This page is dedicated to promote the sale of Old Growth Redwood Guitar Tops, which were cut from beams that came from Fort Ross' Reconstruction in the Early 1970's. About Old Growth Redwood Guitar Tops from Fort Ross
Fort Ross Redwood Beam Guitar Tops · Monday,September 27, 2021
Fort Ross
During the summer of 2019, I was contacted by a guy who was selling Old Growth Redwood Beams from Fort Ross.
He told me he inherited the beams from a friend who received them in the early-1970's, as partial payment for his services of labor for the reconstruction of the Fort Ross Chapel building. Fort Ross was the old Russian Fort established in August 1812, by fur trappers on the West Coast of what would become California, near what is now Bodega Bay in Sonoma County. I took a few photos of the beams before we ran them through a planer to remove the typical grey color the beams had turned to due to their oxidation. In June 2020, a friend of mine and I started the process of cutting the pieces of the original beams into acoustic guitar tops, some of which are visible on this page. The first beam we started cutting up is a lighter shade of red. The second beams is more red than the first. The original size of Beam One was L 8' x W 9.75" x T 7.25 " and Beam Two was L 9' x W 11" x T 7". During the summer of 2021 my friend and I purchased the last beam from the fire that had vertical grain. This was the last beam usable for guitar tops, as the remaining beams were either horizontal or diagonal grain. Its dimensions are L 6' W 12" x T 6". According to the history of Fort Ross, as documented in the Diary of Fr. Mariano Payeras, in 1822, it is constructed of redwood planks, and no other wood was used in any of the structures. The Chapel was build in mid-1820's, circa 1824, but there is no documentation of the exact date. It was build of sawed redwood planks with mortised and tenon joints, while the walls had a puncheon style construction. According to Diane Spencer-Hancock and William E. Pritchard in their article The Chapel at Fort Ross, Its History and Reconstruction (available as a PDF on-line.), "The foundations consisted of twenty large pilings placed in a con figuration of four rows of five pilings. A gin-pole placed in the center of the cupola facilitated the raising of the structure. The ceiling and interior of the cupola were sheathed in hand-adzed planking and secured with hand-wrought iron nails." Additionally they wrote, "The 1916 reconstruction of the Chapel consisted primarily of raising the roof with the belltower and cupola intact and building a new system of walls and foundations. Unfortunately, in order to provide timber which would match the original wood of the Chapel, the equally ancient Officials' Barracks was demolished. 12 Timbers from that structure were used as the main support of the reconstructed Chapel, while additional board lumber." "The Fort Ross Chapel was found eligible for designation as a National Historic Landmark in 1969, architecturally significant as a rare U.S. example of a log church constructed on a Russian quadrilateral plan. An accidental fire destroyed the chapel on October 5, 1970. This loss of the original workmanship and materials of the chapel led to withdrawal of the Chapel's Landmark designation in 1971. A complete reconstruction of the chapel was undertaken in 1973 and the Fort Ross settlement, as a whole, retains its National Historic Landmark designation."[21]The current chapel was built during the intensive restoration activity that followed, but retains the American ranch period appearance." As one can see from my photos these two beams exhibit characteristics one would expect from antique lumber in their visual appearance, nature of the Old Growth Redwood used in the construction of the beams, the burn marks which would coincide with the explanation of the provenance of the beams from being saved from the Chapel Fire, and the with mortised and tenoned joint on the end of one of the beams where clearly the joint was constructed using antique hand tools, not modern day machinery. Based upon the above information this would date the tops we are cutting from the beams to almost 200 years old in the maximum age of their existence as processed lumber. In regards to this being Old Growth Redwood, based upon the tightness of the annual rings added with the width of each beam, I would estimate the age of the Redwood tree(s) from which these beams originated to be at least 275 years old; though I suspect due to the thickness of the beams, their width and length, tightness and shape of the annual rings that the original trees to be quite massive and to be thousands of years old. (https://watermark.silverchair.com/25158082.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAlYwggJSBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggJDMIICPwIBADCCAjgGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMpP227xtxYrtcuY9nAgEQgIICCatj6hpbExWG3_2vF1tbhyOg97P_wVcK7_Vl9MQVQjtcriAAuf7QVymacR6H1rYdyUEFg3FNeJ44hQGyIsmcBHknDmVky1jjj0OmUXbPjzXM22Pz6o8y_dwnW661hm39P2JKxOhG8TYQv4u7bmNasweM-Dtdxxes5a1JqZFuv5FQI6BG5R1tUy8rMjSQy3Ooet5NfOWyTwilz_Vkmt-Egq6NkykKvsnCtrXIfp07J8v5aqyz6zJ9sf9rsQdi1DZGtrMoJN4LnX_nJs1Dq8Do8dCn-gnkV6BR5TQMYlZxsvEaWRpIYa3anBiJDRLs3FATcs9DlcXADtl73RSP6Pb2JgJYVLEL2fvMbRxjigeiBv_2PFvoreKoIlfcUlDc1PHygHTACPkAyIA0gbBQIYqwNyqt1kO_Y9ZSU3rhcaCuPwr1SCGgZyTM1DhArntzuKIKOzvf0Q1R8EembJ3Sbg1kMXo3NWyDzJVmDFUkoMLaLtldRZWEsX8rFZ3PRIeUk_TSjqRaYpcNzvpr7rg8S9_OP_esaSsICkykSazMSC5zdPBlL2Aj6plhIyNUFRlVt8-KtG-vg1_YWF2q550lHzkkRe-k3uR-eYCKFmcYgIAbrX1UirNXhpve_KsaHn0QeEggLg9tBdNr5ibJAfXpUOcki3Y1xTOSl-a1rX_3m9YviTgJ12yAmZIavKrF)
Wood Grading
A word about our wood grading: Many different wood suppliers and guitar manufacturers grade their wood for guitar tops using different criteria. It can often been conflicting between the various companies. As such here is our criteria for our Fort Ross Old Growth Redwood tops:
Mastergrade: Our Mastergrade will have the most even of color for each book match side that fits into the pattern area of the guitar top. It will also have the best silking and meduallary rays, a minimum of 20 annual growth rings per inch and straightest even annual growth rings.
4 AAAA: Our 4 AAAA will have everything as our Mastergrade tops, but there will be some slight color variation within the pattern.
3 AAA: Our 3 AAA will have everything as our Mastergrade tops, but there will be greater color variation within the pattern. Please note that all our tops are solid vertical grain Old Growth Redwood, with the typical annual growth rings to be 20 or more per inch, and even though one top might not be as aesthetically perfect as another, the sound can be equal to a higher grade. Essentially, one is paying a higher price for a better looking rarer top...
