Wood Experts: Twisted Fibres On Neck Blank - Useable?

[Metallion]

Asking this to you who have experience in making necks and profound wood knowledge.

Made some neck blanks and didn't look at the fibre orientation - linearity - before it was sawn.

Planning to do one-piece JEM style Scarf joint necks.

The top Piece - neck only - looks OK

The second Piece has the Fibres angled up at the heel. I could move the neck to the Left to avoid it, but the outermost Left area is dedicated for the headstock, and I would then have to be without the head on that piece.

The Third Piece has a slouch twist at the top part of the neck.

The Fourth Piece has a long S-twist allover.

Would preferably avoid having to do Laminations.

Are these Twists too Severe for any one-piece neck, or are they neglectable?

Haven't seen any JEM necks with this level of extreme fibre twisting.

The Wood is 30mm Hard Maple dried for many years.

[Prostheta]

I can't see hard maple being an issue anywhere other than perhaps the nut/truss rod slot area. Personally I would laminate to mitigate any issue with grain runout vs. neck stability. Even halving and flipping out the pieces would help.

[fryovanni]

The general rule of thumb of course is to try to use clear, straight grain wood for a neck to minimise the risk of twisting. If the wood is fully stabalized, and moisture levels do not change(which is not likely over the duration of a guitars tour of duty) then the chances of significant issues(how much is significant depends on how and where is distorts) is slight.

So, #1 start with very well aclimated wood, guys who dink around or guess as to whether wood is dry have the biggest issues.

Here is the typical ratio of shrinkage for Sugar Maple by volume(VERY IMPORTANT- from Green to overdry)- Radial-4.8%, Tangential-9.9% and longtitudinal-.2%(negligable). Now after the wood has reached a fairly dry stable moisture content, and is put into service with a finish, it is not likely to see a wider swing in moisture content than 1-3% (depending of course on conditions, but it would take a bit of time under a radial increase or decrease in moisture content to do much more-** well or dropping it in a lake). Moral of the story you are looking at small volumetric changes after it is dry and stable, however when it does shrink or expand the ratios will still apply. It will shrink and expand very little if any in the longtitudinal direction. It will shrink and expand twice as much in the tangential orientaion than the radial. The shrinkage and expansion should be very slight (small dimensional changes). with laminated wood or plywood you have these uneven movements, but they push and pull on each other fighting movement. This is why you REALLY want to laminate VERY well aclimated wood (else you will build in huge tension, between the laminates).

Hope that helps,

Rich

[Prostheta]

Rich, you deserve a medal.

[Mattia]

Frankly, you don't need to worry about that absolutely minor degree of grain angling

Look at the millions of fender necks made each year: flatsawn maple. Not necessesarily particularly straight grained. Just make sure it's stable and dry.

[Metallion]

The planks are predominantly Quartersawn, 60'-90' angle, so I guess they might be up to par.

Edited March 4, 2008 by Metallion