I don't think a chainsaw is the tool ceri needs to cut the slabs from that log. He needs a bandsaw. Industrial strength.

_________________
Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Hands like hams, knees like trees, 200 pounds of surfboard hercules.

Forget the chainsaw, its no use aside from the initial felling.

_________________
No no and no

Yeah, it looks like someone pretty good cut those lengths you had pictures of. The cuts look like a perfect, smooth and 90 degrees.



Ha ha! You mean the skinney guy with the beach bunny that looked like Annette Funicello? Those ads were always in the back of comic books, weren't they?

Gridlok

[Next day] Couple of years ago, during a tea break from tree felling, we got to messing around and cut out a few of these Flintstone style benches using chainsaws. That's a similar cut to the one I'm working on, but not near accurate enough. I'd lose a stack of nice timber planing the wonkiness out of a plank produced this way. 'Fraid it's the handsaw for me, till a proper ripsaw machine comes my way (like these ones: http://www.ripsaw.com/ )...






That's the one, from the small ads in Marvel and DC comics! Mind you, I was always more fascinated by the ad for X-ray Specs. What the heck did those things really do, I wonder?

Sensible questions for carpenters coming tomorrow...

Cheers - C

I thought it was a reference to the 10cc song.

I had a pair of the xray specs when i was a kid. I havent a clue on how they worked but performance wasnt too good. If you held your hand infront of a light you could see a blurry image inside your fingers which they said was the bone.

_________________
No no and no

I like the "Flinstone" bench. Very rustic. I love the look of "serious" wood.

I realize a chainsaw isn't the BEST tool for the job, but its' availability is what made me mention it. Because this is only a rough cut, I don't understand why it has to be that perfect. With your 2 1/2" layout lines there's lots of room for error, (I think my neck is about 7/8" - plus fretboard). Thickness planing will take out any wonkiness left from the chainsaw massacre. Of course there will be waste. There always is. It's the nature of the operation. Better milling machines, (like a bandsaw), will leave LESS waste, but that's not a reasonable option for most people.

There's something I don't understand here. (Maybe cutting by hand is a Zen thing or something.)

Gridlok

I have a home in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, which is covered in snow right now. All those pics look like good firewood to me! Too bad you live across the pond, or I could pick up a truckload to keep me warm.

_________________
"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them."-John Wayne

Gridlok,
Unless I am mistaken, Ceri is counting on that ash for bodies, so that thickness may be pretty critical...

_________________
Ignorance IS bliss - and I am the happiest person here!

Ash makes by far the best firewood, and I've some to spare. It ain't so far - come and get it!



Cheers - C

There's probably something in that. However, the most likely explanation is:



Thank you!

Anyway. Couldn't put it off any longer: finally finished cutting up the first of the present batch of ash logs, just as daylight was going:



Mixed results. On the one hand, the middle slice is just not quite wide enough to get a one piece body from:



On the other hand, there's some potentially interesting grain revealed. Try and ignore my diagonal sawing marks here and see the dark figure lines in these pieces:



Some people see that as imperfection, others find it unique and desirable. I'm sorta seeing a Tele body with those marks across it...?

Also, by opening the planks out this way we effectively get bookmatched pieces. Of course, we'll have to avoid the knots when selecting our pieces for body blanks, but they help to see how one side matches the other:



Accepting that I'm not going to get a one piece body from this I think there's scope here eventually to have some interestingly matched two piece bodies. Assuming this ash seasons as well as my previous batch I'm guessing we might get three or four two piece bodies out of this single log, and maybe enough smaller pieces for a couple of other three or four piece bodies. Can't be bad, eh?

I've got a series of questions for the real carpenters and cabinet makers I know we have amongst us. One is: That central slice of the log is a nice big piece with plenty of potential. But I have dim idea at the back of my head that we want to avoid using timber from the very center of the tree, for stability reasons. Is that right, or did I imagine it?

Another question: to my uneducated eye that timber looks good right up to the inside of the bark. However, from small experience with green oak I have a notion we are meant to discard timber from the first inch or two beneath the bark. Again, is that right? Or perhaps it only applies to oak but is not relevant with this ash?

All thoughts and advice gladly received.

Cheers guys - C

Sorry that I don't know the answers to any of your wood questions.

I am impressed with your effort! Good work.

_________________
Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.

Merry Christmas Ceri! Hope you were a good boy and got everything you asked for. Now that my house has emptied out I thought I'd come have a looksee.

DISCLAIMER: Even though I am a woodguy, I don't nessessarily know my ASH from a hole in the ground. Like pear, it's kind of off my radar.

