Official Luthiers Forum!

I know we have a lot of wood suppliers here and i have purchased from some of them. I was wondering though if any builders here buy their lumber rough sawn and do you joint, plane and finish it to the dimensions you need yourself. The problems i have expierenced with mail order and especially home centers and lumber yards are that most of the wood is pre planned to stock dimensions. Such as 3/4" for woodworking projects and the problem is if the wood has slight twist or other defects that after jointing and planing it will no longer be a suitable dimension. I'm not just talking guitar work but also woodworking in general since i know many here do both. I have a jointer and planer but i'm wondering is the time and trouble that goes into this work is it cost effective? I can on ocassion get free rough sawn wood or salvaged wood but thats not a regualr thing here in the city. Some vendors sell rough sawn lumber at cheaper prices to finished but is it worth it after the tedious labor needed to finish it?

yes, yes, and ........... yes

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http://www.dickeyguitars.com

I have, over the years, gotten a lot of my wood rough sawn, usually from one of our local hardwood suppliers. Most of it went into furniture but some has gone into 2 guitars and a few other instruments. I have always enjoyed roaming through the stacks and trying to pick out the best pieces of wood but be prepared to be surprised when you start slicing it open. When all is said and done, and, given the effort required to build a decent guitar, buying tone wood from a supplier starts to look like a reasonable expense.

On the other hand, if you want to work with local or found woods for whatever reason, then it is certainly possible so have at it and enjoy!

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I have and will in the future too. The outfit near me (well, an hour away) has gobs of lumber and they have industrial machines as well so now when I buy from them, I run the rough sawn boards on their 12" jointer and 24" plane to save the wear & tear on my home machines.

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http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

YES!

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

I do.

Yes, when I can

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Gwaltney Guitars

A huge benefit of buying rough lumber is that sometimes a 4/4 board will measure 1 1/8 inches but you only pay the 4/4 price! Rough sawn lumber is usually cheaper by the board foot by a large margin as well. My supplier is very fair in this regard. A jointer, planer, and bandsaw will soon pay for themselves by resawing and dimensioning rough lumber. When I build furniture or whatever I try as hard as possible to stay away from a 3/4 inch thickness at all times. This automatically sets your work apart from mass produced stuff but the customer does not always know why. I think it would be a huge challenge to find instrument quality wood at the lumber yard but I know there are those among us who really enjoy doing just that. It would require a patient lumber yard if nothing else and that quality is not always seen.

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http://www.booneguitars.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephen-Boone-guitar-builder/488208541257210

Yes, sometimes I do, depends on what it is ...

One of the first North American wood shops top get both the quilted bubinga and pomele sapele in large slabs (we are talking 4 ft wide, 10-12 ft long, 2 inch thick - instant table top !!!) was my local shop (for instance, I know they sold boards to LMI) about 3 years ago. I knew the bubinga was coming in (good friends !!!), and was there a day or so after it arrived.

So I had bought slabs of both to cut into sets for an early per bd ft price ... worked out to way less per set than the 550-750 US they were sold for a bit later on. Heck I could have bought a whole slab for a little over 2K Cdn.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

I've had some good experiences at a local quality lumberyard here. I've been building with Black Walnut there, and have resawn some very nice figured lumber into backs. Another plank is almost quartersawn and has resulted in some nice sides - all at about a quarter of what it would cost from a luthier supply shop. They also seem to have some nice scraps for sale, at $4 here, $5 there, of Indian Rosewood, Sapele, other useful woods. For about $10 I got a nice piece of Mahogany that will be used for about 6 neckblocks.

You can definitely find some good stuff at the lumberyard if you're willding to do some digging.

For cabinet or furniture building there's nothing like being able to straighten around your lumber. With a surfaced board you lose this huge advantage. I avoid buying surfaced lumber at all cost (plus it's more expensive to boot!)

I've had my eye out for guitar quality wood at the local hardwood yards for a few years. A board of acceptable quality doesn't show itself very often, but when it does the savings is huge. I have found stunning Claro walnut that I resawed, gorgeous waterfall bubinga, an amazing quilted granadillo board, a few quilted/fiddleback genuine mahogany boards, highly figured maple, a few perfect tight-grained old growth redwood boards and others. It's nice to have them in the stash. I will resaw as needed. Totally worth it for me.

Yes!

One of my favorite parts of building is taking off the ruff and really seeing what it is that I've got - I can mostly see through the ruff but I always get some surprises (mostly pleasant).

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The member formerly known as erikbojerik....