Lutz - Traditional Tonewood

At Pacific Rim Tonewoods, we personally select each of our spruce logs. We split those logs into wedge shaped blocks, focusing on maximizing quality while minimizing any twist that a log might have. Our sawyers then cut these blocks into  exactingly quartered boards, locking in the radial stiffness. These boards are air dried, then “finished” over a period of 3-4 weeks in our dehumidification kiln, reaching a final moisture content of 8.5%. When dry, the boards are resawn into bookmatched sets and graded into one of three traditional grades:

AAAA – our best soundboard visually; stiff, silky and uniform in color across the whole pattern of the guitar

AAA – clean top, minimal color bands and light compression rings possible, uniform growth rate

AA – color bands and compression rings allowed; light knot shadow towards the waist / upper bout of the pattern; uniform to faster growth rate