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We sawed up this slab. Half of it was garbage, I let him sell it to me because it gives him a chance to unload some junk, but also that I’m not a hard bargaining waste of time. I let him sell me stuff he can’t sell to house contractors. On occasion I insist on some very picky sanding jobs on backs in sides in groups, that’s not as fun for him as offloading waste slabs on me. I’ve gotten some pretty fine stuff overall.
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That guy is my friend Shoji, he’s a drinking buddy and a fellow bee keeper.
Yamashita-san throws tree through his band saw and rips them in half as if they were 2x4’s. That pile is what’s left over after he saws out huge beams.
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These are going to be made into boards. And I’m feeling a table out of this. Originally I was going to use this to make a box for the 19th century guitar project, but I’m going to look for other wood and save this for something utilitarian.
This wood is called Tochi
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There’s a case for a one piece back with flame on the diagonal like a violin. On my small 19th century model I can sell the idea, or just build it and they will come~
This wood planes well and feels a lot like English Sycamore. The spalted sections are not punky, perfectly healthy, structurally. It’s not brittle or ropey. It looks to be fun to plane by hand and bend. I’ll probably make a few single piece back sets and some uke sets and a few two piece backs. The sides are tricky, I don’t shy from a small twig knot in vertical grain wood on a back, but I don’t like them in ribs. The way to deal with it is to laminate a veneer inside the rib.. is it worth it?
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This all reminds me of a magical place that used to exist north of San Francisco a ways, called "Into the Woods". It was a locally-sourced wood store. Not really anything like a lumbar yard. It was stuffed to the brim with oddities you would never find anywhere else. It closed down I believe when the owner passed away.
RE: Sawyers shop- Japanese Horse Che... (in reply to estebanana)
Yamashita-san may have pawned off his trash to me, but looks like I have the last laugh- two sets plus. Extra ribs, and more sets for smaller instruments. Each of those boards behind the backs will be sawed into three or four ribs. The left over orphan rib will make other instruments.
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RE: Sawyers shop- Japanese Horse Che... (in reply to Firefrets)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Firefrets
You did well from that slab. They'll pop great. I wonder what a bit of cherry stain would look like.
Ahem. Cherry stain?
Seriously, I don’t stain instruments for a handful of reasons. I tint the shellac to get it warmer and more brown or red after the body of the finish is on. Staining causes problems and is really easy to get on BWBW side purfling and other places it doesn’t belong.
RE: Sawyers shop- Japanese Horse Che... (in reply to estebanana)
You get some great effects with dyes and stains on maple. I know luthiers are apprehensive about staining the wood, but just adding clear shellac to everything gets a bit boring.
RE: Sawyers shop- Japanese Horse Che... (in reply to Firefrets)
Some makers use a ground coat and that can get elaborate.
I’ll just say the genre of electric guitars, archtops and some steel string models are stained or painted to great effect. Other than the Conde’ style of coloring the instrument flamenco guitars don’t generally look good with the stained treatment. It’s part of the reductive aesthetic of beautiful flamenco guitars to be pared down to the least common denominator of color and decoration. It’s a mean, spare aesthetic that suits the art of flamenco. Do you absolutely have to do it that way? No, you can do whatever you want.
Flamenco guitar playing and building isn't about putting anyone in jail for how they thing artistically, it’s just that some aesthetic guardrails are in place to keep it traditional or cohesive. Cowboy guitars are a whole different thing and why not dye them blue or red?
It’s easier to touch up plain guitars than stained if there’s an accident.
What do I use? I keep dewaxed Garnet shellac to mix with my blonde shellac. I do the finish with blonde then add garnet to the blonde at the end stages of French polishing to deepen the reds and browns in the finish.
RE: Sawyers shop- Japanese Horse Che... (in reply to estebanana)
I have Garnet but found it a bit yellow when I used it, when I was hoping it would give a more reddish colour. I've some dark brown button which I'm wondering what I can do with.
I'm polishing that peg head at the moment (for the 3rd time - long story about me changing my mind 'not once, but twice'). I also decided to give her a different headstock veneer.
I'll be glad when she's finished now though, as an incredibly difficult thing to polish, given the decorative bridge and she looked pretty good too, so could have gone with how she was. By the time I'm done though a normal guitar will feel incredibly easy.
Some of the electric guitars are a bit OTT but I do like a bit of colour when I see it done well. I'm too old to wait for mother nature now.
RE: Sawyers shop- Japanese Horse Che... (in reply to Firefrets)
There are differences between lots in shellac. I’ve noticed garnets can have different qualities including going to yellow tint. I’ve had deep red ‘ruby garnet’ that at the time I didn’t have a use for, but now wouldn’t mind having.
Bysahki tends to brown Amber
Seedlac orange-ish
Button lac Kusmi can be milky amber brown, I find it difficult to clear up. Much filtering and losing material, I’ve relegated my batch to other uses in priming wood.
I use various dewaxed blondes, super blond, blonde, and other grades called dark blondes. I use them for a base. I have no use or faith in the ultra clear shellac called ‘platinum’ or clear, it means they’re adulterated to hell. 😂
From a good light dewaxed blonde I add the garnet stock I have and it can tint a red color nicely, but I’m not looking for red reds, jyy it tinting that way to get it darker. On rosewood I don’t bother and stay with super blonde, the lighter woods like cypress and maple get my color sense attention.
So here’s a method that most French polish purists either don’t know or won’t admit to, using aniline dye in blonde or garnet can turn the corner to that ruby red you may want. Experiment with that. Make a sampler board and smear it on.
A good brownish Amber honey color is wonderful if you can mix it. If you can’t get it with regular blond wit seedlac or garnet, try aniline dye. There’s a lot of earth pigment to choose from depending on your idea of brown.
But here’s the catch with dyes, they don’t have the clarity of straight shellac, they have a tiny or possibly very perceivable effect on clarity.
RE: Sawyers shop- Japanese Horse Che... (in reply to estebanana)
Nice info. Aniline dyes are on my to do list. I'll often need to colour match more than anything, which is a bottomless pit of experimentation and learning, but resourcefulness goes a long way.
RE: Sawyers shop- Japanese Horse Che... (in reply to estebanana)
When you said clear finishes are boring it reminded me of something.
Once in Washington DC was walking through the Smithsonian with my step mother ( we don’t really talk anymore after the 2016 presidential election because….. well just because 😂)
This was 1998, we went to see the instrument collection which is one of the best in the world. I think the Blue Guitar exhibition was happening too. Look up ‘Scott Chenery Blue Guitar’ ~ I did see that show around that time. So I want to look at the Strad Cello and the other Italian instruments.
We’re standing in front of the cello and my step mom says: “Why do they have to use colored varnish? Can’t they just put some glossy clear polyurethane on them?”
300 years of the best and the brightest in luthiery have tried to bring the same excellence and life to varnishing violins after the 17th and 18th century Italians showed what they could do.
Its distinction is that it’s a large model cello built before the mensure of the cello was downsized. The large pattern celli are rare because they were often cut down by luthiers in the 19th or 18th centuries to make them conform to the smaller scale standard that started in the early years of the 1700’s.
The great Dutch cellist Anner Bilsma played it when visiting the US and just wept and how much he related to it.
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