fresh tonewood preparation

[Mat Roop]

I have a 40 yr old spruce in my front yard that is coming down tomorrow.... I plan to keep a section of it for my own use in making a couple of tops. 

Questions..

1- should the bark be left on the log in the drying process? how long?

2-What should the ends of the log be treated with to prevent splitting?

3-Is it possible to treat the endgrain so as to split the log while the wood is still fresh... would speed up the drying.

Thanks for your help!...Mat

[Nick Allen]

I don't think the bark being on or off would make much difference. It usually just falls off anyways depending on what time if year you harvested. 

As for the endgrain, I would just seal it with wax or a commercial endgrain sealer ASAP. 

Also I imagine that you'd have to split the log while it's still green, or else it'd take ages to dry. 

[Brad Dorsey]

Take the bark off. It can harbor insects that you don't want.  Saw the trunk into pieces of appropriate length.  Leave a few extra inches of length.  Split these pieces into over-size billets rather than leaving them round, because smaller pieces will dry faster and will be less likely to crack while drying.  Paint the ends to slow end-grain moisture loss.  Store the wood under cover, outside for good air circulation, and stacked loosely to allow air circulation between them.

I've never cut instrument wood, but I have cut firewood my whole life.

 

[FiddleDoug]

How big is the tree (diameter)? You really have to watch out for those yard trees! They very often grow so fast that the grain is really wide. Last one that I looked at had about 3/8" wide grain. Too wide for anything IMHO. Yard trees are also notorious for having nails, screws, and other metal in them. In any case, if the grain looks OK after it's cut, treat it like Brad said. You can use latex paint to seal the ends.

[Michael Darnton]

The vermin that make holes in wood first live in the bark, and it needs to go ASAP. If you leave it on, it will continue to attract egg-laying attention.

The larger your piece are, the more likely they are to check. Wood needs to shrink as it dries, and if the piece is small, it can shrink in dimension. If the piece is cylindrical, it will need to open checks somewhere to shrink, and you will have no control of where or how often. Also, you want it to dry through the sides as much as possible, not the ends. Can't do that if there are no sides.

[H_Axel]

Waxy sealers are much better than paint. In my experience in a dry climate, latex paint doesn’t do much to prevent checking. Melted paraffin (wax in US, not British kerosene) works too.

When you debark, look closely to see if there are any holes from beetle larvae. It there are, be sure to split off the outer portion until you have clean wood. It’s usually only a problem in dead timber but check to be sure.

The key to splitting is to always split your piece in halves. If you attempt to split a violin thick piece off a larger chunk, it will probably veer off into something too thin. Instead, split your rounds in half. Split half into quarters, and quarters into eighths until you reach the correct thickness. As long as you split halves, the splits will mostly be even. Allow a little extra to compensate for nature’s foibles. You’ll make a lot of kindling if you don’t know this trick.

On Sim Chamber’s tonewood field trip, we used cheap Harbor Freight hatchets as splitting wedges. Try to read the grain and use natural checking if possible. Even if you don’t get usable tops, you may get blocks, bass bars or sound posts. At a minimum , you’ll learn a lot about spruce and get some good exercise!

I don’t know if Sim is running his trip this year because of the virus, but if/when he does it again, it’s a great experience. He’s a great teacher and you’ll get a LOT of practice processing spruce. 
H

[HoGo]

You can also use white glue for sealing endgrain. I've used latex paint in past or even ordinary white wall paint in a pinch (on spruce) and it worked well.

[David Burgess]

1 hour ago, Michael Darnton said:

The vermin that make holes in wood first live in the bark, and it needs to go ASAP. If you leave it on, it will continue to attract egg-laying attention.

The larger your piece are, the more likely they are to check. Wood needs to shrink as it dries, and if the piece is small, it can shrink in dimension. If the piece is cylindrical, it will need to open checks somewhere to shrink, and you will have no control of where or how often. Also, you want it to dry through the sides as much as possible, not the ends. Can't do that if there are no sides.

All agreed.

