Crotch Tops

You may ask yourself… How does New Orleans Guitars get those killer crotch top sinker cypress pieces for guitar tops. Well I was asking myself the same question and realized I should not ask myself, I should ask Vincent.

So here is the deal. They go out into the lakes. Now these lakes are not lakes like anywhere else in the USA. The are the lakes of the Gulf Coast. They are usually brakish or salt water. On one side of the lakes is the Gulf of Mexico. On the other side is good ole Luisiana swampland.

So what we are taling bout is cypress trees that while they were being floated from the forest where they were harvested to the mills where they would be proecessed, some of them sank.

SO thats where it comes from. But how do you get it out of the bottom of the lake. I asked and he told… Shrimp boats. Vincent, being the good ole boy he is living on the Gulf Coast knows several shrimpers. They allow him to tag along on their shrimp harvesting and sometimes as the nets are dragging the bottom scooping up shrimp they snag onto one of these ancient trees down on the bottom and pull it up. Thats when the shrimpers start cussing their luck and Vincent starts blessing his!

They are cut into manageable pieces once landed. Then they have to sit for months before they are even allowed in the drying room. Then they sit for many more months. Then they get cut into blanks for tops and back into the drying room they go. And eventually…