Thanks for posting.

FYI- I live in the Great Lakes, where the "Michigan hard maple" he talks of is the most common species. I'm from Michigan, and my wife's family actually were involved for many years in logging and sawing maple for commercial uses. (Some of her relatives still have enough property to harvest every 8-10 years, and even the smaller trees make great maple syrup.) I agree that it can be hard to work with, but I've done it a lot so it seems like not too much of an issue. Patience and understanding the way the grain works are key.

It's interesting that he says that not much is known about how the Cremonese makers selected their wood. One of the texts I read was rather detailed about specific different makers' methods of selection, including those of Giusseppe Guarneri, which seemed as much about superstition as anything else. I'm not superstitious about materials. Good wood is good wood. It doesn't need to grow alone in a rocky opening surrounded by wild blueberries.

He did not mention sycamore, which in my reading says was/is common among many European makers. We have a LOT of sycamore around here as well, and even when not figured the quartered is quite beautiful, very similar to silky oak/lacewood only with a smaller pattern.

It was nice to hear his opinion of continental US spruce species, because I'd considered some of them. I have also read of using red juniper for tops, which he did not mention.

I can't imagine using tuilp poplar. We have a lot of that locally as well, and it is not my favorite wood. It's fine if it's going to be painted because it is quite dimensionally stable, even moreso than maple, if I had to guess, but there is nothing "fine" about it. Maybe it's only because I've used it as a secondary wood or for paint that I feel that way.

For me, the bottom line is one of his comments that you can't verify that what you're buying as expensive air-dried european tonewood isn't flash-dried in a kiln from Canada. Shopping locally I can be sure I know where it came from because I've dealt with the suppliers before, I've used the materials a lot in the past and recognize what I'm looking at, and they're not raising the price stratospherically. The higher the price the more incentive there is to "cheat." Maple's maple. If I go to the supplier and buy a hunk of maple from Michigan Hardwoods, I know what it is, I know where it came from, and nobody's trying to represent that it's anything other than a hunk of tree. They don't care how I'm using it, it's just a tree. Not a magic violin tree, you know?

I will definitely keep you posted on the project.

m