Herbert, The easy answer is, yes. It can be due to either one or both of those things. You did not mention the species of the wood so I will imagine that it is spruce of some kind. The grain lines in quarter sawn spruce for a soundboard, or any wood for that matter, are annual annular (not a repeat) rings. The darker lines differ in density from the lighter areas between the lines. This is due to the changes brought about by the seasons. If the soundboard is too roughly sanded (I don't sand a soundboard, I plane and scrape only, even for final finishing) it can erode the softer material in the lighter streaks more than the more dense lines, resulting in what I call "cupping" of the surface. Also, in some species harvested and sawn in high humidity (the Pacific Northwest) the area between the annular lines tends to shrink more than the harder lines, likewise producing a "cupping." However, if the soundboard is truly seasoned, dried properly and long, and then planed to within .5mm of thickness and carefully scraped the rest of the way, the cupping should not be present since the scraper removes the wood over a defined area regardless of its density.
I have a theory (having one for almost any occasion) that really old soundboard tonewood does get more stable and better with time, if it has lots of it. Spruce and other tonewoods contain small amounts of volatile resins which, with long storage at the proper humidity, will "gas off" the volatile materials within the individual cells of the wood, producing a brighter and more acoustic material, sort of a "super wood" if you will, harder and more tonal at a molecular level. Sorry for the digressions. It's one man's opinion, I could be wrong. Best, Rob Dorsey, Luthier Florence, KY -----Original Message----- From: Herbert Ward [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 10:54 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [LUTE] Grain texture on soundboard. In some areas of my soundboard the grain of the wood can be felt as slighly raised ridges. In other areas, the grain, though visually apparent, cannot be felt. Is this discrepancy due to an inherent difference in the wood, or is it due to the manner in which the lute was built? To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
