Small Body Maple Guitars.

[Gilbert Fredrickson]

They do not sound "somewhere between Cuban Mahogany and Panama Rosewood."
I'm committed to a Curly Western Maple 00. Small Maple guitars can be angry sounding. It's the wood that has decided this commitment. The top and back have difficult blems that can be easily covered by a sunburst finish. The set is 00 sized, sunburst finishes are great, so I'm making an Engelmann/Western Big Leaf Maple L-00. I figure the Engelmann will work with the softer maple to make the guitar of the century sound sweet and lively.

How do you feel about Engelmann Spruce for steel string guitars? I'm not a huge fan, but I think it will work with the Maple on this small guitar.

[Marshall Dixon]

How do you feel about Engelmann Spruce for steel string guitars? I'm not a huge fan, but I think it will work with the Maple on this small guitar.

I've used Engelmann for the tops on several steel stringers with really good results. Two OM size with Broadleaf Maple and one O size with Indian Rosewood.

Broadleaf maple is a favorite local wood and I pick up well quartered boards at lumberyards whenever I find them. A 10" wide board might only have 5" of vertical grain before it starts to go off vertical, but that simply means a 4 piece back.

My last steel string was along the lines of a Martin 1 style (Ted Davis' GAL plan) a little narrower with 13" lower bout width and Broadleaf Maple back and sides. For the top I used some beautiful Sugar Pine which is a bit softer and less dense than Engelmann. I like the way it sounds, though I'm thinking to narrow the X brace in the next one. I think the plan called for a 100 or 110° spread for the bottom angle and think that a narrower angle will allow for more bass response of the top in these smaller bodies. But even so this little guitar packs a punch.

A big consideration is the finish. At one time I tried coloring the maple with a 2 part gunstock finish. That was a problem with getting consistent results and more of a problem keeping white purfling lines white, especially with any touch up after their application and leveling. So now if dying the wood I use dark bindings without purfling where discoloration isn't a problem.

Smaller guitars will be more forgiving of softer, thinner tops and may even require them.

[Brent Tobin]

Depends on the sound you're looking for. Engelmann is usually good for fingerpicking and light playing. Of course, top thickness and bracing have a lot to do with it.

[Alan Carruth]

With tops density is the key. Engelmann tends to be lower in density than other spruces on the average, but, as with all woods, there's a lot of variation. Some of the densest tops I've gotten were labeled 'Engelmann': without that I might have thought they were Red spruce.

Since the long-grain stiffness at a given thickness tracks density pretty well on softwoods you can usually get away with thicknessing on the basis of density, although it's always better to measure this stuff directly. Because bending stiffness goes as the cube of thickness leaving a low density top a bit thicker to get the stiffness up usually ends up making a lighter top overall than a thinner piece of denser wood with the same overall stiffness.

Small guitars can use thinner tops, all else equal. We all know that a 4' length of 2x can be stiff enough to use as a bridge over a puddle, but an 8' length won't work crossing a wider stream. Small guitars with thin tops can put out a lot of power, even though they don't 'do' bass. Well made ukes can really cut through the mix, but won't provide the 'boom chuck' the way a Dread does.

[Clay Schaeffer]

Engelmann is one of the most variable spruces I have used. Some pieces are paper white, light weight, and less stiff and are used in place of German spruce by classical builders. Other pieces are stiff and dense, and as Alan mentioned, hard to distinguish from red spruce.
Because of the dark lines of the dense stuff, and peoples expectation the Engelmann should be paper white, some truly great tops for steel string construction are sold as "A" grade tops at lower prices. It would be dishonest to sell them as red spruce but they can certainly "Trompe l'oeil".
I am a fan of Engelmann spruce, but coming from smaller trees it often has a noticeable difference in runout from one edge of the piece to the other. I measure the runout on both edges of the piece and join the edges with the least (hopefully minimal) runout.

[Gilbert Fredrickson]

Thanks. I know the sound I'm not looking for. I've only made steel string guitars from Sitka and Mahogany. I have everything cut but nothing glued up for this guitar. I have "the fear."