Tree cut down - how to use for guitars?

[brian64]

Hello All.

We finally had a eucalypt from our back yard cut down today, which will save me countless hours of raking and cleaning gutters from all the leaves and twigs it dropped. Not to mention the fear of big branches falling on my workshop. I've had the fellers cut a few 25" sections of the trunk with the idea of using them for solid body guitars in future.

I'd like advice on what to do with it next - have it rough sawn into slabs first? Any ideas where I can have this done near Melbourne? Then wax the ends? Or paint them? What wax or paint should I use?

I'm sure that after that it's stickering and waiting - how long do I wait (obviously dependant on thickness, but what's the general rule).

Looking forward to any help with saving this timber for future instruments.

Brian.

www.briandyskinguitars.com

[Alastair]

Irrespective of the suitability for guitar use, (and I leave that up to the Forum experts), the most immediate problem will be to get the exposed end-grain sealed asap. Without this, most eucs I have dealt with in turning will start end-checking within hours, (days at the most), and will be reduced to firewood in a hurry.

I would also suggest splitting into half(at least) at the same time, and for the same reason, and then sawn as soon as you can.

[woodrat]

Hi Brian, I have not tried to cut Euc for guitars but I have cut it from 3 blackwood trees and one silky oak tree. Basically I cut it into 1200 lengths and I take a big 100mm+ wide "fillet" from the centre of the tree either side of the heart that is dead quartersawn. The tree must be big enough to be able to get 200mm either side of the heart or close to it to be able to make 2 piece backs although if it is near but not quite you could make 3 piece backs with a contrasting (or same) wood just as easily. If your tree is 600mm then that should be big enough for 2 piece backs. If the tree is big enough then the remaining 1/2 rounds can yield the sides by cutting at 90 degrees to your original "fillet" again resulting in dead quartered material. You are left with 4 small quarters that if you are keen enough you can get something out of but usually there is not much there to justify the effort. After that I stash them somewhere for a year to loose a bit of moisture and then I take them out and make the large billets or "fillets" as I call them and deep them on my bandsaw and then I dry them inside as they are now 50+ mm and should dry down from there. Once they are down in moisture a bit you can saw sets from them and sticker them for final drying. At about 4 - 4.5 mm they dry quite quickly. I would end seal them of course as previous posters mentioned. I find old paint good (and cheap) preferring oil based to water based acrylics for this but use what you have got handy. As I said I haven't used euc in acoustics and would have a look at the shrinkage ratios of the species of tree you have to decide if it is stable enough in service to warrant all the effort of converting it to tonewood. Thats basically my method, I do it all by hand and eye with a chainsaw to "fillet" out the best quartered material. There is a fair bit of waste but I like to have everything well oversize so that I can work around the inevitable faults that you come across when you slice a tree open.

Hope there is something helpful here....

John the WoodRat

[woodrat]

I was a bit late with my editing and was not able to put this pic in the last post...I mark out my "fillet" and then drop the chainsaw down the marked lines and then rip it down the heart for the largest dimention of useable timber. This yields the highest value dead quartersawn timber for instruments. This was the same figured blackwood tree that I mentioned in the last post.


John the WoodRat

[brian64]

Thanks for the replies Alastair and John,

I'll have to get some paint on the end grain ASAP. Excuse my ignorance in these matters, but what are the alternatives to the chainsaw for cutting the initial fillets? Or should I just hit Bunnings on the weekend and get a chainsaw?

I'm planning on using it for solid body guitars, so I'm a bit less concerned about the acoustic properties of eucs, though I would like to try getting it as close to quarter as I can. The trunk was only about 400 diameter, so I hope I'll still be able to get some useable pieces for two or three piece bodies and tops.

Cheers,

Brian.

www.BrianDyskinGuitars.com

[simso]

Beautiful looking wood there john

[woodrat]

Yes Steve I put in quite a few days of effort on that tree. It was on a dairy farm and the farmers are friends of mine. I wasnt aware at the time that the weed they called Sally Wattle was actually Blackwood. If I had not have said that I would like the tree they were going to just push it over into the nearest gully to "clean up" that corner of the paddock. It was an old tree with a limb broken down and where the limb had snapped off I could see the figure so I thought I had better save it

Here is a picture of the second guitar that I have built from that tree that I am just lacquering at the moment. I still have a lot of resawing of the rest of the billets to do but I sawed out a few just B & S sets to see that it was OK. ...it was OK!

John the WoodRat

[charangohabsburg]

[...] the weed [...]

John believe me, it's not good to build with weed. You'd better get rid of what is left, best thing would be to export it to Switzerland. I could pay you the postage.

[woodrat]

Hi Brian, I hate to look at things purely from the point of view of economics (and I rarely do) but in this instance you need to work out early on in the piece if it is worth all the effort. Just because you have the timber available does not mean that it is necessarily a goer. If it is , like in my blackwoods case a very high value tree then it is nearly worth any effort as the wood of that quality is either unobtainable of very expensive as sawn sets. You would have to decide that before you launched into it. I cant think of another way to do it that does not involve a chainsaw at this point unless you want to get a pro miller involved and then you would really have to view it from an economic point of view. Perhaps you could post a pic of said tree...I'd love to see it.

Markus....sorry mate this is a particular sub species of this weed that cannot be exported!

John the WoodRat

[peter.coombe]

Wow, nice Blackwood. What happened to the rest of the tree John? Looks like there could have been a few mandolin sized wedges made from the left overs.

[DarwinStrings]

I'm sure that after that it's stickering and waiting - how long do I wait (obviously dependant on thickness, but what's the general rule).

