I Once Had A Girl: My Adventure with Norwegian Wood

My Adventure with Century-Old Norwegian Wood

Discovering a Piece of History

John Lennon sang about it back in 1965... Norwegian Spruce, often called European Spruce, has been very desirable for use in instrument-making for centuries. For me, it started with a simple marketplace ad: Norwegian spruce logs from trees planted in the 1890s, now felled and waiting for a second life. As a luthier who's spent years coaxing music from pre-cut boards, this felt like a siren's call. Why settle for the middleman when I could dive into the raw heart of guitar-making? I mean, Michigan is tree country. Some of the finest guitars were built from trees felled just miles away from my home. Suddenly, the idea of starting from whole logs—splitting, sawing, and seasoning them myself—seemed like my destiny. What secrets might these ancient rings whisper into the tops of my next acoustic guitars? All very romantic thinking, of course, but perhaps the better question was, what the heck am I getting myself into this time? Follow my activities over time—you’ll see this recurring theme…

Teaming Up with Doug and Tom: Sawdust and Stories

That spark led me straight to Doug and Tom at Tom Sawyer's Firewood and Sawmill Services in Hastings, Michigan—just an hour's drive from my place. These two are the real deal: weathered hands, easy conversation, and a mill yard that's flooded with logs, stacked firewood, and sawdust. Lots of sawdust. For a guy used to the tidy predictability of lumberyards, their world was a revelation. Staring at those massive logs, their tight growth rings a testament to decades of quiet resilience, I couldn't help but mutter, "How am I going to cram this forest into my shoebox of a workshop?" True to form, I shoved logistics aside and struck a deal for two behemoths.

Under the golden haze of autumn leaves—shifting from emerald to fiery amber—we got to work. Together, we quartered and sliced two logs that were each 10 feet long and 34 inches in diameter, revealing the pale, fragrant heartwood that promises exceptional tone: clear highs, warm mids, and a sustain that sings. The air hummed with saws and banter, the kind that turns strangers into collaborators. And the drive out there, winding through patchwork farm fields and rolling backroads, was pure therapy—no rush, just the sights and scents of fall in the air. It's moments like these that remind me why I build guitars: not just for the sound, but for the experiences along the way. To me, those experiences go into each guitar as much as the wood does.

Bringing the Timber Home: Anticipation on the Racks

Several exhilarating days later, I hauled my bounty back: stacks of fresh, rough-sawn Norwegian spruce, still whispering of their 130-year slumber. In the workshop, I fine-tuned the cuts into guitar top blanks—each slab may yield up to three soundboards, veined with history. Now they're stacked on drying racks, air-drying slowly under fans and watchful eyes. In six months to a year, when the moisture dips just right, they'll be ready to resaw, thickness-plane, and voice into instruments that I imagine will burst with resonance.

There's magic in this wait. These aren't generic planks; they're survivors—shaped by Michigan winters, storms, and sun. I can already hear the first chord struck on a guitar born from them: crisp, alive, echoing the trees' quiet endurance.

Lessons in Wood

This log-to-lute odyssey has reshaped how I see my craft. Starting with logs- strips away the shortcuts, forcing you to honor the wood's quirks and gifts. It's equal parts art and science, where, in the end, each top will sing its own song. But honestly? The highlight wasn't the lumber, the sawdust, or the science—it was Doug and Tom. Salt-of-the-earth souls who shared their know-how without a hint of gatekeeping, treating a newbie like a friend over those rewarding few weeks.

In the end, guitar-building isn't solitary. It's a chain of connections: from the planters of 1890 to the fellers, the millwrights, and now me. And yeah, it's about the music... but mostly, it's about the people. And isn’t that what it's all about?

Stay tuned—I'll be sharing the next steps and beyond as these boards awaken. What's your wildest wood story? Drop it in the comments.