42 minutes ago, H_Axel said:

Waxy sealers are much better than paint. I

Perhaps, in some ways, but I've done just fine sealing the ends of freshly cut wood with either latex paint, or Titebond. When I'm using wood which has been sealed with wax, I'll spend quite a bit of time trying to remove all the surface residue, and try to saw away at least a half-inch at each end, since that's were molten waxes can penetrate to a greater depth.

Why? Waxes can be a very effective "release agent" for adhesives, and I don't want any around when doing a center joint.

[Shunyata]

For decades my father has harvested his own wood for furniture making.  He taught me:

Cut away bark and sapwood.

Cut into reasonably sized billets.  Figure on at least 1/4" waste on all surfaces, And more like 1" on end grain surfaces. This allows for shape changes as the billet dries.

Parafin wax the end grain immediately.  You can develop checking crazy fast.

Stack with spacers to allow airflow and rotate the stack every few months. Allow at least 1yr dry time per inch of thickness.

 

 

[jezzupe]

I feel end sealing is the most important part of this, I find that "alexplus" caulking makes for an excellent end seal, just squirt some on using a caulking gun, then use a plastic putty knife to spread out a 1/8" layer . Wax seals good, but it can become a shop containment that leads to it invisibly getting on something you want to varnish, or a bench top  that spreads it around, or tools, I'm very careful when dealing with wax and prefer to keep it away from the wood shop area and the wood.

[Mat Roop]

Thanks everyone...This project is purely a learning exercise.

I was  going to use paraffin wax but the idea of latex paint sounds even better... and I have lots of it kicking around. 

The tree is a Hoopsi Blue Spruce with a diameter of about 12" and there is only one  section that is 17" clear between the layers of boughs ... and that should be clear of knots. It has grown in the open, but I don't know if that means the grain lines will be wider or narrower.... but nothing to lose.

Thanks again!... Mat

 

[Mat Roop]

After thought... Is it a good idea to save a central piece for a one piece top?

Is a one piece top ever cut thru the very center of the log or is there a central region that needs to be avoided?... the heart wood would make a very wide grain line!! .. hmmm from a 12" log, probably not a good idea.

Thx... Mat

[H_Axel]

7 hours ago, David Burgess said:

All agreed.

Perhaps, in some ways, but I've done just fine sealing the ends of freshly cut wood with either latex paint, or Titebond. ...

Why? Waxes can be a very effective "release agent" for adhesives, and I don't want any around when doing a center joint.

I take your point about needing to be careful with wax but I had a bad experience sealing some urban forest collected maple. I used a liberal coating of latex but the checks went 4-5 inches into each end. I had to throw it all away (burned it actually).

Differing climates could be a factor.  Today, here in Denver it’s 95 degree F with about 10% humidity. Ontario is probably more like Michigan though.
H

 

 

[David Burgess]

22 minutes ago, H_Axel said:

I take your point about needing to be careful with wax but I had a bad experience sealing some urban forest collected maple. I used a liberal coating of latex but the checks went 4-5 inches into each end. I had to throw it all away (burned it actually).

How thick were the pieces?

[Brad Dorsey]

8 hours ago, Mat Roop said:

... It has grown in the open, but I don't know if that means the grain lines will be wider or narrower...

Wider.  Trees growing in the open grow faster, which makes the rings farther apart.

I once cut down a tree, counted the rings and saw the effects of the great New England hurricane of 1938.  Up to that year the rings were very close together because the tree was growing in the shade of a forest of taller trees.  Starting the next year, the rings were much wider apart because the tree was then growing in the open, the taller trees having been blown down.  The year we cleared the lot for our house could be clearly seen in the rings of another tree I cut down.

[Mat Roop]

Thanks Brad good info .... Mat

[nathan slobodkin]

20 hours ago, Shunyata said:

For decades my father has harvested his own wood for furniture making.  He taught me:

Cut away bark and sapwood.

Cut into reasonably sized billets.  Figure on at least 1/4" waste on all surfaces, And more like 1" on end grain surfaces. This allows for shape changes as the billet dries.

