Question About Laminating

[SawDust_Junkie]

OK, here goes. A co-worker of mine has informed me that he has a piece of Mahogany that he purchased about a year ago with the intentions of building a banjo. From what he has told me, the plank is 4/4, about 7"-8" wide, about 6' long.

He has about $70.00 in this wood and offered to sell it to me for $25.00. What a deal ! (If I can use it)

Now I know that this wood is not thick enough to do a Les Paul body, and it is not thick enough to do the neck either, as 4/4 will be 1" thick at most. (As far as what I have seen called 4/4 here locally. Some dealers locally have 4/4 that they list as 1 7/8", but is actually rough planed to right at 2")

My question is aside from being able to use this wood to build several nice Mahogany bolt-on necks, could I laminate the wood to make a piece thick enough to build a Les Paul set neck, or would turning the grain of the wood that way weaken it too much ?

The wood I am pretty sure is not quarter sawn. So, if I cut the plank as I show in my rather crude drawing below in strips about 3" wide, could I then turn these strips on edge and laminate them together, to get a neck blank wide enough and deep enough to make a Les Paul type neck ? Or as I said would this cause the grain to be running in the wrong direction to get the necessary strength ?

[bassman]

running the grain as you suggest will add strength to the neck. having the grain run perfectly perpindicular to the finger board is ideal.

[Curtis P]

Thats what i did with my Jem Body, out of basswood, for strength, i dont see why it would be bad for it, i mean it is wanting to twist against the truss rod, and if its fully dried, trued up correctly, it shouldnt warp (if conditions are even throughout)

Curtis

[SawDust_Junkie]

Thanks for the input guys. I guess orienting the grain like I illustrated would be almost like having the grain quarter sawn wouldn't it ? Not quit, but kind of close.

This wood came from a local hardwood wholesaler and I am pretty sure it is kiln dried to an acceptable moisture content, and on top of that, it has been sitting in his house for over a year. I believe it is S2S, but it may even be S4S. I am not sure about that. Anyway, my co-worker is going to bring it in for me to look at and I just wanted to know what I had in mind would work.

Aside from the direction of the grain, I have always been told that if glued properly the wood will break before the glue joint. So, I didn't think that laminating it would cause it to be too weak for a neck. The only issue would getting the strips planed or jointed really well to make sure that any seems would be as unnoticable as possible ?

[johnsilver]

The method you describe (cutting a flat sawn plank into strips, laminating them and rotating the blank to use the laminated side as the neck face) is what I have been doing for mahogany Gibson style necks. I have been using 3 strips about 3" wide as you mention and about 30" long. That width gives me enough wood for an angled headstock and combined with the length gives enough wood for two necks including the ears needed to widen the headstock depending on your design.

Where I buy my wood, I get them to S3S the plank. That way, I have good surfaces for laminating with clean joints and have a straight edge when laminated as a reference to ensure I have a flat neck surface for the fretboard. I try to keep the 3 strips with the grain running in the same direction when laminating as it is just easier when planing and carving the neck not having to deal with grain changes.

I think the $25 price is about right for this plank. At those dimensions, there is about 4 board feet in that plank. My supplier charges about $6 a board foot including the S3S machining. I think $70 is way too much for that plank.

You should be able to get at least 4 neck blanks from that plank. Good luck.

[SawDust_Junkie]

Well my colleague brought in the wood this morning. I am a bit disappointed. The plank is only 4 1/4 " wide x 13/16" thick x 73" long. With these dimensions, I would not be able to get enough strips wide enough to make even a single neck blank.

Like you said John, I ahd anticpated cutting the strips 3" wide, and the blanks that Stewart-Mac sells are only 26" long. But at only 4 1/4" wide I would only be able to cut the whole plank lengthwise to 3" wide and if I cut that strip into 3 pieces, each piece would only be around 24" long. on top of that, there are a couple of knots in the plank.

Oh, well, never hurts to check anyway. I checked out my local hardwood dealers and found out that they charge around $5.75 for 4/4 S2S Mahogany. So, I think I must have been thinking about 8/4 S2S Mahogany, which they sell for $8.00 a board foot. In any case, my colleague must have been mistaken about how much he paid for this piece of wood.

I may still take it from him if I can talk to a more reasonable price. I mak be able to use it for some neck blanks for some bolt-on type necks. or I could even use it for some nice Mahogany inlay stripes in a body blank or something. I will have to think about this for awhile.

[jer7440]

If you measure and cut carefully, you might be able to get 2 necks using a scarf joint for the angled head stock and laminating for the heal thickness.

Ah, but you would still not have optimal grain direction.

Edited December 16, 2004 by jer7440