estebanana -> RE: Reliabe tonewood source? (Mar. 3 2013 20:20:14)
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I have used wood that I bought totally green and wet--it was quite literally more water than wood. I resawed it into usable pieces for guitar backs and sides, stickered it so air could circulate, and because it was Port Orford cedar and stank like hell I left it outside on my back porch for a year and then brought it into the workshop for further drying. I bought a bunch of boards of POC in 2001 and had them cut into back and sides sets. Yeah they were openly pungent for a few years while they sat on a high shelf. I have a few left, used all the best ones, but even now when i plane one they still smell like they were freshly cut. POC is amazingly potent when it comes to smell. After a month or two the surfaces oxidize back up and they don't let out s much smell. I have even used what I calculated to be 50 to 60 year old shelves from a demo of a kitchen, fully oxidized brown surfaced lumber, and when cut into it smelled as strong as the day it was cut. Potentially smelly stuff, makes great flamencos. I just used some remainder ribs for laminated liners. Useful wood. I don't think I've ever bought brace wood from a dealer or even a lumber yard....thinking...nah, I've gotten all my brace wood from either old houses being torn down or an old quarter of a spruce tree that was for a bass top. So the lesson for finding ready to use braces at least is to learn what to look for and reclaim it from an old house being remodeled. The trash bin in front of a house being remodeled can be a treasure box of brace woods and other wooden goodies. My latest batch cam from 2x8 tongue & groove planks out of the roof of house built in the 1950's. I am sure it's dry after 50 odd years baking in the summer sun under roofing. Keep a hatchet and hammer in your car and jump out when you see a house being torn down and start splitting the lumber they throw away. You will look totally maniacally crazy, but if you are thinking about making guitars you are already totally crazy. It helps to be resourceful, you can even luck occasionally out and find old wood from houses suitable to build tops or backs and sides with. You can get a spruce, redwood or cedar drawer bottom now and then that can make a top. I once found a redwood drawer that could make a single piece top, but it had a darkish small grain turnaround that looked like the birth mark on Gorbachev's forehead. I decided not to use it for guitar top and now in retrospect I wish I had. [;)]
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