xebryusguitars Posted November 21, 2004 Report Share Posted November 21, 2004 I live in a neighborhood SURROUNDED by trees. My backyard is pretty big but it sucks cause its all trees and i cant to much on a downhill slopped forest of a backyard. Does anyone suggest cutting down some trees in my backyard (i know where my backyard cuts off) and drying it for about a year or 2. Im wondering if anyones tried it because I would be thrilledd to build a body thats completely mine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
american_jesus Posted November 21, 2004 Report Share Posted November 21, 2004 depends what kind of tree, the size, shape, etc. if it's a fairly small tree, you're not going to get much out of it but firewood, but if you've got large trees(ones that you cant wrap your arms around) then you might have some decent wood there to play with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www Posted November 21, 2004 Report Share Posted November 21, 2004 I'm doing it right now with figured maple. The billets are on their first year of drying. Now I am saving for a bandsaw big enough to resaw it. It would have been cheaper just to buy the wood already cut and dried! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
javacody Posted November 22, 2004 Report Share Posted November 22, 2004 A year or two probably won't be long enough to dry, unless you've got a kiln. You are probably talking more like five years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curtis P Posted November 22, 2004 Report Share Posted November 22, 2004 Actually Rule of thumb (well, what my boss, and my wood teacher uses) 1 year for every inch, so 3 inchs, 3 years, if he cut down a maple tree, rough cut it to 2.5 inchs thick, then that would be 2.5 years to dry, depending on conditions and how long the board actually was Curtis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Page_Master Posted November 22, 2004 Report Share Posted November 22, 2004 you must air dry hardwood before you kiln dry it. i don't know how long you must air dry before you kiln dry, longer the better i guess. if you don't air dry before you kiln dry, the timber will turn to ****. i forget what it is called, but if hardwood timber has been drained of moisture too fast it will shrink, warp and look rotten and will become completely useless and unworkable. i found this out at college, i am going to become a carpenter. if kiln drying timber is not an option for you, you could start working on the timber as soon as it has been air dryed enough to become workable. timber loses it's moisture over decades which means it becomes lighter and sound better through age. i have some pieces of native australian hardwood (silky oak, queensland maple, blackwood) that i have torn out of of old structures. back in the day, carpenters would only build houese out of A grade hardwood; because it was strong and there was so much of it. when they hauled the timber out to the sites, it would have been cut about a week before from virgin forests. so it was green, they did this because it was easier to nail, no nail guns back then. problem with that is, sometimes timber would dry and warp and some parts of the structure where no longer true. anyways, the timber i have must be nearly 50 years old, which means they have been air dryed for nearly 50 years. for the moment the timber is sitting in my room, no plans on its use at the moment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xebryusguitars Posted November 22, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 22, 2004 haha thanks guys for the advice. i think thats remarkable page_master that you have 50 year old wood in your room, those are gonna turn out great for whatever is gonna be done to it. So pretty much, if i was in a destructive mood, I should goto a yard sale and chop down an old dresser and other antiques made out of real wood! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
javacody Posted November 22, 2004 Report Share Posted November 22, 2004 Man, if you ever see a bar built in the early 1900's being torn down, check to see if it has a mahagony bar. If it does, grab that sucker! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigdguitars Posted November 22, 2004 Report Share Posted November 22, 2004 drying wood is a very long long process. You will see some guys air dry wood wood for two years then throw it in a kiln for another couple weeks for more stability. I have been drying some birch logs in my back yard for about a year now, and its still not that dry. Good air flow is key when drying. There are a lot of guys who dry thier own wood, ask your neighbors you never know who is doing it already... they might help you out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xebryusguitars Posted November 22, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 22, 2004 (edited) good idea about asking my neighbors, because they have the fat round trees....bastards.. unlike my skinny twig trees Edited November 22, 2004 by