You've got what looks like some really nice wood there. I love that grain and no, it's not any sort of imperfection. It is going to look soooooooo fantastic whether it's bookmatched or plain laminated. With a finish, it will (I heard the expression here,) MELT YOUR FACE. Of that I am sure. And it's from your own property, grown by your own familly - how cool is that?



Yeah, you want to stay away from the "heart" of the tree, around which all things warp.



Never heard of that one. Maybe it's a green oak thing. You can examine the area in question to see if any less dense or punky at all by drilling or cutting into it. Also, looking from end at the growth rings if they are really wide at the outside it could be less dense (not good, but maybe not bad), once again, do some exploring to find out. Obviously, you want the pieces you use to be even in density all the way through.

Well, there's another 2 cents worth. Did you cut all those by hand,(Maniac)?
Cheers,
Gridlok

Hi Gridlok. If I keep saving all these two cents of yours I'm soon gonna have a small fortune! Thanks again - very useful.

Yep, all cut by hand [gasping for breath; arms dangling painfully at sides]. Worse, I have another two such logs to go. Worse still: I made those planks 2.5 inches thick because I wasn't confident I would do straight enough sawing and wanted to leave a good margin for error. However, my sawing wasn't too bad after all - so eventually I will have to remove a lot of material to get it to Strat thickness. Silly waste.

So for the next logs I will cut thinner slices, maybe two inches. Which of course means more planks - and more sawing. Ohmygod...

In the fullness of time I am planning to treat myself to this machine:



That'll be a good step up from where I am at present. However, it still only has a maximum depth of cut of 220 mm / about nine inches. Seems if we want anything bigger the price jumps exponentially: and of course I ain't gonna be milling logs on a machine like that.

So the only options: develop bigger arm muscles for hand sawing. Or try doing it with the chainsaw after all. Or go back to my local saw mill - it's only a mile up the road, but the idea of the exercise was self-sufficiency.

For now I'll do a bit more hand sawing. At least I'll be able to say to Ed Roman: "You want handmade? - I'll give you handmade!"

Anyhow. 'Nother question: most people have told me to air dry timber with the bark left on. My sawmill guy said that and also books and websites I've consulted. However, an old and respected joiner I know said the exact opposite: trim the bark off the wood before seasoning it.

With the last lot (at the beginning of the thread) I left the bark on. The ash has seasoned well but the pear has warped and cracked quite a bit...

Any thoughts?

Happy New Year - C

I always thought leaving the bark on helped to slow down the drying process. Slower = more stable. You know what happens if you try to accelerate the drying by adding heat. Try throwing one of those sticks in the oven and you'll see. I would expect major warpage.

I'd be interested to know the reasoning behind removing the bark. Can you ask that fellow. I'm always up for learning something new.

As for the pear wood, it looked like it had checked quite badly. Is it a super hard wood? Was it left in hot sunshine at some point?

I like your cats. Happy New Year - Gridlok

Very handy, thank you. I wonder if the idea of taking the bark off was to do with kiln drying. I seem to recall seeing pictures of mountains of timber in drying rooms at places like PRS, and that was all trimmed up neatly. Maybe that's what it's about - I'll ask that fella when I see him next.

No the pear had exactly the same treatment as the ash, seasoning in a cool semi-basement over 18 months. But, yes, it is very hard indeed: perhaps that has something to do with why it has behaved so differently.

Anyhow. Bark on for seasoning, you say? It shall be done:



That's my first of this year's logs with its ends rewaxed, weighed and labelled and now stacked away in an outbuilding for the next year or so. Stick around, I'll tell you how it turns out!

BTW: I was asking earlier about whether we had to loose an outer layer of timber beneath the bark, because I've come across that with oak. I think I stumbled upon an answer to my own question this afternoon:



That's the stump of a small oak tree that was in the wrong place and was recently felled. It's just young but already it has that very obvious layer between the bark and the heartwood - I think they call that sapwood, do they? I believe it is that which people remove before working oak, due to not being hard enough.

I'm not seeing anything comparable to that with the ash, so I'm gonna assume it is good right up to where it touches the bark.

More economical: maybe another reason the guitar industry uses ash...?

One more question (ple-e-ease...?). Not pictured, but I also have a decent log from a beech tree (southern beech, to be exact). I can't recall ever seeing beech in guitar construction - it seems more an Ikea furniture type timber. But I'd be very glad to hear from anyone who knows otherwise. Anyone heard of beech used in instruments? If so, I'll knuckle down and saw that one up too...

Cheers - C