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I just scored three massive maple logs. One is about 4' in diameter and 6-8 feet long. There is another that size and one about half that size. How do I go about milling out suitable guitar wood. We have our own sawmill, so were going to do it ourselves . I read somewhere that all figured maple is flatsawn. I'm not sure if this is figured or not, but it is a really nice log. Any suggestions?

I split mine (to minimize runout) then you can slice off really nice quartersawn wood. Splitting/quartering a 48 inch diameter log is gonna be tough.......... Nice problem to have good luck.

Only quilt need be flatsawn. Curly figure can be attained with quarterawn wood, and that's the direction you should go in.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

so what causes quilting and curly figure?

Ends already sealed, I assume?

Here's a good video by Bob Taylor about figured maple http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJMLE7G2IIk

The end isnt sealed at all. The tree just came down today. What to I need to do to seal it? And how soon should I cut it up?

You can seal the ends with Anchorseal or latex paint or several other things.

You should find an experienced Sawyer in your area if you don't know when to saw it.

The type of wood, how dry it is, the season of the year and your geographical region all affect the decision. I spoke to a Sawyer in my area who only saws good logs in the winter because they dry out too fast in the Summer & split.

Not trying to discourage you but there's a lot to learn.

Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Resawing is not the same as sawing a log. For the best yeild you want to work with cants . This makes resawing easier. There are Band mills and round sawmills. Bans mills usually have smaller kerfs . Making a cant is when you are basically making large quartered chunks. 9 inch wide in 2 foot denominations work best for backs 5 inch wide by 3 foot denominations work best for sides. You need apx 3 backs per 2 side so if you cut 6 foot length you should hold out pretty close on back to side ratio.
Much will depend on the wood . Many flaws will not present themselves until you open a log. You will find all kinds of things wind break , insect and fungal damage . So observe what you have coming off. It takes a darn big log to make luthier grade wood . Keep us posted and send pix.

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

These typically are caused by the sap in the tree weighing slightly more than the wood fibers can support, so the fibers compress or "waffle" slightly causing the figure in the wood.You can often see this same type of figure in the grain below a knot in most species, caused by the weight of the limb compressing the fibers supporting it.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Another stupid question.....Why do I need to seal the end?

Kevin, you're not discouraging me. We have sawed up a few logs before, but never specifically for guitar wood. I just wanted advice on the "best" way to do it. I have a couple friends who are more experienced on a sawmill than we are so I will ask them what they think too. Anyways, thanks for all your help guys.

Wood is like a bundle of tubes. End grain is the open end of the tubes.

Water escapes out of the ends faster causing them to dry & shrink faster than the rest & ultimately crack.

Kevin Looker

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Evan,
You seal the ends to retard moisture leaving the wood at the ends. The reason is that moisture will leave through the ends MUCH faster than through the exposed side cuts or splits. Think of water dripping out of a bundle of soda straw ends. It's happening pretty much like that. But the middle of your wedge, chuck, billet, whatever, won't dry as fast, so the ends will "check" or start to split by drying faster. Conversely, I think it's a good idea to split the billets into smaller billets, too. This actually assists the wood in drying from the sides (but it's still slower than from the ends) and it'll split along the grain. This will help you down the road when you saw it into thinner boards or plates. It'll help greatly in minimizing "run out". (That's where the grain doesn't run parallel to your saw cut. You want the least amount of run out you can manage.

And it's going to take a while to dry, too. It'll vary depending on your local climate, but a rough guideline will be something like one year per inch of thickness.

Read up on "stickering" too, because you can't just stack this stuff up. You need air circulation all around every surface of the split/sawn planks. And finally, you need to restack periodically, and move the location of your stickers, because the wood is very prone to mold, spalting, etc. while it's drying.

Oh...and get the bark off of it right away! Bugs in there!

...and take some pics when you get this into billets.

I'm working a massive vicarious fantasy about scoring 10 years worth of 5A quilted droptops.

_________________
I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

As the bark is still on, and considering end grain dries much
faster than face or edge grain, you have to slow down the ends
drying(by sealing), or the log can develop some serious checking.

You shouldn't waste time getting maple cut at this time of year,
in particular if it is Hard(Sugar) Maple. The whitewood can stain
very quickly. You have a perfect environment for all kinds of things
to start growing, sugar,water & heat.

Do we know what kind of Maple this is? Some pics would be good.
Although H.Maple get this big, so does Soft (Red) Maple.

