This grade had a beautiful highly figured pattern which looks spectacular finnished!
For most of my guitar making career I purchased my top and back sets directly from my European suppliers. Then a few years ago I was curious and ordered a few sets from Stew/Mac. As always, the service, quality of wood, prices and convenience are the absolute finest. I now depend on Stew/Mac to supply me for all my archtop tops and backs.
I use grade AA set and I 'm very satisfied. Buying three sets together, in addition to the lower price I have the option of tonality. Set by set, there are differences in tonality, which is natural, but every set is in high level. The flame varies from unremarkable to good enough, depending on the set. The pieces of wood is big enough and gives me the opportunity to remove some useful parts in advance. Also, the unvarying thickness of the sides makes bending easier.
The timber for the arch top was of excellent quality with a good even highly figured pattern. However whilest grading somebody had marked out in blue crayon the rough shape of a cutaway arch top, presumably to see if any small knots or blemishes would fall outside of this perimeter. Nothing wrong at all in that, but I was making an arched back, and like a pratt (Australian for idiot!) I marked my accurate shape over the top of the blue line and cut it out back to front!! So now I have to make a left handed one!
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