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A neighbor cut down what I understand is a red spruce, and he gave me a chunk from the base. I'm working on splitting and trying to resaw, as per Shane Neifer's excellent tutorials. So far it's not promising, given the ugly nature of these splits.

What do you think? My poor technique, or corkscrew tree, leading to lots of runout no matter how I cut it? Thanks.

That doesn't look all that bad..

How are you going to saw this up? Do you have a sliding (log) carriage for your bandsaw rigged up?

Hard to tell the size of the log you are working with...

And, what are you using to split the log (not the mattock in the picture, I hope!)

Just hang around and the experts will show up soon!

Cheers
John

Hey Corky,

First, no worries on the help here. That picture looks like a piece from right at the butt (bottom) of the tree. It seems that almost everybody (fallers, log brokers, guitarmakers, et al) feel that the best wood comes as close to the butt as possible. And why wouldn't it? That is the largest part of the tree! But the reality is that the best wood is somewhere higher up the tree than the butt, and that depends on the tree. My current log it is looking like the area at 20 to 40 feet or so up the tree has the best recovery. That is a tree that is 5 feet in diametre. I digress! The piece you have has what we call re-action wood. It is encumbered by the wieght of the entire tree and also impacted by the root structure flowing into the base of the tree. Can you get a piece from a bit higher up the tree? Even 8 feet or so should see the wood start to even out a bit. For me, I wouldn't spend anytime working on that wood for commercial purposes. But I do have some wood that I harvested early on that is a bit wide grained and still in billets (7 years now). One day I will saw it and use it for myself for a smaller bodied guitars or to just get a "look" that I may be after. It is good, stiff wood. So, I say give it a try, if you can get tops out that you will be well set when a bit better piece falls into your lap.

Shane

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Don't listen to Shane he is spoiled by all those darn near perfect trees they got in those woods.

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Personally me think Shane is being very polite.

and

although you can use that piece of butt wood

I'd throw it on the burn pile and try to get something a little higher up on the stick.


Blessings
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.

I must agree with Shane as well. The flare in that piece is fairly extreme. (Yes, I am spoiled too) If you can get some rounds from several feet further up, the grain will be more consistent & finer... But it may be too small to use for a full sized guitar... Hard to tell for sure, from the pictures.
The runout is not too bad, but with the grain wandering around where the tree is flaring into the roots, you will end up with portions significantly off vertical grain.
What the hey, though. Give it a whirl. You will learn a lot & we (spoiled rotten individuals) will be happy to be proved wrong if the tops aren't as floppy as wet cardboard.

Ya, but just think of the figure in that you might have in that chunk.

Generally speaking "figure" is a bad thing in tops

I'm with Shane. In Cedar, Spruce, and most woods I've encountered you'll find the best wood is generally at least 10+ feet from the butt. A lot of crazy curly electric maple/walnut/(insert hardwood) blocks come from tree butts but that's not what you want for tops.

Excess runout and twist might seem alright while your cutting but once you slice it up and let it dry the whole pile will start to cup and twist on you.

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Send me all those bear claw tops guys. They are bad for tops!

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Well.... Now that you already have it split out... May as well try resawing it....

Two things I have learned:
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush....
And...
Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

You have a great *FREE* opportunity to try it out... Go for it! Resaw that stuff and stack it up neatly for drying... If you eventually decide you don't like it -- give it to Students or whatever...

As a few others have stated -- if you and your neighbor are up for it, see if you can get the whole log up to the 1st limb..... Give it a go!

Thanks

John

agreed - you have it on hand - you might as well use it.

getting on the subject of quotes -

"A bird in hand makes hard to blow nose."

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Well, cut it anyway....
Better to practice on stuff like this than on that 'priceless' billet...unless you find a nail/horseshoe/rock with your bandsaw blade...all part of the game.


Cheers
John

Thanks, all, for the detailed responses.

Well.... I chose the wrong time to go on vacation, which is where I was when my neighbor had the tree cut down. The section that I've captured here on film is the only one I have. The better stuff, further up the tree, is gone. I don't really want to think about that.

He was kind enough to have the tree guys deliver it to my door. Hard to get frustrated that he didn't save more of it -

Anyway, I'll use it as a learning experience, and get some potentially usable Spruce from it.

I'll keep you all posted.

hi Corky,

what you have to do is to navigate wood where to split.

there is two way

1. have a long knife (my is 500 mm)
2. with short knife you should go light and slowly. First put the knife in desired direction of split and lightly hit just enough that blate goes 3-4mm in wood than move the knife in next position and repeat proces to the and.
than start again from the begening to go deeper next 3-4mm always following previous cut.
after you go about 10mm deep (depends of tree type) you will see crack which will show you way of splitting.
it's wery important that chunk is stright and without knots from branch, youre chunk from base is not good for this aplication but the next one will probably be ok.

regards

once more long knife is an issue

John, I realized I didn't answer your questions -

Pretty big log - and yes, the lines per inch is relatively large. (maybe 8? - inconsistent) The radius of the log is about 18 inches, so I can pick and choose in order to get some decent tops.

No - I wasn't using the froe to split it - but rather to apply some leverage when it was mostly split and needed a bit of wrestling in order to separate the last strands that were still attached.

No, I don't yet have a sliding carriage - clearly that will be necessary. I glossed over that part of Shane's tutorial

In the meantime, my plan is to split it into largish wedges, remove all the bark as per Shane's advice, paint the ends and leave them in a dry part of my basement with a fan on, to gradually dry them. Then I'll tackle the issue of the carriage and getting the right bandsaw blades.

I'll test the relative stiffness, compared to some other spruce I've got - in order to assess what this stuff is likely to be like, but at any rate, I'll learn a lot from the experience.

Make sense?

Yup! I like sawing up wood, and it is all good practice for when you get your hands on some really nice stuff. If you do any general woodwork, sometimes a little box (or a small turned bowl) from the offcuts scores a lot of points with the log donor and inspires future contributions!

Check with Shane on the drying in the basement thing- you don't want the wedges going moldy, but I'd be a bit careful with the fan... even with paint on the ends I seem to manage to get stuff cracking/checking quite easily.

Cheers
John

From the reading I have done previously -- resawing green is the recommended way to go.... People smarter than I claim it has much less trouble with splitting and cracking... and that it's easier to saw as well...

John,

That makes sense, re: resawing green wood. Guess I better get cracking on the carriage..

I think I'll be alright on the basement, re: avoiding mold - basement is dry, and with gentle fan passing over it, I don't think I'll get mold on it. At any rate, I've got some bandsaw blades on order. When they arrive, I'm going to rough cut a block from one of these wedges with a chainsaw, then resaw a few sets just to see what I've got.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Don't forget about shrinkage as it dries

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX