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Well for example...

If you buy a set from LMI, it comes with the sides and back surfaced both sides, uniform thickness between bookmatches, and dead flat, and reasonably thinned already (don't know their measurements offhand, but let's say .130-.150). LMI deals with guitar builders only.

Another vendor will send a set where one panel is .120 and the other .250, and warped, or with sides that vary in thickness from target dimension to well above, so you have to try to nurse the piece into useable shape. Only one side of a panel sanded, the other with deep planer or sander marks. Nothing wrong with the wood itself, but much more futzing about to bring it in line. A company that may sell wood for a variety of purposes, not just guitars.

I guess I'm just trying to get a sense of what most of us are used to seeing when you buy wood specifically for making guitars. I know for myself that it makes me lean towards vendors that supply wood that is easier to process.

So, 'a lot more processing' means extra runs through the drum sander, having to repeatedly measure with calipers to see if one panel is approaching the thickness of the next so you can run them through the sander at the same setting and so on and so forth. All the shoe that drives ya batty when you really need to get things done. And it makes me wonder if vendors that supply a number of different purposes for wood know how to process wood for us. That's all, ya know?

Ok, I guess I should amend my earlier post with some common sense .250" is definitely excessive, especially for hardwoods. And warped is never a good sign.

But if I get two slices about 3/16" with fresh-off-the-bandsaw surfaces, I'm pretty happy. And I don't mind if if one tapers down toward 1/8" at one edge or whatever. It's certainly nice to have backs pre-sanded to 1/8", and sides to .100", but the bandsawing is the only part that I really don't want to do myself. If dealing with a little cleanup knocks a few bucks off the price, I'll take it.

Another point is that gouges in the show face of bookmatched sets are a bad thing. Particularly rift/flat sawn backs, because the grain patterns change significantly as you thin them down... so the less wood gets removed in the sawing and surfacing process, the better.

I wouldn't expect general lumber suppliers to meet luthier standards. That's why luthier suppliers can charge so much... because it requires skill and attention that's not necessary for your average furniture/construction lumber.

Binding strips are another story, though. If I'm paying several dollars for a tiny strip of wood, I expect it to be straight grained and a consistent .08" or so thick, with only a light scraping necessary to remove sanding scratches, if anything.

Fair enough...

In a production environment getting materials of uniform dimensions and quality is worth the extra expense. Buying from suppliers who provide material for that specific need makes sense. The selecting and extra processing they do is value added and one reason they often charge more.
At the other end of the spectrum are the people who are willing to cut their own billets and wait for the wood to season. I'm too old for that. I take the middle ground - buy some woods processed, resaw some boards, and use less conventional methods to make back and side sets.

"and use less conventional methods to make back and side sets."

sounds interesting, what do you mean exactly? Any examples?

Cheers, Alex

Lazer beams. Get with it Herr.

Wow, thats quite a difference from .120 and .250. Looks like someone got lazy setting up the band saw to make the book match.

Clay has been known to laminate BRW veneers for backs & sides...
And has used HPL(formica) as well.

_________________
A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

My experience is that I would only use about 65% of the wood that I mail order. The remainder has flaws that make it unacceptable to me.

I've recently stocked up to build two more guitars - buying from four well known mail order companies:

I bought four mahogany bracewood billets - but only two are usable. The other two have wild grain runout and are certainly not acceptable for bracewood. At $7 a billet thats $14 wasted; not worth the trouble to send it back.

I bought a premium EIR back and side set. The set I received was gorgeous, but had a crack in a spot I couldn't use and I returned it at the supplier's cost. The replacement set was bland and I would not have picked it if I was there to select it myself, but the set is OK, just not what I would consider "premium" for both grain alignment and for beauty.

I bought 4 Spanish cedar neck blanks. Three were reasonably straight grained. One had wavy grain, so I would not use it in a neck. Two of them had excessive run-out showing on the edge, making them weak in the important direction. So, of the 4, two were usable. The other two were a waste of $50.

