally resonant and lively that I have a hard time moving it on when money gets tight or when some shiny new thing with a little more low end would pop up.  At some point, wanting to convince myself that my baby is a rarity and a keeper, I started comparing the grain with old growth adirondack on other instruments and found visual similarities.  Is it possible that this is old growth wood or would it have been clearly designated as such in 2008? The only things that tend to pull my eye are the 00-skye and om/pw with adi top, but seeing how rare old growth adirondack is getting, I don’t know how likely it will be to find/afford one! A bird in the hand, right?

[indexless]

Wow…what a STUNNER

[coltoncc]

Here’s a shot of that old 1929 that I used to have:

 

[indexless]

the 29 series are my favorite models…stunning

[tadol]

Bird in the hand, indeed!  Don’t think old growth means better – it usually indicates material that has grown in a more competitive environment, more slowly, so you probably get tighter grain lines, but that is a visual thing – highly desirable from an aesthetic perspective – but not necessarily indicating the finest acoustically.  I’ve played many incredible acoustics that had wider grain, or slightly irregular grain, and they were frequently available at a better price than a similar guitar with the “perfect” grain, which is very desired by collectors –

Richard tries to make sure the material Santa Cruz uses is responsibly harvested, or re-claimed / re-purposed. This frequently means the material is old-growth, but that isn’t what makes their guitars great.  Its the fact that they are careful to choose material that has the structural qualities they need to make great acoustic instruments.  They do use old mahogany, reclaimed from old furniture or stock that has been stored away for many years, but they also have connections with sources that are responsibly harvesting trees that the the British admiralty had planted a long time ago – to make sure they had the materials they needed to build the warships they felt they’d need in the future. While it is really “plantation” material, the age and quality of the material can easily make it seem like “old-growth” stock. And turning it into great guitars, rather than great warships, seems like a much better use.

It’s easy to fall into the “better” guitar trap, or as Mr Pickett might say – “Don’t let the green grass fool ya” – if you learn that a wider neck, or a shorter scale, or a different body shape really works better for you, then it may be worth pursuing – but something that looks better, has more decoration, has “rare” materials, may not actually sound enough better to be worth the risk of selling or trading away what you have. And – another risk I’ve encountered – if your guitar gets too fancy, or too irreplaceable, or too valuable, you may start to feel you can’t take it out, play at the park, let a friend try out. And that can take much of they joy out of having a great guitar –

Enjoy your 00!  Looks like a great guitar, and I’m sure it sounds like it too!

[Daniel]

With regard to guitars, “old growth” seems like a marketing term.  In my experience, SCGC doesn’t pepper their scant advertising with these terms.  However, they exist in a market where other companies do, so they need to know how to use the terms.

Old growth is what people who work with and in forests call a forest/grove/copse that has not been logged out before.  There are groves of old growth redwoods in California and Oregon (some very close to the SCGC workshop).  It is supposed to apply to trees, not to their wood.  This is in contrast to ‘second growth’, a forest/grove/copse that has arisen where the original trees have been logged out.  Usually the types of trees change in second growth.

[In Pennsylvania, we had millions of acres of white pines that were logged out between 1880 and 1920.  The trees that replaced the white pine (the second growth) are and were chestnuts, oaks, birches, cherry, maple, etc – deciduous trees that survive more easily as individuals rather than evergreens, which do better in groups.

[If you’re in the wilds of northern PA looking at a mountainside in the fall, you’ll see a million shades od red, gold, yellow, brown, and orange with a single giant pine standing up above the colors every few miles.  Imagine the mountainside covered in those pines.  That was the old growth.]

So… Old Growth wood in a guitar must mean that it is wood that was logged out from a forest that had not been logged before.  I’m not sure that’s a good thing.  And it makes zero difference to the sound because the quality of the wood -for the purpose of building a guitar- is not determined neither by the date at which the tree was cut and sawn nor the neighboring trees to the one that the wood from your guitar came from.

Marketing term.  Play what you like, try to buy guitars from companies that do their best to be responsible about their wood sources, like SCGC.  It’ll help keep wood guitars a thing for a lot longer.

Daniel

[coltoncc]

I appreciate the insights. It’s easy to get caught up in the folklore and marketing influence but I have no doubt that any wood from SCGC is top notch.  I’ve always appreciated the fact that SCGC wood is always sourced from responsible parties and sustainable yield situations.  There are too many great models pumping out of santa cruz so I just need to keep my head down for a bit and enjoy this little style 1!

[Author]

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