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Warping Wood


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Hey guys, i bought a nice looking piece of bloodwood for a future fretboard the other day. It started off laser straight so gooped shellac all over it to seal it and put it away. that was about two weeks ago and already the piece is starting to warp! its got a very slight propeller to it and its getting bent as well. is there a way to stop it? should i clamp it to something flat for a while maybe?

PS Its already roughly fretboard sized, not a big chunk.

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hate to say it - but its probably scrap. if it was bigger you could let it warp as its going to and replane. You can always attempt various heat/steam/clamp treatments and may have some success but if this peice wants to warp it will - and a bloodwood fretboard will take the neck with it!

not sure why you sealed it though - ends maybe but no need to do the whole thing

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is it already radiused then? if not sealing wont have helped keep the colour - it would be fresh when you radiused it

i have a neck and fretboard blank around here somewhere, had it for years unsealed and its never moved a mm, colour is a bit darker than when i got it but it will come back to bright red when cut/sanded. its a very stable wood for teh most part and i am surprised yours warped unless it wasnt fully dry or it had been moved to very different conditions to how it was stored before - either way it needed to aclimatise and sealing more than just the very ends wont have helped with that

but the reason i dont like twists is because its a feature of the way some (all???) trees grow (you see it clearer in fast growing trees like pines) in that way its inbuilt at a cellular level. and if it is aclimatised well and still twisting, i dont want it in a guitar neck

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Hey guys, i bought a nice looking piece of bloodwood for a future fretboard the other day. It started off laser straight so gooped shellac all over it to seal it and put it away. that was about two weeks ago and already the piece is starting to warp! its got a very slight propeller to it and its getting bent as well. is there a way to stop it? should i clamp it to something flat for a while maybe?

PS Its already roughly fretboard sized, not a big chunk.

Basic knowledge about wood expansion and contraction:

You bought it last day....

The wood is simply reacting to the ambiant environnement moisture content of your workshop...

Is your workshop under control and if so what is the moisture content?

Most guys who buy fingerboards from wood suppliers seam to totally forget this major important detail in which the dealer says that you must leave the board at least temper for a good week or two.

Sealing the fingerboard will not really help because you are putting a brake to the natural process, instead, just leave it alone and clamp it flat. Sealing must be done at the very end of the guitar building, I use superglue for the job.

When I buy a fingerboard it usually never moves because my workshop ''room'' is under control.

Proper climat in which a guitar must be built is 40-50%, the wood suppliers usually store their woods at similar conditions unless you are dealing with a private who does not control the athmosphere of his workshop...

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I was under the impression that it would start to brown up over time like purpleheart. Thanks for the tip!

I am pretty sure (someone correct me if I am wrong) Purpleheart becomes purple as it is exposed to oxygen then turns brown when exposed to UV rays. Unless you seal it with a UV inhibitor it will brown if exposed to UV. So sealing it with shellac is not going to help.

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You seal the endgrain only because endgrain soaks up moisture more quickly than the rest of the board.sealing the endgrain evens it out to help prevent cracking.doesn't prevent warping or twisting as far as I know.research wood storage to find the accepted methods.I always leave everything for months and years before touching it...but that is just me

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Where did you buy the board from. I bought a few pieces of lumber from the local Woodcraft before I knew there were lumber mills around and every single piece of wood from them moved like crazy. I bought them nice and flat, but after a week at home they twisted and warped a lot.

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I got it from the local woodcraft as well. I left the piece in my room as it seemed closest to the store's conditions (don't know the moisture content). The board was not tapered or radiused.

Also I should mention that the board was cut through the grain so rough grain was visible on the whole blank, hence the shellacing the whole think. I figured it couldn't hurt.

Thank you for all the wisdom guys.

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