Official Luthiers Forum!

Stop staring at my participle!

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Frozen wood is easier to split by hand, too. Really, it is, Im tellin ya. Done it, liked it..

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Guitar Maker and Purveyor of the World's Finest Tonewoods
http://www.aaronhixguitars.com/
http://stores.ebay.com/A-Hix-Tonewood-a ... r-Supplies

It makes me cold. It makes the tractor cold. It makes the chains cold. It makes the truck cold. Worse is if it is snowy out. Then I'm wet as well.

Oh, you doubters & mockers... Read & weep.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22094279

" its age, the weather and even the position of the moon help to craft the warmest, fullest notes"

"Branches mean knots in the wood. And knots in the wood spoil its resonance"

Nice! Now I know why our wood just does not match up Dan, too many branches (those pesky things that help the tree feed) are ruining the resonance. I need to see some of them branchless swiss spruce trees. And it is kinda cool how a tree, where it grows and how it views the moon can craft the warmest, fullest, notes and the luthier really is out of the picture!

For me, processing wood in summer is more of an issue with degrdation more than anything else. I have found that when the tree was fell has no bearing on anything. I have found that warmer temperatures and direct sun will degrade billets faster (blue stain and checking) so I have to processes from log, to block, to billet, to top faster so I will have less loss due to stain and checks. These issues are significantly reduced in the winter. But I am 100% certain that there is no one anywhere that can tell whether a top originated from a tree that was fell during a specific time of the year or during a specific moon phase. Also, how would you even test this theory? Once you decide to fall the tree you can't go back and decide to fall it again during a different season or moon phase to document the difference. The reality is that by far the greatest majority of people in this industry will not even be able to tell you definitively (typically with the exception of Sitka) which spruce is which once the top is processed.

In processing spruce (which is quite different from hardwoods, like maple as discussed earlier) I have found that the majority of the water (and likely most of the sugars) are in the sapwood. This is about 1.5 to 3 inches of the outer layer of the trees I harvest or process (which are 3.5 to 6 feet in diametre). The inner portion of the tree is nolonger active and holds moisture only as a result of the fact that it is surrounded by the moisture contained in the sapwood. This inner wood is very significantly lighter in weight (drier) than the sapwood. As I remove the sapwood from the sitka hybrid I harvest I am left with wood that has virtually no change from one season to the next because it is inactive.

Anyway, these are just my humble opinions.

Shane

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Canada

We've got a lot of those branchless trees around town, but they are hard to harvest at any time of the year because of the hydro lines.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Of course it's "virgin". Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more.