If there is significant taper to any of the logs, consider taper-sawing
ie: cut the logs parallel to the bark rather than the pith. This will reduce
runout.

If you see brown streaks radiating out from the heartwood in the center of the
log(looking at the end) and it is Sugar Maple, it has probably been tapped and
often taps get forgotten. Watch out!!! (ask me how I know)
Similarly if it is a yard tree there is a very good chance of all kinds of things hidden
in the log. Proceed with caution.

As far as the best way to cut, it's a bit of a dilemma. Certainly if you cross cut it into 2' or 3' chunks
and hand split into wedges, I believe you would get the best quarter cut wood. The problem is
that most mills are not set up to hold anything less than 4-6', so you'd have to find a resaw at
that point.

Alternately, if you want to do it all on the mill, you're probably best to taper saw as I said and take
a few 4/4" or thicker boards off first until you get a reasonably wide face, then remove cants as John
said above. It is very hard to quarter cut on a mill that's no set up for it, so you will have to resaw
the cants to suit your grain requirements. Keep in mind the close you get to the pith the lower the
grade of the lumber (more defects,knots etc.)
Also remember that all knots connect to the pith. This can help in sawing them out.

Pls post pics!

Good Luck
Bob Hames

Me too...........

I will see if I can get the ends sealed in the next couple of days. I'm leaving for college on Wednesday, so I may not be here for the cutting of the log unless we wait until break. I do know a bit about how to stack the boards after they are cut. Do I need to keep the ends sealed after I cut it into boards? Also, how dry does a board have to be before I can use it for a guitar? Thanks for all the help guys. I'll see if I can get a couple of pics up, although for now they will be just of the logs.

The ends should be ideally sealed as soon as the tree is down and in workable lengths. Also they should be at least split in two and this also helps cut down on checking.
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

figure in woods is caused by an anomaly in the wood cells themselves . What causes this is still unanswered

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Yes, you need to seal the ends before you head to school. If it soaks right in, and it might, seal 'em again. Leave them sealed until you are ready to cut the ends off your final plates for making a top. I'm not sure what to tell you about ambient moisture content, but someone will tell you, or you can find it on the web. Read up on "air drying wood". You'll find various means of weighing a sample repeatedly until the weight stabilizes and stay stable. At that point, you can drive a little more moisture off by storing it in a drying cabinet. (google "wood drying cabinet") but you can't do that until it is pretty much air dried. You probably won't be making instruments out of this wood for at least a couple of years. And if you leave it in thick billets, longer than that.

Anomalies...you hearin dat word dudes? ANOMALY!



Anomaly
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with Abnormality (behavior).

Anomaly may refer to:


1 Astronomy and celestial mechanics
2 Geophysics
3 Biology
4 In quantum physics & quantum mechanics
5 In science fiction
6 Music
7 Other
8 See also

Astronomy and celestial mechanics

In astronomy, an anomaly is a quantity measured with respect to an apsis, usually the periapsis
Eccentric anomaly, an intermediate value used to compute the position of a celestial object as a function of time
Flyby anomaly, an unexpected energy increase during the flybys of the Earth by various satellites
Mean anomaly, a measure of time in the study of orbital dynamics
Pioneer anomaly, the observed deviation of the trajectories of some unmanned space probes, and especially Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11
South Atlantic Anomaly, the region in outer space where the Earth's inner van Allen radiation belt makes its closest approach to the surface of this planet
True anomaly, the angle between the direction of periapsis and the current position of an object on its orbit
Anomalous precession, another term for "apsidal precession"

Geophysics

Bouguer anomaly, anomaly in gravimetry
Free-air anomaly, gravity anomaly that has been computed for latitude and corrected for elevation of the station
Gravity anomaly, difference between the observed gravity and a value predicted from a model
Iridium anomaly, very rare element in the Earth's crust
Magnetic anomaly, local variation in the Earth's magnetic field
Kursk Magnetic Anomaly, territory rich in iron ores located within Kursk Oblast, Belgorod Oblast, and Oryol Oblast
Temagami Magnetic Anomaly, large buried geologic structure in the Temagami region of Ontario, Canada

