birch guitars

[blindboygrunt]

i listen to a lot of ryan adams music and am particularly fond of his solo acoustic stuff and like the sound he gets from his harmony guitars ( am not a fan of the buck owens red white and blue look , but love the black one he uses )

i understand that these are birch guitars and in another thread someone describes mahogany as having greater note separation , that makes sense to me and thinking about it , thats what i like about his playing also .

anyone any pointers about birch guitars ? wouldnt call it a common wood in acoustics , why would that be ? harmony acoustic guitars over here in ireland are as rare as rocking horse's poo.

[zombywoof]

Early Gibson A mandolins were, of course, often made with birch bodies.

 

I have two all birch guitars and one birch body, spruce top guitar (and about too pick up another with a birch body and Adi spruce top).

 

Birch has a grain that looks like curly maple. More often as not though you will see the back and sides of a birch body guitar painted black or stained mahogany. It is also a very dense and heavy wood. To me it is a bright sounding wood. But I would think its use by Harmony, Schmidt and others had more to do with the fact that it was the cheapest hard wood available.

 

About the only newish guitar I can think of that was made of birch was a Canadian-built Garrison. I don't have a clue what the model number was though. I think the reason you don't see more birch guitars is because of its association with the mail order catalog guitars like Harmony. It just yells cheap.

[blindboygrunt]

 

 

About the only newish guitar I can think of that was made of birch was a Canadian-built Garrison. I don't have a clue what the model number was though. I think the reason you don't see more birch guitars is because of its association with the mail order catalog guitars like Harmony. It just yells cheap.

 

cheers zomby , you think ryan adams just are spectacularly well set up / suit his style / or i'm the only one who thinks they sound nice ? do you have yours because they were cheap or because you like the sound

[tpbiii]

In the 30s, 40s, and 50s, many many thousands of cheap solid wood birch guitars were built on a production line, probably ins Chicago, and sold under many brand names -- Stella, Silvertone, Harmony, Kay, etc.

 

Back in the 70s, we use to buy these guitars and hang them on a wall for decoration -- 12 guitars. They normally cost us under ten dollars.

 

I guess I never took their pictures, but they are of a quite common design. Here is one someone turned into a planter

 

 

There is no binding, no inlay, etc. -- it is all paint.

 

Well, we had a water pipe break over our display wall, and many of the guitars were destroyed. I gave the pieces to a friend on mine who builds guitars for kids. Well, inside all of those guitars -- six different "makers" -- was hand written serialization number that was clearly from the same production line. Part of the serial number was a two letter code that was clearly the company for which the guitar was being built.

 

There is a major history story here somewhere. A lot of people had these low end guitars.

 

Let's pick,

 

-Tom

[zombywoof]

cheers zomby , you think ryan adams just are spectacularly well set up / suit his style / or i'm the only one who thinks they sound nice ? do you have yours because they were cheap or because you like the sound

 

 

I am guessing Ryan Adams has a couple of guitar techs in tow to set up or perhaps even modify his guitars.

 

I only own these kinds of guitars because I am a fan. The wood though is only one factor in what gives these guitars their sound. All of mine are ladder braced. The Schmidt-made guitars are very lightly built though and just sound better than say the Supertones and Harmonys that have bulkier bracing. In general though with the smaller body guitars, the spruce top ones have a smoother and fatter sound than the all birch instruments. The larger body all-birch guitars (15" + lower bout) though really can sound great. Deep low end and a nice crispness to the upper end. They are not near as lo-fi sounding as the all birch parlors and concerts.

 

Birch guitars can have an interesting look. Here is a 1920s Stromberg that I think looks kinda cool.

 

 

[bobouz]

Early Gibson A mandolins were, of course, often made with birch bodies.

Yes indeed.

 

Birch is quite similar to maple, and good stuff!