I bought two truss rods. One is fine, the other has the top bar welded on at an angle to the screw block so the whole rod is bent. One one of the welds is poorly done with undercut and a gap in the middle of the weld 'cause the guy didn't weld straight.

I bought two premium cedar tops. They were OK - quartersawn, but rubbery with wider grain than I would have selected, but I did not specify any grain count. That was a $70 gamble for the two mail order tops and it's not worth the hassle to spend $56 on shipping to get a $70 refund. I found an acceptable top locally.

I bought 12 curly mahogany binding strips and 12 EIR binding strips. About 4 of the 12 stips for both the EIR and mahogany were excesively warped (warped in the hard bending direction) and are unusable. The EIR strips were also visually very disparate and not colour matched. I bought another 12 EIR strips from a different vendor and they were all visually consistent/matched and straight.

I also bought a premium bearclaw spruce set, a european spruce top, and six fretboards. They were all acceptable.

All of the wood I've received has been dimensioned quite well. I expect and prefer to do the final dimensioning myself so long as there is no warp and sufficient meat for me to work with.

as long as the tree has been cut down I am fine with everything....

Seriously, I think the point is, if you have a bandsaw and wood you can resaw wood into tonewood. But it makes a big difference if the person in front of the saw has ever built a guitar, or at least is instructed by somebody how has ever built guitars. That makes a big differnce.

cheers, alex

Hi Alex,
As Roger mentioned I laminate sequence matched slices of veneer in the same order they were cut from the log. The veneer was off cuts and overages from millwork factories. Working in the veneer industry you may be familiar with this. Over the years I've gathered up a fair amount of this excess veneer. I also build inexpensive instruments with HPL. One product I've used is Alpi Ligna, a prefinished wood covered HPL product. It makes a very light weight body and looks fairly nice - a real wood look with minimal finishing.

Ok, that`s f...ing cool. I have been think about doing exactly the same with some quite nice brw veneer I have. Laminating the sides over a jig, and just gluing the veneers back together for getting two back plates. May I ask you what kind of glue you are using? I guess some epoxy?

Cheers, Alex

Question answerd in the other thread.....

BTW, now it would be interested to laminated several layers of brw with the same grain direction, and also some laminations with another wood (mahogani for example) in the middle with grain direction running 90 degrees to the brw grain. Then we are where building Maccaferi guitars starts. This I have done already quite often. Sounds amazing. So I have to try also the all garin some directin system.

cheers, alex

Hi Alex,
I use West system epoxy and the 207 clear hardener. I dry out the veneer before glue up - this seems to make it more stabile and less prone to warping after laminating. I also leave it in the form for a week until it is fully cured. I pore fill with the same epoxy so I am not concerned with "bleed through" on the face veneer.
The finished product acts much like solid wood. Under extreme low humidity it can crack just as a solid piece will. Minor 'sand throughs" are inconspicuous because the grain of the underlying wood is the same and the epoxy disappears under finish. With dark veneers the laminations become almost invisible, so head plates and unbound edges give the appearance of solid wood.
I did a lay up with carbon fiber cloth as an inner ply. It made a light and strong sandwich. It had what I would describe as a Tupperware tap tone, but still made a fine sounding guitar.
One thing I have noticed with some of the older plywood guitars is "checking" in the face veneers. I believe this is because of the cross ply orientation of the layers. Although I know this is a stronger construction I have resisted doing this and would rather deal with the material acting like solid wood.
I think you will be pleased with the finished product if you do try this method. Aside from the economic advantages, many of the most beautiful woods end up as veneer, which we can then use for guitar construction.

Expectations wise...
It should match the advertized description....
It should clean up thick enough to do the job....
Everything else is just hoping for better wood than they tell you it is....
Sometimes, you get better... Sometimes you get what they say it is....

On the deal with one slice being real thick... That's what happens sometimes on the end of a billet... The last slice is too thin to take 1 more slice... but still pretty darned thick....

Thanks

For me the expectation is the wood is thicker than .130", not necessarily uniform but it must be free of cracks or significant warpage to make the piece useless.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

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