The woods of lutherie are carefully stored in the workshop, and ventilated in order to guarantee their stability at time of their use and well after.
The average temperature is 18°C and humidity varies between 45 and 65%.
Instruments loose their brightness beyond 80% and below 30% risks of breaks are high.
A large number of wood species are used for the lutherie but Masters selected a few of them for their specific characteristics : durability, flexibility, acoustic, density, rapidity of sound propagation and esthetic.
The most important thing is for the species to be well dried (natural drying is the best), and that the debits are on quarter (especially for the top plate and braces).
Species which I personally store are :
Top plate
Back plate / sides
Neck
Fingerboard
Bridge
Finition |
: european spruce, canadian red cedar
: Rio rosewood, Indian rosewood, cypress, walnut, maple, ziricote, algarrobo, alligator wood, pau ferro, angico preto
: cedro, mahogany
: ebony, Rio rosewood
: ebony, rosewood
: nitrocellulose lacquer |
