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A little Maple here, some Wenge there... easy. But when did ai get which set of Lutz brace stock?

I need to establish a good system of marking my tone woods and tracking them. To date I've made a note of where I got it, and what grade it was. Pretty simple. But I am now thinking about better tracking for how long its been in my climate controlled room and maybe other details.

Do any of you have specific thoughts on tracking wood details, or systems you've employed?
Number individually and track in a spreadsheet - date, source, grade, price, notes?
Or do you just write on each set?

Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

Lol... Stack in a pile in the corner or on a shelf... Forget its there... Find it 10 years later while looking for something else.... Hey! Looky there!

I take pictures and name the .jpg files with the species, who I bought it from, date, and price. I also make a folder for each guitar, and move the files for the used woods.

I write it on the wood. Who I got it from, date and price and what species if it's not real obvious

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

My former life as a research biologist means that tracking information is pretty ingrained and straight forward for me. I set up an Excel spreadsheet when I started buying wood and I enter information into it with each purchase. I also use that same page of the spreadsheet to track all the components, both wood and non-wood, I buy grouped by component. Column headings are:

Component, Description, Source, Price, Shipping, Total, Date, Used in Guitar #


For each guitar I build, I add a new page to the Excel file with the same column headings that lists all the components that went into the guitar. All the entries are just copy/pasted from the master list on the first page so that's easy to do. The costs are automatically summed at the bottom so I know the total cost of materials used for each guitar.

This spreadsheet saves me a lot of time when planning a new guitar because I can just look at the sheet to see my inventory of all parts and materials and I don't have to search through the shop to see what's what. It also means I don't have to wonder where I sourced a particular material or part before.

Almost all the wood I buy for building comes from sellers over the internet. For each top set and back and sides set, I make a Word doc into which I copy/paste the sellers info about the wood and their photos of the wood. Nothing fancy and it takes only a few minutes to make. It's a great resource for matching a particular set in the big stack in the shop to its source and how much I paid for it. I also try to write on each set what it is, but I don't always remember to do that.

The third thing I use is a Word doc which has the photos (about 2 x 3" in size like large thumbnail photos) of all the back and sides sets grouped by wood type. This is great fun to look at when pondering over what woods will go into my next guitar.

It might sound like a lot, but once you set up a spreadsheet, all you need to do is take a few minutes to add new info as you get it. It's a small investment of time for useful tool.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I have a spreadsheet that I keep for tops, back/side sets and fretboard/bridges. This is more for at a glance dreaming about what I might make a few down the line but it could easily be made to track all that other data you listed. For example, my back/side set section lists in the first column what the wood species is. Next is 3 columns for different sizes (in case I have a set that is only big enough for a parlor), I list how many sets of each size column I have. Like Cherry-3-2-0 would mean that I have 3 sets that are large enough for whatever, 2 sets that is only large enough for a OO and no sets that are only large enough for a parlor. Next is a note about what I paid or where they came from. . . then for each row I have a series of boxes equal to the sets I have and color coded for size. Using the above example I would have 3 blue boxes, 2 lavender boxes and zero magenta boxes. Each box represents one of the sets listed in that row. I can put in whatever notes about it I would lilke (figure, interesting story about it, if it is nice or boring. . .). As I use a set, I put the name of the guitar in that box so I can see at a glance what I have and what is used.

You would probably want specific columns for all of the things you want to keep track of instead of just typing in the boxes. But, having the color coded boxes is nice to see what you have a ton of and what you use the most.

Fret boards and bridges are even less well categorized since most of it comes from boards that are cut down when I want to use it. I have a lot of boards that are listed with how many fretboards I think it might have in it. . . I tried to do bracewood and binding stock at one point but that was even more difficult since I make that as I need it.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Thanks all - I guess I really need to step up my spreadsheet game. I have both Excel and Numbers - time to become a power user.

Are some of you assigning each component or b/s set a unique inventory number that correlates to your spreadsheet?

In my case, I haven't used inventory numbers. I guess I don't want to go that far down the rabbit hole.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Once I've forgotten where, when and from whom I've gotten the wood, I figure it's O.K. to use.
I don't bother worrying about recording the "Grade" - I decide what grade it should be using my own assessments.

A well organized and systematic state of confusion here.

I just write the species, vendor and date on the wood itself. And if I've graded it I'll write the density, modulus and stiffness to weight ratio on it.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

I guess if you keep a lot of sets on hand it would benefit you to have a system. I have probably about 75 sets on hand which is not too hard to keep track of just by writing the info on the wood itself. I tend to keep all the species in the same pile with the newest ones on the bottom so the age as they move up to the top. But when it comes time to build a guitar I usually pull every thing down and look at it all anyway. I always take pics too and compile those in a Google Plus photo album.

I have a spreadsheet somewhere and a box with almost all of the shipping invoices. And a lot of photographs.

But for 'day to day' tracking, I have the date I received the wood (and species if not obvious, but it almost always is / I don't have so much that I confuse the few bits of honduran, cuban, khaya and spio mahoganies) written on the wood itself. Most of my top woods are Italian spruce from Rivolta and have the date they were sawn stamped on them from the factory, only other spruce tops I have are some Lutz sets. Easily identified by looks.

I'm in John's camp. Big pile in my dry room of the good stuff. Tops on one shelf and back and sides on another. For me the spec build process starts with an idea. Then I go through the piles for further inspiration. It works well for me and I find going through the sets very enjoyable and a form of motivation. It keeps me thinking about future possibilities and often where creative ideas come from. If I live to be 150 I MIGHT use most of it. That is if I could control certain urges. haha

I also have another spot without climate control of various good wood that I may or may not use. I go through it less frequently but if I decide to use something from it, it goes to the dry room for a couple weeks, stickered.

I write the date, species and where I bought it in the corner of the expected upper bout. I try to add some sort of unique lettering, which along with the date, make it easier to match backs and sides that get shuffled around in the stack. I try to stack the wood by species, most of it being Mahogany, Koa and BRosewood and that makes it easier to find something I know is there somewhere. Have some pictures in a notebook along with the price paid but rarely look at that.

I keep two piles. One pile of the stuff that I'm definitely going to use. Another pile for the stuff that I should probably sell on Ebay and use the money to add to the other pile, but I can never bring myself to pull the trigger.

I have a spreadsheet somewhere. I lost track of it. Hahaha. Anyway, I used to hate seeing the prices especially if I ended up selling for less in a pinch. As far as inventory numbers- I'd rather spend my time in the shop building rather than taking inventory.

I only put the prices on my back/side sets and tops so I can reasonably estimate what the materials cost is for my guitars.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"