Official Luthiers Forum!

Those of you who resaw your own wood, I have a question.

This morning i dropped off a couple slabs of walnut at a respectable wood store.
The pieces are approximately 38"L x 12"H x 5"W.
After speaking a little as to how I would like it cut we discussed the cost.... I was shocked.

I would like to ask those of you here how much time you think you would require to process these pieces.
Goal would be as many B&S sets as possible.




Thanks

gregor

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Wake up and smell the rosewood!

That is a pretty thick piece, but walnut saws pretty easy and is not to hard on the blade. After setup, depending on the equipment, I'd say something like 15 minutes a set for rough sawn, no sanding. Most of the expense probably comes from equipment and facility cost. I have no idea what a 'street' rate would be or even is there is one.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Thanks for commenting Joe,
I did have a small billet of rosewood cut at this place before and the price was very reasonable.
It was however only one piece and considerably smaller.

I got 2 (thick) back sets from this billet.

I'm curious how much time an experienced shop person would need to rip up the slabs.
Shop rate is around $90/h. I thought an hour or two max.... good thing im not an estimator.

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Wake up and smell the rosewood!

I'd say no more than 10 minutes to set up, and 30-45 sec. max per slice. Depends on if a blade change is necessary or if there is a dedicated resaw.
I would prefer to start with 2 squared and flat faces so a little jointer time may be needed. Its tough to get a straight slice without a good starting point. At 5" you may need to return to the jointer halfway through to retrue the sawn face. Do this after an even number of slices or you bookmatch may go out of whack a little.
There is wear and tear on the blades and every slice is life off the blade, though as Joe has said walnut slices pretty easy. Any dirt or gritty material would make me hesitate to accept the job.

B

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My memory is so good, sometimes I remember things that never happened.

Thanks Brian.
The base of each slab is relatively flat and would need but a couple quick passes on the jointer.
Wood is clean, but it was an old tree so im no sure what might be hiding inside it.
They are willing to cut, although I have found this is not the norm.

From your assessment Brian, this job should be accomplished inside 2 hrs.

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Wake up and smell the rosewood!

2 slabs x 5" x 4 slices per inch = 40 slices .
If this took 45 min. I would be surprised.
Relatively flat will give you relatively straight pieces. its all relative.

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My memory is so good, sometimes I remember things that never happened.

You would be amazed at how time flies when you are in the workshop. If they are not in the resawing business it may take them considerably longer to set up the saw, prep the stock, and do the actual resawing. If they cut their teeth on the rosewood, they may be a little gun shy about resawing the walnut.
From the rough looking pieces you show in the first pictures, I would estimate 4 hours processing time in the typical small cabinet shop.

Thanks for that angle Clay.
They are a respected shop in the area. Full milling capabilities.
Their store has so much variety...its a fun walk around for sure.
Again, Im just looking for some insight on the job.
I became a little uneasy when the price immediately dropped when i expressed my shock at the initial cost.
I want to make sure the pricing is competitive and realistic, but its hard to ensure this when I am yet to find any alternatives.

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Wake up and smell the rosewood!

Well, if there's no local competition, that can certainly affect the price in any industry

"I became a little uneasy when the price immediately dropped when i expressed my shock at the initial cost."

I would be too. Usually that is a sign they don't know what they are doing. How well did they do with the rosewood?

This is a proper shop Clay.
The individual i was talking was not a shop operator though, was knowledgeable about wood though.
There is about a 4 week worklog before they make it to my workorder. They will call me at that time to discuss the plan and fee.
Would like to be semi-educated by this time. : )

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Wake up and smell the rosewood!

lol, if you can crank out sets in 2-3 minutes each with even the most perfect of boards then you should get into the resawing business, you'll make an absolute fortune.

But seriously I do a fair bit of resawing, sometimes with customer supplied wood. If the wood looks really good then 20-30 minutes per set is about right. If they're a pro shop they're going to treat your wood very carefully and with a lot of respect and that takes time. Your wood looks to have a lot of problems too... I see checking, end splits, and what looks to be some pretty serious heart defect in the middle... yield might not be anywhere near what you expect. JMO, YMMV, etc etc.

Thanks James,
There is a good check in the one, but my vision of the cuts/use would reduce the impact of it.
The other is pretty clean. The dark line you see in the first pic is pencil, i later cut that off effectively cutting out the heart of a large slab. As best as i could anyways.
The wood has a lot of colour as well, browns, purples, red. The defect that your are seeing is likely an erroneous cut by me. I used a circular, reciprocating, and handsaw to cut it. : )

In the end, I feel there is a good chunk of wood to come from these slabs. They were given to me by a friend and I would like to use them. If this works out ok, he always has a lot of walnut, cherry, and other local hardwoods that I am more than welcome to have. Money has to make sense though.