Biology
See also: List of congenital disorders and List of genetic disorders

Congenital anomaly, popularly referred to as a birth defect, a disorder present at birth, the result of an inherited gene mutation, an error during morphogenesis or fetal development, or an environmental factor
Physical anomaly, a deformation of an anatomical structure
Congenital vertebral anomaly, any of several malformations of the spine in animals and infants
Collie eye anomaly, congenital, inherited, bilateral eye disease of dogs involving the retina, choroid, and sclera
Coronary artery anomaly, congenital abnormality in the coronary anatomy of the heart
Ebstein's anomaly, congenital heart defect in which the opening of the tricuspid valve is displaced towards the right ventricle of the heart
Uhl anomaly, very rare congenital heart disease with a partial or total loss of the myocardial muscle in the right ventricle
Genetic anomaly, a disorder whose ultimate cause is a genetic or chromosomal mutation
Chromosome anomaly, a disorder whose ultimate cause involves a structural error in a chromosome or an atypical number of chromosomes
Teratology, the study of all developmental anomalies

In quantum physics & quantum mechanics

Anomaly (physics), a failure of a symmetry of a theory's classical action
Conformal anomaly, a quantum phenomenon that breaks the conformal symmetry of the classical theory
Chiral anomaly, an anomalous nonconservation of a chiral current
Gauge anomaly, the effect of quantum mechanics that invalidates the gauge symmetry of a quantum field theory
Global anomaly, an anomaly in quantum physics
Gravitational anomaly, an effect in quantum mechanics that invalidates the general covariance of some theories of general relativity
Mixed anomaly, an effect in quantum mechanics
Parity anomaly, an anomaly that is associated with parity
Konishi anomaly, the violation of the conservation of the Noether current associated with certain transformations
Anomalons, some odd particle interactions that are seen in some high-energy physics

In science fiction

The Tycho Magnetic Anomaly (TMA) on the Moon in the novel and in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey by Sir Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick.
Anomaly as a rift in the space-time continuum in the TV program Futurama
The Fortean anomaly, as in the work of Charles Fort
Spatial anomaly, broad term in the Star Trek dramas and other works of science fiction for any sort of extraordinary disruption in the space-time continuum
"Anomaly", any shortcut to hyperspace travel in Robert Heinlein's novels of the 1950s, today called wormholes
Anomaly (comics), a villain in some DC Comics
"Anomaly" (Star Trek: Enterprise), a 2003 episode of Star Trek: Enterprise
Anomaly (Primeval), a time portal in the TV series Primeval
Anomalies, small areas in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of games that have various effects on the game environment
Anomaly, a bridge to another world in the series of novels His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman
Phobos Anomaly, a level in Doom (video game), Episode 1 Level 8
Deimos Anomaly, a level in Doom (video game), Episode 2 Level 1
"Anomaly" is an unbalanced system in the motion picture The Matrix
Anomalies are detected while scanning the surfaces of planets in the game Mass Effect 2
Anomalies are events in which something seems to be out of the ordinary, but then is shown to be effects of ghosts and shadows in Metro 2033

Music

Anomaly (Ace Frehley album) an album from 2009 by Ace Frehley
Anomalies (album), an album from 2005 by Cephalic Carnage
Anomaly (The Hiatus album), an album from 2010 by The Hiatus
"Anna Molly" (a word play on on the word "anomaly"), a song by Incubus
"An Anomaly", a 2007 song by It Prevails, from the album The Inspiration
"The Anomaly", a 2011 song by Scar Symmetry from the album The Unseen Empire
Anomalies, Vol. 1, a compilation album by the American rock band Cave In
Other

The Anomalies, a 2003 novel by Joey Goebel
Anomaly detection, the process of detecting anomalies from the other, relevant data
Anomaly in software, anything that differs from expectations, whether the expectations resulted from documentation, experiences, or otherwise
Anomalistics, the study of scientific anomalies
Ararat anomaly, an object on Mount Ararat in Turkey that some have claimed to be the remains of Noah's Ark
Market anomaly, a distortion in prices in a financial market



Duh, WTFs an anomialy eh...tell me dudes, you ever seen two alike of anything...as in two identical dogs or cats or humans or tops or ribs or backs? Right! if so, they wood be the Anomaly. yes?
Then tel me please...what is an normal then??? Hmmmm....?

Black spots in cherry, white streaks in padauk, oh my! Must be an "Anomaly eh?"

tell old Padma...any of you dudes ever here tell of the amazin feats of mother nature? or you still on the program the system sold you about normality?

Anomalies ...Right!


blessings
Padma

_________________
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Audiences and dispensations on Thursdays ~ by appointment only.


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Padma,

I can smell your awesomeness from here.