Spruce Soundboard wood - (picea abies = picea excelsa = Norway spruce, European spruce)

 

A particularly big log of clean, slow-grown, knot free European spruce from the Val di Fiemme

 

This excellent soundboard wood originates from the Italian Dolomites – near Cavalese in Trentino.  It comes from the historic Val di Fiemme where the famous Cremona violin makers obtained the wood for their violin tops.  Like the wood used in the Cremonese stringed instruments it is accurately quartered, slow grown and fine grained.  It is sold only in single flitches (see below), each flitch consisting of one sixteenth of a trunk cut radially. 

 

Cutting a quarter log into eighths.  Each eighth was then again cut in half into a sixteenth, and the flitches were sawn into 7-8mm planks as indicated below.

 

The sixteenth is sliced into planks (see below) about 7-8mm thick in such a way that each plank is quartered with the top narrower planks less well quartered, but still perfectly usable for wrestplank veneer, etc.  However, I was able to choose from a vast selection of sixteenth sections, so I chose those that yielded the maximum amount of quartered wood.  A tree trunk is practically always slightly distorted and not like the diagram below, so a judicious choice of sixteenth sections gave planks after sawing of the sixteenth sections that was almost all usable as soundboard wood. I sell it only in whole flitches - the amount of wood in each flitch is variable.  Because each flitch comes from the same tree and even the same part of the tree, all of the wood in a soundboard made from a flitch is the same colour and texture and so makes a beautiful-looking, as well as a beautiful-sounding soundboard.

The wood was bought in 1976 when it was already about 5 years old.  So it is now about 40 years old.  It was air dried (definitely NOT artificially kiln dried using steam), and has been stored in a cool, dry storage area since then.  The Italian merchant from whom I bought the wood in 1976 told me recently that such fine soundboard wood has never since passed through his warehouse!

 

What do I mean by a flitch??  See below:

Harpsichord-making wood prices

 

 

Italian cypress for Italian cases and soundboard wood - (cupressus sempervirens = Italian cypress = European cypress)

This wood originated from just outside of Florence.  Unlike virtually all cypress wood which is commercially available, this wood is TOTALLY KNOT FREE!!  It was bought in 1981 and had then be air seasoned in Italy for about 10 years.  So it is now over 40 years old.  It is mostly available in planks of about XXXXmm thick, but thicker solid pieces about XXXXmmm thick are available and sold according to volume in whatever lengths (up to 4 metres) you choose.

Because of its age, this cypress has already started to acquire the warm brown appearance of age.  With the addition of a coat or two of dilute boiled linseed oil it soon takes on the appearance of a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century Italian harpsichord or virginal.

 

Harpsichord-making wood prices

 

 

African ebony (assumed to be diospyros crassiflora but the exact species has not been determined scientifically)

This is fine quality African ebony (not African blackwood) suitable for black-natural touchplates, sharps, inlay, stringing, etc.

It is sold in planks xxxmm thick, xxxmm wide and in any length up to about.  Sold per kilogramme. 

 

Harpsichord-making wood prices

 

 

Scottish bog oak (quercus quercus modified by 10-20,000 years in a Scottish moor)

I still have two small pieces of Scottish bog oak for sale.  They are slightly different colours having originated in different bogs with a different type of peat coloration.  

I also have enough sharps already prepared and ready to glue in place for one short-octave 4-octave instrument (19 sharps) , and one 4-octave plus instrument (25 sharps). 

 

Harpsichord-making wood prices

 

How to make payment for the wood

 

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