Physical and Acoustical Properties of Wavy Grain Sycamore Maple (Acer pseudoplatanus L.) Used for Musical Instruments
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The subject of the study is interesting. However, I am confused about the choice of species that are studied. The objective is on maple wood however, the authors studied sycamore and spruce wood.
Line 31: "Over time, luthiers used maple wood with wavy fiber for the back of the violins,"
Could the authors add the reason why wavy fiber is sough?
Up to line 52, the introduction is very clear. Then suddenly, we are talking about maple wood without having explained why we are talking about this species. In addition, the sentences are very long: 5 lines for the first sentence (53 to 56) and 7 lines for the second sentence (56 to 63) making reading very difficult.
Line 54: What does a density of 0.52 0.73 g/cm3 means? it this a range of density? 0.52 to 0.73 g/cm3 ?
From the introduction, the novelty of the study is not clearly presented
Line 73: The objective is to study maple wood. Why are sycamore wood studied in the materials section ?
Table 1: What are STDV ? What is the interest of giving the size of the samples?
2.2.1. Color measurement
I think a color measurement is not sufficient to characterize the macroscopic aspect of the structure. An analysis of the color texture would have been interesting
Anatomical measurement should be explained in the materials and methods section
Line 125: The authors are talking about RRI regularity index. This parameter has never been described before, the same as for CWL
Why there is no D class in the figure 1?
Figure 1: The objective of the study is to evaluate the physical, acoustic, and elastic properties 64 of maple wood, which best describe the quality classes defined by anatomical criteria used 65 by luthiers to sort the wood material. I don’t understand why the properties of spruce wood are studied
Figure 3: notations should be standardized. In figure 1 class A, B, C are used. In figure 3, authors use A grade, B grade
Line 171: why using the word “respectively”?
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
First we would like to thank you for carefully going through the manuscript and providing helpful suggestions for its improvement. Thanks to the constructive comments, we are able to present clearly and better version than the original manuscript. All your comments have been considered. In particular, the following changes have been made according to the reviewer suggestions, highlighted by yellow color in the manuscript.
In attached file, we send the point-by-point response.
Best regards,
Mariana Domnica Stanciu
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
While I appreciate the concept of the study, the paper needs a lot of work. The purpose of the study is not clear (see notes below). The methodology is flawed in that type of figure, angel variations, etc., is not noted or discussed (see notes below), and the results are questionable. English language clean up may help a lot of this but significant discussion in the introduction is needed about types of figure in maples, as is better sample methodology.
- The abstract is confusing. What was the purpose of the study? Is it trying to correlate the desire for figured maple with favorable acoustic properties? Clarity is needed here
- the purpose statement in the introduction is also confusing. It appears as though the authors are trying to figure out what additional properties figured maple gives to musical instruments. However figure is broad and each degree of fiber angle change could have an impact. The introduction does not do a review of the different types of figure, such as the curly, quilted, fiddleback, and flame figure in maple, among many others
- It is unclear whether the citation about sycamore in the intro is about European sycamore (a maple) or North American sycamore (not a maple). North American sycamore has genetically controlled interlocked grain, which is NOT the same as having curly or wavy figure. They come from two separate mechanisms. This point needs to be clarified.
- methods: how did the authors decide what constituted wavy grain, or enough wave? Figure is not uniform in wood. Some areas may have more figure than others. What was the cut off? What if the wave had more of an angle in a piece? How was the selection of wood controlled?
- I do not understand the purpose of measuring color of the point of the research was sound quality from figured wood
- it is unclear how the width of the annual rings plays into figure in this study and should be explained
- as the color data was not statistically significant and color does not affect sound, I suggest deleting this part. It does not help the narrative
- the conclusions make it sound like the authors were comparing spruce wood results to maple. Is this correct? In three different places we have three different purposes for the study
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
First we would like to thank you for carefully going through the manuscript and providing helpful suggestions for its improvement. Thanks to the constructive comments, we are able to present clearly and better version than the original manuscript. All your comments have been considered. In particular, the following changes have been made according to the reviewer suggestions, highlighted by yellow color in the manuscript.
In attached file, we send the point-by-point response.
Best regards,
Mariana Domnica Stanciu
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The publication does not have any innovative elements at first glance. It describes the already-known parameters of sycamore wood. The innovation of this research should be described in more detail. Since there are so many studies on maple wood in the literature, why was it decided to test the same parameters again?
Line 53: why is shrinkage in the longitudinal direction mentioned? It is well known that it is insignificantly small. What about other anatomical directions where shrinkage is much greater?
Line 54: The density at 12% what MC? Is it a range of density or some value? Unit of density?
Methods: how many samples do you prepare? Were the samples cut from a single piece of wood, or were there many?
Table 1: why do you decide to present wood density value with such accuracy? Values are shown inconsistently in the table. What does the presentation of the exact dimensions of the samples (where it was assumed that they are simply cubes with a side of 40mm) with such high accuracy contribute to the analysis of wood parameters? What was the intention of presenting this data?
Colour measurement: how many points was the head applied to? On what level? Was the concentration of, e.g. wood rays in a given place taken into account?
Line 104: why the number of measurements 360? With 15 measurements (line 101) per sample, were there 24 samples in total?
Line 125: how was the RRI calculated?
Table 2: from how many measurements are these values? How many annual growth rings were there in the sample? The small SD is surprising for dozens of tree ring width measurements. How was CWL calculated/measured?
Fig 1c and d: Is it possible to use more realistic intervals, e.g. 0.2, 0.4, 0.6…
Lines 192-207: since all the research results are consistent with the cited research, what was the point of doing the same study again? So, did the sycamore wood analysed in this paper have any unique features?
Figure 5: what does it mean “niu LT”?
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
First we would like to thank you for carefully going through the manuscript and providing helpful suggestions for its improvement. Thanks to the constructive comments, we are able to present clearly and better version than the original manuscript. All your comments have been considered. In particular, the following changes have been made according to the reviewer suggestions, highlighted by yellow color in the manuscript.
In attached file, we send the point-by-point response.
Best regards,
Mariana Domnica Stanciu
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have worked hard to clear up the confusion. After a bit more English language clean up on the new areas, this manuscript will be ready for publication.
Reviewer 3 Report
Thank you very much for considering my comments. The text has no errors. It can be published in this form.
