Every instrument set begins where it should: with a tree. Not just any tree, but one chosen with care. A spruce standing tall on the coast of British Columbia, a figured maple from the foothills of the North Cascades, or a koa tree growing in the slopes of Hawai‘i.
At Pacific Rim Tonewood (PRT), our spruce logs are mostly sourced from carefully managed stands stretching along the mist-heavy coastlines of British Columbia. Koa is brought in from our own reforestation partnerships in Hawai‘i, where we’re helping cultivate a sustainable future for a wood that has become both culturally revered and commercially scarce.
Big Leaf maple is gathered closer to home, often within a few hundred miles of the mill in Washington’s Skagit Valley, where PRT is also investing in propagation programs to ensure its continued availability by planting genetically selected stock from figured maple trees.
Each log has a history, and it’s our job to help shape its future.
Transport and Log Prep
At Pacific Rim Tonewoods (PRT), we don’t cut down trees ourselves. We work with landowners, often First Nations companies, who are harvesting that wood.
We select these already-harvested logs from their sorting yards. This is where the initial grading and selection process takes place. Out of the hundreds of pieces we inspect, we choose a handful, maybe 30, that meet our exacting standards. We look for straightness, grain orientation, diameter, and signs of rot or hidden stress. What might pass as lumber elsewhere won’t make it past this line.
Once selected and delivered to our 20-acre mill site, logs are scaled for volume, marked for yield, often dewatered from river transport, and pressure-washed to remove dirt before milling. They’re staged in the shaded log yard behind the shop (protected from heat, spoilage, and decay). Trees, as our mill team often says, are like giant vegetables. Once harvested, they’re racing the clock.
This is where intention enters the process.
Even before the saws touch wood, we’re already shaping its future: preserving quality, minimizing waste, and preparing each log to give its best.
Breaking the Log, Revealing the Grain
Logs are bucked into rounds roughly the height of a guitar, then hydraulically split into blocks. This updated splitting process helps expose knot paths early, especially in spruce, and allows us to separate clean, usable blocks from less stable material.
The grain orientation becomes visible in these first cuts. A fine mist of water is sprayed to reveal pitch pockets and defects more clearly.
The goal is to navigate the guitar block, looking for these defects that make it unsuitable. This is where we determine whether it’ll work for guitar tops or bracing.
This is also where experience meets precision milling.
On the floor, human eyes and a strategically-positioned monitor guide each decision.
Why the monitor?
Because the grain can vary from one end of the block to the other.
We use a camera on the opposite side so the sawyer can see the back of the block on a screen while still viewing the front in person. This helps ensure the block is aligned correctly or squared up before it’s clamped (or dogged) into place. In short, it gives them a second set of eyes for better precision.
Band saws are kept razor sharp, with stellite-tipped blades, maintained on-site with CNC machines that allow for repeatable, millimeter-precise sharpening. It’s not about volume, it’s about intention. Our goal isn’t to get the most boards from a log, but the best boards possible while maximizing the yield.
For us, each cut is a judgment call. Each block is a possibility. And slowly, the rough exterior of a tree gives way to something with direction, symmetry, and sound. The story continues, and the instrument inside begins to take shape.
Drying & Stabilizing
Once milled, the journey from raw wood to tonewood depends on moisture. You can’t build a guitar until that wood is dry and seasoned. Get it wrong, and the best-cut billet can cup. Get it right, and you preserve the resonance locked inside the grain.
For spruce, we’ll air-dry the wood and finish it off in the dehumidification kiln. This will take about 4 weeks.
For maple, we dry the wood in a vacuum kiln. This can take 5 days.
As the wood stabilizes, the sound begins to take shape. From the forest to the kiln room, everything we do is in service of that moment, where grain meets resonance, and the material is ready to speak.
Science Meets Craft: Sonic Grading
Even the most skilled luthiers trust their instincts. But when consistency matters across multiple builds or professional instruments, you want objective data to give you that extra layer of confidence.
That’s where sonic grading comes in.
But before a board can be sonically tested, it has to meet specific visual and dimensional criteria: free of obvious defects and thick enough to be processed further. If it passes that filter, it’s then acclimated and dimensioned before being graded sonically using BING (Beam Identification for Non-Destructive Grading) technology.
This technology lets us measure three key attributes of every soundboard blank:
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Density (mass of the wood per unit volume)
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Stiffness (modulus of elasticity)
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Damping (Q value—how long it rings)
A small steel ball is dropped onto the wood, and precise sensors record the vibrational response. From this data, we calculate how the wood is likely to behave acoustically. This is the process we use to sort tops into Low, Medium, or High sonic grades, giving you a level of tonal predictability rarely seen in raw materials.
If a board meets our sonic standards, it gets a sticker and continues down the soundboard path. If not, it’s redirected back into the general wood stream for other uses.
More than half the wood we test never makes the cut. But that’s intentional.
What remains is a catalog of pieces that perform. We mean really perform.
Matching, Grading, and Preparing the Set
The final step is part science, part art. It’s matching and grading.
Here, our mill team looks at each block not just as a single piece, but as part of a future set. We evaluate colour, grain orientation, figure, and clarity. Pieces are bookmatched for symmetry (so the grain flows naturally from centerline to edge), and surfaces are planed smooth to reveal what’s really inside.
From there, every set is sorted by visual grade: AA, AAA, or AAAA. The differences might be subtle—tighter grain, greater homogeneity, or a cleaner center. But for a luthier shaping a top or backplate, those details matter.
The result is a piece of wood that feels intentional. Clean corners. Balanced figure. A blank that passes inspection and invites craftsmanship. It’s ready to become part of someone’s next build.
Conclusion: Why Process Matters
Every soundboard, back, and binding that leaves our mill carries more than just grain and structure; it carries a story. One that begins in the forest, passes through hands and tools shaped by decades of experience, and ends in music.
Each step, from the first cut to final grading, is part of a larger arc. What a luthier does next is where the real magic happens.
Each set in our tonewood collection reflects the process you just read about. Whether you're looking for soundboards, back & sides set, binding, or bracewood, the wood you choose is the final link in the story. See what speaks to you.
