This article originally appeared in Acoustic Guitar magazine. © String Letter Publishing, all rights reserved.
Underwater Wood
Environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional tonewoods are a major concern in guitar circles these days, and luthiers are increasing their attempts to find new methods of building instruments. Large companies such as La Si Do and Breedlove are offering models built entirely from locally harvested woods, and Martin has made some guitar tops out of spruce that was formerly used in Alaskan fishing traps. But with the exception of a few guitars that don't use wood at all, most of our instruments still come from trees that were recently cut in a forest.
There are alternatives to this basic conception of logging, however, as demonstrated by the Superior Water-Logged Co. of Ashland, Wisconsin. The company has tapped into a supply of thousands of logs that were originally cut from the shores of Lake Superior as long ago as the Civil War. It was a common practice to float logs in the lake on their way to being milled, but many of them sank and were forgotten until recent wood shortages called attention to this underwater forest.
Although most of Water-Logged's wood is sold to furniture and crafts makers, there has been an increasing interest from luthiers and instrument-repair shops, including Water-Logged employee Chris Hinton, an avid guitar builder. Hinton explains that, of the several kinds of wood being pulled from the lake, the salvaged maple is of particular interest to instrument builders. Several of his clients use this maple to restore old violins, because it matches the grain and quality of the 100-year-old wood originally used to build these instruments. Hinton also claims that many violin builders--including Stradivari--soaked their wood to remove gums and resins, and he speculates that the lake water may have the same effect on the wood they're dredging up. So far, Hinton has built five guitars with Water-Logged wood, culminating in the guitar he built for Johnny Cash. His slightly enlarged OM-style design combines highly figured, salvaged maple back and sides with a traditionally harvested spruce top and rosewood fingerboard and bridge.
While sunken logs won't be the ultimate alternative to traditionally cut lumber, Water-Logged's endeavors are a welcome addition to efforts to save endangered tonewoods. As company president Scott Mitchen says, "Every tree we retrieve is a tree we don't have to cut down."
--Teja Gerken