Bear Claw Spruce

[swankdoc]

Check out this guys description of his guitar.
Taylor 610CE *Bear Claw Top* *Quilted Maple Back* - eBay (item 130233339799 end time Jun-30-08 15:47:58 PDT)
At first it seems as if he joking, but the more I read it, the more it sounds like he really thinks it.

[Jay-]

bear claw marking is actually a healed wood scar (not necessarily from a bear) and makes for added character (and another $500)

From what I'm told the Taylor guys take sonar equipment and test live trees with scientific instruments before they cut em. B.S? Who knows!

Some say Bear claw is ~Ugly~ and some say its a neat character deal, O and more money!

[dsl]

Very Funny


From another Forum:

"The technical term for "bear claws" is hazelficte. It refers to a pattern in the grain occasionally showing up in all species of spruce. Basically it is a ripple in the fibers of the wood and is similar to the patterns you get in some maples (the curly stuff or "quilt"). But in spruce, bear claws are not uniform but random and asymmetrical. Some say they look like the curved claws of a bear, others say they look like the marks left by a bear who was sharpening his claws on the tree before it was felled and turned into furniture or guitar tops.

It is almost always a sign that the spruce is from an old tree with a very dense molecular structure. This translates into stiff tops and a greater velocity to the soundwaves they produce. Many luthiers feel that bear claws are a reliable sign of higher quality tone wood within a given species of spruce."

[swankdoc]

Heres a few more:
"

Bearclaw, particularly bearclaw Adirondack spruce (Be still, my heart!), is a truly magical tonewood. It doesn`t matter what species or have anything to do with the design and construction of the guitar or the skill of the maker.
It naturally possesses great sound velocity coupled with a great attack ceiling and a well rounded tonal bubble. Of course when used in conjunction with pearl purfling, there are definite toasted wheat underpinnings in the sonic core, well laced with liberal sprinklings of spiderwebs and fairy dust. It also enhances the smoky meatiness of some rosewoods, particularly Brazilian.
In Europe, where it is known as "hazelfichte", the most prized wood comes from a small area near the Alpine village of Hypenholz in Bavaria.
This rare wood is cut only between March 12 and April 17 from the leeward side of the mountain at high tide under the light of the full moon by a guy named Horst wearing green lederhosen. He is a fourth generation wood cutter. No power tools are used in the felling of the tree or in the processing into soundboards so as not to disturb the grain fibers.
Any guitar made with this legendary wood is well worth the sometimes substantial upcharge."

followed by:

"

C.Vega is totaly correct, though he left out the bit about the goat.
The transgressive coefficient of the sonic bubble is maximally articulated by the presence of deoxyhydrocetuatoluene in the immediate vicinity of the spruce while the tree is in its second year of growth. This substance is present in goat dung.

The problem is that the goats tend to eat the trees when they are so young, so the side profession of gotenherderfuehrer is one of great importance in traditional European spruce production. This adds considerable expense to the process.

But the next time anyone tries to talk about the sound difference, show your knowledge. If the guy is truly clued up on tone woods, a subtle, 'Goat dung!' will do the trick."

finally:

"I feel that I am imminently qualified to clear up all these misconceptions about bearclaw, the magic tonewood. I live in Northern Canada where we have both bears and spruce trees, and I speak German, so I am well able to adapt the time honoured methods employed by Horst, from whose village my forebears emigrated many years ago.
For a while now their has been a lot of confusion in the bearclaw industry about what is and isn't bearclaw. Check out this picture:

The title notes that it is a possible bear scratching tree. It is terrible difficult to identify true bearclaw trees in the woods without the aid of a trained wood technologist and an electron microscope. So I have started a new bearclaw manufacturing business venture. We intend to go to the actual source and ensure that we have control of the bearclaw process from the very beginning.

Here is a picture of Ursula, our foreman, er; foreperson, er; forebear taken last summer. We are an equal opportunity employer and see nothing wrong with having a female in a supervisory position. She is definitely our "bull, er; bear of the woods."

She is out inspecting the woods for suitable trees. Experienced bears for this type of work are hard to find so we rely heavily on Ursula to find suitable trees for the other bears to scratch. Here is one of our apprentices at work.

Note that the tree has been identified as future tonewood. The bears know which trees to scratch. Not all bear apprentices are so capable in the woods, however;

This results, not in bearclaw, but bearback, (not to be confused with the cowboy term) which is not nearly so valuable as a tonewood.
Other by-products are bearhead (a large market in the hair replacement schemes in the back of magazines)

and bearface (Someone famous used some of our product when they waved a finger at the TV cameras and said, "I did not have sex with that woman!" but we haven't been able to get an endorsement deal.)

We have had some labour problems with some of our employees. A union organizer from the United Chickenhood of America came through a while ago and when he crossed the road, some of our employees went with him.


As any new business does, we are having some personnel difficulties obtaining top quality employees, and since it is now the middle of winter, our ursal resources department has ground to a complete halt. We are left wondering where all of our staff have gone and are pondering the possibility that this will be a seasonal business at best.

So you see, obtaining a reliable source of bearclaw tonewood is fraught with all kinds of problems. We are striving to insure that we have top quality products to offer the guitar buying public, but we are forced to charge premium prices for our products.

I hope this has helped."'

haha

[dsl]

"Note that the tree has been identified as future tonewood. The bears know which trees to scratch. Not all bear apprentices are so capable in the woods..."