Is all Bear Claw Spruce a Sitka Spruce trait only or can you also find that on Red Spruce and other Spruce tops. I think I've only ever seen it on Sitka. I love that look, I truly do. I'll have a Custom Built Richie Crowder guitar arriving shortly with perhaps the most bear clawed soundboard I've ever seen. I'll share a pic or two when it gets here.
Bear Claw Spruce
- Thread starter richardp69
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Guildedagain
Enlightened Member
Bearclaw = good, both on guitars and with coffee in the morning ;[]
Don't know, Richard. I think I've seen bear claw on Adirondack, but I'm not really at all sure about that.
Looking forward to seeing your new Crowder guitar with bear claw.
Looking forward to seeing your new Crowder guitar with bear claw.
For sure, there is Bear Claw Spruce. I've owned quite a few but they've always been Sitka. I'm wondering if it's also seen on Red Spruce etc.
And, IMHO, if it's a visual defect give me as many defects as I can afford. I love that look.
Guildedagain
Enlightened Member
Amen.
Bearclaw, or silking, is a gorgeous artifact of nature representing the beauty and Fibonacci randomness of the natural world around us.
Deep down we love nature, more than anything. We're just in denial about it because in most cases we can't get enough of it.
But why else would we strip guitars to see the wood, or mount a Whitetail stag head on a wall, because it is so incredibly breathtakingly beautiful, nothing we make even comes close, and frankly the stag is more beautiful than any human.
Sorry - I did mean Adirondack, which was depleted at the time it became fashionable.
AcornHouse
Venerated Member
Bearclaw and silking are two different things. Bearclaw is grouped shifts in the grain pattern. (Here you can see both.)
Silking is an effect caused by perfectly quartered wood, similar to the medullary ray patterns you get in white oak, but regular and on a smaller scale, like a moire pattern.
Bearclaw is not unique to Sitka spruce. I have seen it on European spruce ( where it is called hazelficte), and you can even find it in cedar.
Silking is an effect caused by perfectly quartered wood, similar to the medullary ray patterns you get in white oak, but regular and on a smaller scale, like a moire pattern.
Bearclaw is not unique to Sitka spruce. I have seen it on European spruce ( where it is called hazelficte), and you can even find it in cedar.
Bearclaw and silking are two different things. Bearclaw is grouped shifts in the grain pattern. (Here you can see both.)
Silking is an effect caused by perfectly quartered wood, similar to the medullary ray patterns you get in white oak, but regular and on a smaller scale, like a moire pattern.
Bearclaw is not unique to Sitka spruce. I have seen it on European spruce ( where it is called hazelficte), and you can even find it in cedar.
Thaks Chris!!
HeyMikey
Enlightened Member
Walrus, It must have been the year and model but my 2011 F30ce also has THE nicest silking of any guitar I’ve owned. I can stare at it all day.My '11 F-30 has silking, but no bear claw.
walrus
Not all that uncommon in other types of spruce. The Adirondack top that Wayne Henderson put on my '70 D50 is fully silked, but it's hard to see because the top is still so white. It's probably the nicest Adirondack set I've ever seen. Super tight grain, too.
The Engelmann top on my D18DC is also heavily silked.
And when it comes to bearclaw, my Bourgeois Slope D has that in spades. And silking, too!
Guildedagain
Enlightened Member
The only guitar out of my whole collection that has any significant bearclaw is a 1976 Alvarez Classical with incredibly dark orange cedar top, sounds good too.
Here it is capturing the chiaroscuro of drying peppers from the way back machine.
adorshki
Reverential Member
Funny you should mention that, the AAA top on my F65ce also looked a whole lot blander for many years, literally white next to other 2, and it was so consistent I called it "white bread", I preferred the AA "whole wheat" top of my D40Not all that uncommon in other types of spruce. The Adirondack top that Wayne Henderson put on my '70 D50 is fully silked, but it's hard to see because the top is still so white. It's probably the nicest Adirondack set I've ever seen. Super tight grain, too.
It's finally ambering up a bit from age and the silking is becoming more "visible", but lord's sake, Sandy, make Sandy Jr. go outside and play once in a while, eh? Boy needs to get some color!!
It will come in due time, and it's such a beautiful top that I don't want to do anything to hasten that. Besides, it's 16ºF outside at the moment!
My '22 D40T is the same way, and its sitka top has some insane silking, too.
adorshki
Reverential Member
The only other small detail that hasn't been mentioned is that "bear claw" is generic term based on what the cause was originally thought to be: bears sharpening their claws on trees and leaving the "streaks" in the wood to gradually be grown over.
So it was never really used as part of a formal name, variety, it's just an adjective.
The most recent info I saw about cause was hypothesis that torsional factors (wind) on still-growing wood caused grain to distort, resulting in the "streaks". That one made a lot of sense to me, when you look a typical Monterey Pine:
You want to know which way the prevailing wind blows? Just look for one of these puppies.
West R Lee
Venerated Member
Some slight "bearclaw" on the D2HA.........Adirondack.