G'day Brian the general rule for atmosphere drying is 1 inch per annum so if you cut solid body billets at 50mm look at two years minimum and it can't hurt to be even more patient than that.

Jim

[Kim]

Nice blackwood Rod, I had a slab in the shed for a while and use to look at it and wonder to myself...where did all the figure go?? Well, now I know.

Cheers

Kim

[brian64]

OK, so here are the logs , which look like this from the top .As you can see there's already a bit of checking, so gotta get to work.
I'm hoping that there'll be this sort of look to the timber when made into instruments. (this was from an old fence post)

So a quick trip to Bunnings for a chain-saw, and then to another Bunnings because the first one didn't have the model that I wanted (that fit into my budget). It ended up being underpowered, but I couldn't justify a more powerful one.

First log - the centre slab came out quite uneven - sort of twisted. Should be OK for a carved electric top once it's dried and dressed, but probably won't be good for a full thickness electric body. I'll use the other bits for necks.
The second log came out much better. I'm loving the colours in there.

I've painted the ends to seal the end grain and "brickered" the pieces.
I'll need to move them under the house for a few years now. Then I'll have to trouble you all again to work out how to get these very rough slabs milled to something more useable.

I found this much harder work than I had expected with the chainsaw - probably because it wasn't a powerful enough saw. At times it seemed that progress could be measured in mm per minute. The result wasn't as smooth as I had expected either - especially after seeing John's beautiful blackwood fillets. I have to say it has given me a greater appreciation for the work that goes into making instrument blanks, and I will whinge a little less at the price of guitar timber.

[Tod Gilding]

Hi Brian,
Here is a solid body that I built from a Eucalypt ( E. Resinafera ) You may find that most Eucalypts are very heavy,This one is. A Gym workout prior to playing to strengthen the back and shoulders is required. That said it sustains for a day and a half and I put that down to the heavy dense wood,so If you can handle the weight issue,you could have a very nice Guitar depending on exactly which eucalypt you have,of course.

[woodrat]

Good on You for doing it Brian! Yes the effort expended is huge but the rewards are there when you are making something with your very own wood. I find people are amazed when you say that the guitar they are holding came from a tree that I cut down myself.


John the WoodRat

[charangohabsburg]

So a quick trip to Bunnings for a chain-saw, and then to another Bunnings because the first one didn't have the model that I wanted (that fit into my budget). It ended up being underpowered, but I couldn't justify a more powerful one.

Great! This is exactly what I have done too a bit more than three years ago when I got offered these cherry trees :


Now they look like this:


I wish I had quartered some of them back then for easier transport (some I will need in halves for making charangos).

[stopper]

Hi Brian,
Here is a solid body that I built from a Eucalypt ( E. Resinafera ) You may find that most Eucalypts are very heavy,This one is. A Gym workout prior to playing to strengthen the back and shoulders is required. That said it sustains for a day and a half and I put that down to the heavy dense wood,so If you can handle the weight issue,you could have a very nice Guitar depending on exactly which eucalypt you have,of course.

Don't want to hijack your thread Brian and well done on making use of that tree......but Tod's photo caught my eye. E. Resinafera (red mahogany) is heavy and hard and I think it would make a good Aust. alternative to Indian Rosewood for fret boards?

cheers
Steve

[brian64]

Thanks for all the words of encouragement.

Can anyone identify which species it is from the photos? If it helps, I could probably find some leaves - the gutters are still full of them (another job on the list).

Brian.

[snakey]

sorry to bring up an old post but i've just cut down a similar tree. is there any way to get it to dry quicker? is there an easy way to make a makeshift kiln or something?

[MBP]

Nearly every tree (cant remember how many 10 or more though) I have helped cut up for guitar making has been quartered with the chainsaw and then cut up. That way you can still get quartersawn backs from all the way around the tree and matching sides as well. These have been good size blackwood though and a few bits of tas oak

Quite a few people trim the edges of the stump off but it waste a lot of good wood.

[stopper]

Hi Snakey,
Through trial and error I find it best to cut the log up straight away. I cut my blackwood into 6mm thick pieces for backs and sides and 25mm planks for necks and cabinet work. It is also handy to have some 100x100 and 75x75. You then need to rack it out in a suitable environment with resonable air flow. Be careful not to dry it too quickly. The larger sections will crack.
cheers
Steve

[snakey]

ah sweet thanks dude. i'll cut some up tonight and stast it under my carport for good airflow

[peter.coombe]

Well while you guys are busily making use of your felled trees, I have just walked past something that made me feel quite sick in the stomach. I live in a area that has large forest redgum trees (Eucalyptus tereticornis, I think). A neighbour (vacant block) has just cut one down and it has been chopped up into firewood. There is barely one piece left that is longer than 1ft long, so is now completely useless for anything but firewood. This tree was about 1.1m in diameter at the trunk, so was no small tree. It was also solid wood throughout, no rot in the trunk. Not only that, but most of the larger pieces have fiddleback figure! Forest redgum is quite nice wood, and if not used for music instruments would have made very nice furniture. Sheer igorance and IMHO nothing short of vandalism. I feel so bad about this I might even write a complaining letter to the council since theoretically the neighbour needed council permission to cut it down.

[snakey]

You should hit the red head thats running this country up for a law to give luthiers dibs on the woods cut down

[stopper]

Snakey, your carport sounds like a good spot but be careful. I had some neck blocks ruined this week by a warm NW wind and too much air flow. Gently does it. Particularly if the timber is dead green.
cheers
steve