Dead sounding slab of maple. Should I use it?

[violins88]

I have a good looking piece of slab cut maple. When I knock it, the sound is dead. Could it possibly work in a violin?

[Deo Lawson]

Carve it and find out. The common consensus is slab is not ideal, but wood varies.

[Barry J. Griffiths]

The risk to reward ratio is way off. With all of the maple available from countless sources and considering the amount of time between starting the project and getting some results; why risk it?

[Melvin Goldsmith]

I'd use it!

[Jaydub]

I’d use it. If it looks good why not? Plenty of good violins have been made from slab cut.

[Don Noon]

I'm not a fan of slab-cut backs, and have never used one.  Slab is not good for shrinkage and cracking.  But if it was very well seasoned (or torrefied), I might be tempted if it looked really nice.

The dead-ish ring could be misleading.  Fairly often I come across a wedge that doesn't ring well, due to some combination of the cut or grain that messes up the mode of the wedge that we normally listen to for the ring.  Usually there is a twist mode very near the bending mode, and energy gets transferred between them.  That type of deadness will disappear with carving.

Or it could be high damping... in which case I would expect perhaps a bit less ringy of an instrument.  That might be desirable or not, depending on what you want.

[LCF]

If you hold one piece loosely suspended with two fingers about 20% of the way down from one end and give it a good hard thwack in the middle with a mallet does it make a satisfying loud noise or even a hum tone? Very few pieces of wood won't give a marimba bar tone like this.

 

As to slab --- I have only ever used one piece slab for some mandolin backs with no probs but not two piece so I cannot say.

[JacksonMaberry]

3 hours ago, Melvin Goldsmith said:

I'd use it!

That's a ringing (sorry, couldn't resist) endorsement.

I'd use it too, though my opinion might count for a bit less than Melvin's. 

[Davide Sora]

14 hours ago, violins88 said:

I have a good looking piece of slab cut maple. When I knock it, the sound is dead. Could it possibly work in a violin?

I'm also not a fan of tangential maple, for the same reasons as Don Noon stated. But if it's beautiful I certainly wouldn't throw it in the fire, there are many antique violins, including Strad ones, that use it. I think it would cause the sound to lose some sparkle, but who knows, maybe if it's hard enough it wouldn't. I would consider making a viola out of it if your piece is big enough.

[nathan slobodkin]

I have made well over a hundred slab backed instruments and never had a problem. Also I don't really pay much attention to tone of an unworked piece of wood although some information can be had from tapping the plate while graduating. Even then sometimes a plate with a dull tap tone makes a great sounding instrument. Density and hardness give more useful information although sometimes they will fool you as well. 

 If it looks nice I would certainly use it.

[Andreas Preuss]

Dull tap tone of the uncut maple is IMO Irrelevant for the sound. 

The decision to use or not use slab cut wood is rather a question  of possible short term deformation. (First ten years)

 

[FiddleMkr]

I’ve only made one slab cut but that’s more than 10% of my production. (And My bench is idle again.) nevertheless my two cents is that you can’t judge a book by its cover, meaning that you could easily cut away the dampening part, and number 2, you can expect a lower frequency tap tone with slab cut. Most likely it will have a lower frequency than the top. The violin maker who I rely on most calls that “a dark sounding instrument whatever that means “. 
     He was right at least on the one I made. The back did have a lower tap tone than the top. 

[Christopher Jacoby]

Common consensus my Great Aunt's Corset. The Amatis onward, slab cut wood is lovely for a violin

[David Burgess]

6 hours ago, Christopher Jacoby said:

Common consensus my Great Aunt's Corset.

Your Great Aunt steadfastly refused to disrobe sufficiently for me to enable examination of her corset. You must have had "special privilege".

[Dr. Mark]

On 7/12/2024 at 2:01 PM, violins88 said:

I have a good looking piece of slab cut maple. When I knock it, the sound is dead. Could it possibly work in a violin?

If you're not making a violin for some customer who specifically wants quarter sawn then either use it or send it to me.  Either way your angst will go away.  No one here will put money that a good maker can't make a good violin with it.

[Christopher Jacoby]

17 hours ago, David Burgess said:

Your Great Aunt steadfastly refused to disrobe sufficiently for me to enable examination of her corset. You must have had "special privilege".

twas my degree in corset repair

[Bo Pontoppidan]

While I can't advise regarding the ring of the wood slab and the corelation to instrument sound I do have almost 30 years experience playing a wonderful violin with a slab cut back. It is a copy of the ex Panette del Gesu. I have had no problems with the integrity of the wood and the instrument is often praised for its beautiful sound.

I would not hesitate to use a good looking slab - in fact I have one i storage waiting to become a viola.

[David Beard]

I have no problem with slab cut.

I do tend to avoid wood that eats sound. I like very talkative wood.

[Don Noon]

I have no doubt that well-seasoned slab backs can look good, sound good, and live a very long time without problems when properly cared for.

But the fact remains that slab-cut is significantly weaker than quartered, and changes dimension more with humidity as well.  Quartered backs can also look, sound, and survive fine too... I just think there's less risk of a problem, like an accidental drop leading to a soundpost crack, so I choose not to use slab backs.  Maybe I'm too careful about these things, but I don't see any downside to being this way.

[David Burgess]

3 minutes ago, Don Noon said:

Maybe I'm too careful about these things, but I don't see any downside to being this way.

That's my approach, too.

[Dr. Mark]

3 hours ago, Don Noon said:

I don't see any downside to being this way

The only one I can think of is if you come across some really gorgeous slab wood, but of course there's lots of gorgeous wood around.

(later) - hmm, also you develop no skill or experience making a fine violin out of slab wood, but of course there are lots of things we don't develop skill or experience for and don't miss them.  Guess it depends on where our objectives lie.

[David Beard]

Any reasonable slab back is going to be strong enough to outlive multiple generations of owners.

The death of instruments is generally from not being valued.  If the instrument is beautiful and loved, it will survive.

[Marty Kasprzyk]

16 hours ago, Don Noon said:

>

But the fact remains that slab-cut is significantly weaker that quartered

>

Is this correct?

[Don Noon]

1 hour ago, Marty Kasprzyk said:

Is this correct?

It may well be correct... for the type of wood tested and the direction of the angle tested.  But it's not complete.

Importantly, it doesn't mention which plane the "angle" was varied in.  We don't know if the 90 degree angle represents tangential strength or radial strength... which is the point of discussion here for slab vs. quartered.  And I'm sure it varies a lot between different types of wood.

[David Burgess]

Most of the graphs I've seen have the bending strength higher at both 0 and 90 degrees, than in between.