xebryusguitars Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dugz Ink Posted November 22, 2004 Report Share Posted November 22, 2004 There are a bunch of different chainsaw attachments out there that make it easier and more efficient to cut your own lumber. The best ones seem to be a bandsaw attachment that has guide bars to keep each consecutive cut parallel... and there are several varieties of that design. The real trick is being able to guess which tree will yield wood that is actually good enough to use. Otherwise, you can end up with 10,000 board feet of really thin firewood. D~s Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drak Posted November 22, 2004 Report Share Posted November 22, 2004 Since you're just starting out trying to build guitars, I'm going to put this in the 'cart before the horse' bin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Setch Posted November 22, 2004 Report Share Posted November 22, 2004 I've got three 3" x 6" x 3' slabs of cherry and a few smaller bits air drying in a brick bunker in my back garden. They're from a huge cherry tree which came down in my grandpa's garden about 18 months ago. I rough cut them with a chainsaw and powerplaner, bitchumened the ends, and stickered them a couple of inches above the floor. So far no mould, bugs or splittting... I'd love to make a guitar out of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigdguitars Posted November 22, 2004 Report Share Posted November 22, 2004 my gramps before he passed cut down some walnut trees and I have a couple of boards left... we made some furniture out of them, but waiting for that special guitar... The stuff is really really dark walnut. so it should look great/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xebryusguitars Posted November 22, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 22, 2004 Since you're just starting out trying to build guitars, I'm going to put this in the 'cart before the horse' bin. haha yeah drak, but like my dad always tells me measure twice, cut once. Im just trying to plan and plan and plan. All this crap is piling up in my garage for practice just to get good . than i can hopefully be able to convince myself to go for GOTM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drak Posted November 23, 2004 Report Share Posted November 23, 2004 GOTM should be the last thing on your list of priorities. Making a guitar that drives -you- completely to the brink of insanity with happiness should be at the top of the list. One of the guitars that I treasure most of all, one of my favorites, one I will never need to tweak ever again, just play and enjoy it 'till I die, a guitar that can do the sweetest jazz, the funkiest Fender -and- the heaviest gruntasarous pelvic thrusting metal, AND looks great... ...it got a whopping 2 or 3 votes in the GOTM when I entered it. That guitar, to me, is more enjoyable than the two that DID win the GOTM, so go figure... So just worry about building for you, concentrate on what it is about different guitars that turns you on and combine them, that's what I do to all my guitars, I build 'em exactly like I want 'em, not what's necessarily 'hot' or 'in' these days. You're the one that's gonna play it, what's it matter what we think about it? But I know whatcha mean, just bein' nit-picky tonight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xebryusguitars Posted November 23, 2004 Author Report Share Posted November 23, 2004 haha dont worry about it drak, i like a person than can speak the truth..GOTM is like 3 years away from my thoughts. Its just a goal that im setting for myself as a teen. I would like to see that guitar that you've fallen in love with. I know what you mean, the first person that should be passing the inspection should indeed be myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thedoctor Posted December 3, 2004 Report Share Posted December 3, 2004 My father and I cut lumber from the late 50's to the early 90's and in his infinite wisdom he squirreled away massive amounts of the best walnut, ash, cherry and elm in full 8/4 sawmill-cut slabs 6 to 10 feet long. He passed away 3 years ago and I recieved my share of it due to the fact my truck was empty. It wasn't the prettiest stuff but I,m working with my dad's legacy here and pride comes to the front. My first bass is in Warmoth's customer gallery complete with the unfilled wormholes. It won't win any prizes but it jumps up on my lap and drives me to play. THAT is what building your own axe is all about. Look at it and you are looking at my father. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VanKirk Posted December 4, 2004 Report Share Posted December 4, 2004 Man, if you ever see a bar built in the early 1900's being torn down, check to see if it has a mahagony bar. If it does, grab that sucker! There's a bar in downtown Seattle from the early 1900's made out of mahogany. It's a HUGE bar too. I'd love to hack it up into blanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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