Official Luthiers Forum!

Well, I have "peeked in the window" here a few times in the past, but I guess it is time to jump in. I am located in the central part of northern Minnesota. My building is often a bit sporadic since it has to fit between a bunch of other interests. Looking at the member list, I notice quite a number of familiar names.

I build mostly acoustic and use an adjustable neck and mostly my own cut white spruce tops. I sit on a big stack of tonewood (couple of thousand guitars worth) and seem to always be adding more.

Just wanted to say "Hello". I am still a bit busy with other things, but the shop is getting up and running again so I will be trying to be checking in here fairly often. Looks like a pretty good place to hang out,

Grant Goltz

HI Grant and welcome to our humble abode. Hope to see some pics of your work. Please tell us a bit more about White Spruce as I have never used it before. What is the botanical name? Any chance of selling a few sets or split wedge to me? I am always looking for new tops to experiment with.

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tim...
http://www.mcknightguitars.com

Hello Grant -
Welcome to the OLF We would love too see some of your work, as well as that huge stash!

LanceK

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Hey Grant,

Welcome! I'm sure that many of the folks here will be fascinated by your adjustable neck angle design. Hehe -- wait til they see your incredible tonewood inventory.   

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

Welcome Grant. Merry Christmas!

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Dave Bland

remember...

"If it doesn't play in tune...it's just pretty wood"

Welcome Grant. I think you will like it here.

Grant
dear friend I'm so glad to see you joined OLF, cannot believe you're here. Hang your hat and overcoat and stay with us .

Hey guys, here's the coco man; a special friend, an amazing builder and a great wood intendor.



Grant beg your pardon, I couldn't resist, this picture is so beautiful.
Ggggdelazzer38712.5809837963

Hey Grant;
Great to see you here!
Your generous store of wit & wisdom will be most welcome here, I'm sure.
Not to mention your beautiful tonewood. You & your resaw might end up being way busier than you want to be!
All the Best!   Dan'l

Welcome Grant...I know you only by reputation and by an interest in White Spruce as yet another great tonewood. It has to be cold in Minnesota (relative for our Canadian and other cold climate members)...how do you heat your shop in the winter?

Gg...great portrait...very strong pose with the subject framed nicely.

Grant, welcome to the greatest place to hang out on the web.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Welcome Grant, I believe you are responsible for a few of the nice sets in my ever growing tonewood stash. Glad to have you join us at the OLF and really looking forward to your input. That is a nice looking guitar.

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

Hey Grant,

Welcome to the OLF, it's good to see you here.

Recognize this stuff?

Thanks all for the super friendly welcome. I am beginning to feel at home already. My dear friend from Italy has already given you a look at me and one of my instruments (this happens to be the prototype model for my adjustable neck design), so I guess I cannot claim to be a young whipper-snapper

Yes, Bruce, I recognize the wood. It has been a while, but you have certainly done it justice. BTW, I probably have another hundred sets or so of that stuff.

White spruce, Picea glauca. It is the wood that lots of the BC tonewood is crossed with. But we just have the pure stuff here in northern Minnesota. Only the ocaisional tree gets big enough and good enough quality for soundboards. Haven't even run across one for a couple of years. I have wood from a total of only 8 trees of a range of quality. That might sound like a lot of wood, but it is less than 1,000 tops because the trees are small and the useable trunk is frequently short. Lots of bracewood, though

Guess I need to figure out how one posts photos here and I can pass on a bit of serious wood porn, as my photos have been called. I have about 40 species of back and side wood. Tons of old growth cocobolo (some from 22" diameter logs - that's just counting the heartwood). Just got in all of the quartersawn center cuts from a 9 foot long, almost 30" diameter goncalo alves log. Have about 400 board feet of quartersawn mango back and side billets coming in in a few weeks. Plus there are almost 5,000 pounds of ebony billets out in the shed. The list goes on and on, but I better quit for now.

Anyhow, as I get time and get a bit more settled here, I will read through more of the posts and begin offering my humble $.02 for what it is worth. Lance, if I say things that are out of proper protocol, keep me on the straight and narrow.

Thanks again,
Grant Goltz

Welome to the OLF Grant, I am not aware of your reputation but by all accounts I will be most pleased with your participation here.

Thanks for coming aboard and Happy New Year!