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Wake up and smell the rosewood!

Re-sawing is time consuming and also requires other machining operations just to prep the wood. There is also the expense for checking for stone and metal deposits which can ruin cutters and blades in an instant. Here's LL Johnson's service price list, notice the minimums for each set up.


http://theworkbench.com/machine.php

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I've done a fair amount of resawing.

This is what I would consider a conservative estimate - it should take less time:

Preparing the blanks - examine & assess, come up with a game plan, bandsaw away the bad parts, flatten & square on jointer, then make wide faces parallel on planer: 45 minutes max.

Set up saw - remove regular blade, install resaw blade, set guides, fence, make test cuts: 30 minutes max.

Actual sawing - 1 hour max. Having a driftmaster fence or any fence that can be quickly and accurately positioned will make a huge difference here.

Remove resaw blade, reinstall regular blade, set guides, clean up saw area: 45 minutes max

Which comes up to 3 hours.

I do have a driftmaster fence but my saw has old guides which are tedious to set up.

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.

I have a 1950 Delta bandsaw (a gift from my mother in-law) quite a few upgrades including a 2hp Baldor motor. Very much on the small side when it comes to re-sawing back and side sets. A sharp blade and meticulous set up are the key to success. Yesterday morning I sawed 15 sets of sides Macacauba which is really tough on blades, two sets back and sides of Pernambuco, very easy on the blades and started on some Khaya before my blade checked out, took about two and half hours. Blade is a Lennox Woodmaster bi-metal which is the best I've found for a small saw. My next purchase for the shop will be a MiniMax 20" bandsaw with a power feed.

I think they should be ashamed if they charged you for any more than 90 minutes.
How much did they charge you for?

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Michael F Smith
Goat Rock Ukulele
http://goatrockukulele.com

I am not in the resawing business but, from the first pic to the last, elapsed time is under 8 minutes.
Includes cutting the oak to length, ripping to width, jointing 2 faces,set b/s for width as the the back I rough out at ~.200 and the sides to ~.150, resawing 4 sides, (2 sets)
Jointing 2 faces on the scrap maple billet resawing 6 backs,(3 sets) and taking the pics.
To be fair, my bandsaw remains set up to resaw, my shop is organized for efficiency, I do not need to move things around for different tasks.
I will need to spend another 20 minutes or so on the thickness sander to remove the saw marks but as it is I have 10 acceptably even slices that I would let sit prior to sanding as I have found that sometimes wood moves around after any kind of resizing.

B

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My memory is so good, sometimes I remember things that never happened.

Wow - those are gigantic chunks of walnut. Those are about the size of railway sleepers.

So assuming you do 1/4" total per slice (leaves room for saw kerf and wander). That's 40 slices at 12" wide x 38"'long..... What are you going to do with all that? That's the equivalent of 20 guitar sets + a lifetime supply of headstock veneers, rosette stock, and binding material.

While I would like that sort of stash myself - I average 1 per year now.... So that's 20 years of building if I don't get the urge to build with anything else.

Thanks

At 12 x 38 x 5 , you have about 8 normal sized guitar billets there. If they know what they're doing, I would guess a couple hours. In Seattle, it would be at least $100 per hour.

To get the most yield, I would decide ahead which parts I want for backs and which for sides. Walnut Cuts Like A Dream, so I would start off cutting on the thick side to get into the groove, but ultimately I would want to cut the backs at 160 and the sides at 110 which would give you a lot more than 40 slices! (Depends what blade they are using also) With the caveat that I would want to be there with my calipers at least at the beginning to see how even they are cutting them.

Obviously, the less cuts you plan to make, the less time it would take and less wear and tear on the blade. Le$$

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Pat

how can you even see what you're doing, with all those safety features getting in the way?!

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Pat

Le dublae postae

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Pat

So for curiosities sake, without naming names, what was their initial estimate and what did they later drop it to?
Time estimates can vary quite a bit, if the person doing the estimate is not the person doing the work. Time spent writing the order, explaining what is needed to the workman, the workman performing the task (their interest level in it) and finalizing the order can be half or double what is estimated. And then there is profit.

From multiple raw billets to 10 slices in under 8 minutes is really great, especially with time to take pictures along the way. Kudos to you... that's pretty extraordinary