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My question is this, I have about twenty new top sets to sticker. They are rough and quite thick and I wonder if y'all sticker them "as is" or do you take them down a little ( thickness sand) first? The up side would be that they would not take up as much room if I took them down a bit.

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jw ( o)===:::

I pass them through the drum sander with 60 or 80 grit, but leave them as thick as I can.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Joe my friend I don't think that it matters beyond thicker wood will take longer to acclimate and dry.

I'll add that I recently thicknessed 10-12 tops that were very thick and in the dimensions that they came off from the saw. I had received these up to a year ago and because of my movement I left them as is. After taking them down to .150ish which is my joining thickness I could finally see what I had and in some cases I was not very pleased...... So the point is that if you wish to retain your return rights it might be a good idea to thickness them a bit thinner now so you know what you have.

Great question, which brought up Hesh's comment, which now I suppose is a hijack by me!

I don't think it matters much if you leave them thick, or thin them some to look at them, and sort them for stickering, but once thinned, will most vendors let you return them?

I had the same thing happen to some mahogany, I just stickered it when I got it, a year later I planed some to find quite a bit with unusable " compression fractures".

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Joe sorry for the high-jack too.

David my friend I don't know if they are returnable after thicknessing or not but how else are we going to know what we have? IMHO if a supplier is going send you furry wood it's not unreasonable for us to take it back a bit so we can see what we have.

I leave the tops as thick as possible once the the saw marks have disappeared for two reasons: to see what I have, and also the eventual defects.
If pitch pockets appear that leaves more room to sand one side or another until they're gone. .150" is a little thin, unless you get cosmetically perfect tops. I mostly don't.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

The .150 is desirable to me because this is also the thickness that I make my first deflection evaluation tests at. I'll test again when using the top and as I sneak up on what I am looking to see but this way, having all my stash tops at a uniform thickness and preliminarily deflection tested it's easier to know what to reach for when I am looking for specific characteristics.

Thanks everyone! All responses make sense.

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jw ( o)===:::

I generally thickness to 3/16" before stickering for storage. But if you built a guitar, you wouldn't need to store it!

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John Ressler

Hey now!!! Let's be nice.

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jw ( o)===:::

I generally sticker my tops in their rough sawn state. I've been told wood seasons better with a sawn surface than with a planed one. A sanded surface might also be O.K., I haven't heard that mentioned.

No, I needs a whippin'...but I be a hurreein as fast as I can go's...

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Stickering is definately needed if you want your wood to acclimate to your shop and age well.

Mike

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Mike Collins