turning or guitar blanks

woodmills1 · May 28, 2006, 08:48:53 PM

have so much wood now with blue ox, anyone have links to turning blank markets? Also have huge maple that looks maybe curly remember talkin of guitar blank market but cant find links.

timcosby · May 28, 2006, 09:13:46 PM

i'm no help to ya but how can you tell about the maple being figured or not???

Burlkraft · May 28, 2006, 09:26:07 PM

Check out www.curlymaple.com They have private stock and luthier material. They have good pictures of what they have. There are a couple others I've seen too, but I can't remember where they were from. Alot of that stuff is worth sortin' and cutin' up special...$$$$$

woodmills1 · May 29, 2006, 09:24:14 AM

on maple you can see and feel bumps on the log when the bark is removed in my experience these turn out to have curly figure.

jpgreen · May 29, 2006, 10:29:40 AM

I like the river house boats on that website. I grewup on the Sacramento (Ca) river. Former river rat.. ;D

Coon · May 29, 2006, 10:30:52 AM

How big of a supply of luthier blanks do you have. I will be building guitars again this winter. Maple is very good for the necks and sometimes sides on the acoustics but it all depends on the look and the overall direction of the grain.

Brad.

woodmills1 · May 29, 2006, 01:37:11 PM

I guess what I am asking is what sizes would I cut so that guitar makers will want the pieces. I was thinking of necks as well as electric guitar bodies.

woodbeard · May 29, 2006, 09:52:26 PM

Electric guitar body blanks are usually 1.75"thick ( after planing ) x14" wide x18-22" long.
When figured woods are used, it is usually as a bookmatched face laminated onto a plain back. This is usually supplied as a 7" wide billet to be resawn by the builder, but also can be sold already resawn. The thickness of the face ( on the guitar ) can be as thin as 1/8" (for a flat-top) or as thick as 7/8" (for a carved top).
Hard or soft maple can be used for the bodies, but they are most often soft maple.
Necks (electric, again) should be hard maple. Flatsawn or quartersawn is fine, but one or the other, no riftsawn. A Fender style neck blank is typically 13/16" x 4" x 27" ( or 4.5" x 34" for a Bass )

Coon · May 30, 2006, 01:54:04 AM

woodbeard, You really know your stuff. I only build acoustic and acoustic/electric instruments. I don't go for the straight electric instruments. It's not that I don't like building them, it's just that I like the challenge of building an acoustical instrument. I have the training and knowledge base and have been building guitars since 1996, and repairing them as far back as I can recall even playing them.

Normally I buy or cut all of my stock for the necks in 3.5"x3.5"x24" sqouare 1/4 sawn, rift sawn, or figured wood stock.

The body stock is very straight and square grained 1.25"x6"x48" stock.

Backs I cut as wide as 15" bookmatched @3/8" thick which gets put through a thickness sander (that I built) down to 1/8-3/16" thickness for final building.

Any of these stock pieces are made of hardwoods. The fronts and inside ribbings and purflings are all made of softwoods. All woods must have ABSOLUTELY NO SIGN OF KNOTWOOD.

I make virtually all of my own pieces and parts from my own stock. My stocks are low right now and there are some species of woods that I do not have access to around here thus needing to be brought in from across the country. I do buy all of my other hardware such as tuning pegs and some of my truss rods.

Brad.

woodbeard · May 30, 2006, 06:58:24 AM

Someday I will try my hand at acoustic instruments. I made a couple flattop mandolins a long long time ago. Both failed under the string tension. I always intended to make another one ( with better bracing :D ) just never got a round tuit. I really like British Isles folk music and that style of mando family instruments.
For now I stick with the electrics mostly because I have a major crush on the instrument. :D Gotta have my rock-n-roll! 8) Now, if I could only play them worth a dang. :D

Coon · May 31, 2006, 12:37:47 AM

All is COOL here!!! Music is music. It is what you make of it.

Brad.

woodmills1 · May 31, 2006, 09:16:48 AM

good discussion on instruments

Sold my first turning blanks to the person who gave me the idea, total of 34 bd ft in 5 pieces. The largest 16 by 16 by 8. He said they were worth around 5 bucks per bd ft so I gave them to him for half that as he started me on this market.

Also called Jack the shop teacher at pinkerton acadamey. I have sold and givin him hunks, cut offs, and butt flares in the past. He took a 14 inch cut off of the large maple that I ripped in half for him. They have a blaning tool, a curved cutter that can get more than one bowl blank from a piece, sort of like nested. I will follow up on what they do with it.

So, I orderd 5 gal of anchorseal and will cut the rest of the maple lump, as well as some of my apple into rectangular turning blanks........new horizons ;D

twoodward15 · May 31, 2006, 03:32:32 PM

Was the maple curly? Do you have any pics?

twoodward15 · May 31, 2006, 03:33:13 PM

Was the maple curly? Do you have any pics?

woodmills1 · June 17, 2006, 09:30:51 AM

cut up the rest of the log into turning blanks and got them covered in anchorseal. 130 bd ft total, some nice curly and tiger maple.

here is a shot of the first blank turned into core stock

and the coring process

the nested bowls

the bowls

they were turned by a friend of a friend......nice work eh?
notice the nice tiger.

jpgreen · June 17, 2006, 09:45:11 AM

Those bowls are awesome.. 8)

I had cleared some old growth manzanita on my property that had branches as big as 8" in diameter. I didn't know about anchorseal and it all cracked on me. Beautiful stuff.

Oh well, there's more up there. Live and learn.

Burlkraft · June 17, 2006, 05:32:05 PM

Ooohhhhhh...That's a OneWay 2436 I see in the pic...ain't it ??? ??? ???

woodmills1 · June 18, 2006, 09:12:01 AM

The turning was done by a student at pinkerton academy who graduated yesterday. I can ask about the machinery. He does nice work. I understand that his senior project won a competition. Was a table......
............with complete turned 4 piece place setting

including wine bottle cork and chiller :P :P

jkj · June 18, 2006, 02:45:16 PM

Quote from: woodmills1 on May 28, 2006, 08:48:53 PM
anyone have links to turning blank markets?

Woodmills,

Where are you located in the country and what kinds of turning blank wood do you normally have? I ran into a California gentleman in the exotic wood retail and internet sales business who indicated he was soon moving to the Chicago area and would be looking for domestic turning blanks from the southeast. We specifically discussed holly, but I think he was interested in other domestic wood as well.

I could pass contact info to you if you'd like.

JKJ

woodmills1 · June 19, 2006, 08:45:05 AM

certainly pass on the contact info. I am in hudson NH, near nashua and the mass border. I have the maple now and some spalted ash and some apple I will soon cut.