Shane

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Canada

Welcome Grant

Im a newbie but looking forward to another member to gather wisdom from You do sound like you have the serious wood porn! that mango sounds yummy POST POST!

Zac_in_ak

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Zac

Anchorage Alaska

Finshed my 1st! See #1 here

Glad to see you here Grant. You'll like it here.

Grant,
Welcome to the OLF. It's good to see another "grey beard" in the OLF family. Can't wait to tap into that knowledge of building guitars. Contribute often. We love pictures here.
Welcome aboard!

Hi Grant
Welcome to the OLF. A while back you helped me out with some tips on re-sawing and blade selection. Looking forward to your input here.

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

Welcome to your new home! Happy Holidays,
Evan

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http://www.NewYorkGuitarRepair.com

It's good to see another member with enough years behind him to add wisdom and unique experience to this forum.    I use white spruce braces too.

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Ken Franklin
clumsy yet persistent
https://www.kenfranklinukulele.com

Welcome Grant,
hope to get to know you some.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Hi Grant,

Nice to see you here. For those that don't know, Grant has been an anchor at the luthierforum (without the "S"), and has generously shared his wood and lutherie knowledge.

I'll tell you a little bit more that you wouldn't know about Grant...

When a French expedition team, the Boreal Confluence Expedition, wanted to retrace the route of the voyageurs from the Pacific to Hudson Bay, where do you think they might go to find an authentic birch-bark canoe that could withstand the cross-continental journey? Well, they went to Squeedunk Kayaks, one of Grant's ventures, and Grant and his partners built the birch-bark canoes for them.

Grant is also a world-class bird carver. I saw one of his sculptures/carvings in person: a pair of life-size cormorants standing on a rock. I may not have the eye to judge whether this particular carving deserved the 2nd place finish in the world competition that it got (or whether the first place finisher was better or not), but I can tell you it looked like taxidermy, not a carving. Absolutely amazing work, from the feathers, to the bird's tongue, to the birds' grip on the "rock" with their webbed feet. I asked permission to touch the rock they were posed on, as it was carved and painted and textured to look real. It looked more like a rock than some rocks do.

Grant's house, which he shares with his wife (who is herself an anthropologist), is the amalgam of something a Hobbit would be comfortable calling home, and Disneyland North (as one of his friends calls it.) One highlight of their home is a 2-story primeval trickling waterfall that ends in a hot tub. This area, which I assume is concrete, is made to resemble rock. If you want to see "fake rock" as convincing as this, you will need to visit one of the newer exhibits at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, or maybe the San Diego Zoo.

I played for just a few seconds on three of Grant's guitars. I think they were the punchiest (loudest) guitars I have ever played. I'm not sure if that was the White Spruce talkin', or the original bracing pattern that Grant has evolved (that includes curved braces, as well as an offset X to promote trebles.) Or a combination of a number of things to get there. I'm not sure what he did to get there, but he arrived. (If my own kooky experimental notions of bracing and bridge engineering prove to be crap, I will mimic Grant's bracing next - to assure myself at least one good guitar.)

Grant also builds rustic furniture, teaches kids pottery, and does flint knapping. His "day gig" (which swallowed him whole this past Spring, Summer, and Fall) is as a soil scientist, specializing is recognizing the signs of ancient human activity (such as burials.) If you dig a hole for a commercial construction project in much of Minnesota, you might just meet Grant in person.

I'm not sure if Grant would be considered more of an artistic scientist, or a scientific artist. But, I know he's one hell of a nice guy. If you visit his tonewood stash in person, wear a diaper, and empty your drool cup!

So there, now you know a little more about Grant.

Welcome Grant!

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Hy Dennis
glad to see you're here too. What's up with your home made thickness sander?

Just to complete your post with a picture...



Ssssshhh.... she could fly away

Gg

Hi Grant,

I was wondering if it was the same Grant Goltz that used to hang around at the Guillemot kayak forums. Dennis' post confirmed it. I remember that canoe. You'll like it here, it's a lot like Nick's.

Actually, it was your talking about building guitars over at the kayak forums that helped get me started along this path. So thanks, and welcome.

Paul.

Seems like a small world, Paul. here we both are on yet another forum. We aren't building as many kayaks these days, but the birchbark canoes have been doing well.

Good to see you here.

Grant