Parafin wax the end grain immediately.  You can develop checking crazy fast.

Stack with spacers to allow airflow and rotate the stack every few months. Allow at least 1yr dry time per inch of thickness.

 

 

Yes, to removing bark no to removing sapwood. Many great instrument show that the sapwood was not removed and if the sapwood is slightly denser then it adds strength and weight in the center where it may be beneficial. Also if using wax I prefer a commercial log sealing emulsion such as anchor seal to paraffin. For Mat's purposes of sealing just a few pieces of wood watered down Titebond would be my choice and as you say should be applied immediately as soon as it is cut to length.

[nathan slobodkin]

17 hours ago, Mat Roop said:

Thanks everyone...This project is purely a learning exercise.

I was  going to use paraffin wax but the idea of latex paint sounds even better... and I have lots of it kicking around. 

The tree is a Hoopsi Blue Spruce with a diameter of about 12" and there is only one  section that is 17" clear between the layers of boughs ... and that should be clear of knots. It has grown in the open, but I don't know if that means the grain lines will be wider or narrower.... but nothing to lose.

Thanks again!... Mat

 

Mat,

 If you are doing this as an excercise you will learn some things but the bottom line is that good tone wood is really very rare. I believe a paper co-written by Karl Roy (violin maker) and Alex Shigo of University of New Hampshire found anomalies in wood structure as much as a foot away from branches. You also have grain width and twist to consider. If I was cutting spruce I'd be looking for trees which had either been pruned when young and spaced for slow steady growth or large enough to have over grown their branch stubs which had  no more than 1 inch of twist in 6 feet and sections of clear timber at least 6 feet long.

[Brad Dorsey]

1 hour ago, nathan slobodkin said:

...a paper co-written by Karl Roy (violin maker) and Alex Shigo of University of New Hampshire...

https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010832500

[FiddleDoug]

"diameter of about 12" and there is only one  section that is 17" clear between the layers of boughs "

I'd say your chances are pretty close to zero of getting anything usable, but I might be wrong. Take some pictures of the cut log, with the end grain.

[Don Noon]

One thing nobody has mentioned so far is twist.  Some trees grow with a lot of twist, so splitting will follow the twist.  I try to minimize runout along the center joint, so any twist will lead to increasing runout at the outer edges of the plate.  You might think that a split wedge is thick enough at the edges, but when you plane it flat, the edges can disappear.  Something to watch out for... you might need to leave some extra thickness to deal with twist.

[HoGo]

I cut two billets of similar blue spruce that was cut at local cemetery... even in the clear parts there will be some knots deep inside, the blue spruce is planted as ornamental because it has lots of branches as young tree. The tree I cut had very little twist under bark (you can notice that when you remove the bark) but the central part of 5-6" diameter twisted really lot making my first split into halves pull quite a bit of wood from central parts. The grain count was something like 3-4 gpi so nothing a respectable violin maker would touch even with 10" stick. I got some compression wood as well....

I still have the wood at our weekend house drying in the attic... I just can't throw away wood.

[David Burgess]

2 hours ago, HoGo said:

I cut two billets of similar blue spruce that was cut at local cemetery...

The grain count was something like 3-4 gpi so nothing a respectable violin maker would touch even with 10" stick.

Too much fertilizer in a cemetery.

Anyway, don't go makin' no banjos out of my deceased Mama. She would be horrified.

[H_Axel]

22 hours ago, David Burgess said:

How thick were the pieces?

About 3-3.5 inches. Here’s a piece alongside a block I cut back half an inch at a time to get past the checks.

Not high quality maple—silver maple—but it had a little figure and an interesting ribbon effect like African mahogany.  Burned real good. I kept a couple of chunks.

 

[David Burgess]

5 minutes ago, H_Axel said:

About 3-3.5 inches. Here’s a piece alongside a block I cut back half an inch at a time to get past the checks.

Not high quality maple—silver maple—but it had a little figure and an interesting ribbon effect like mahogany.  Burned real good. I kept a couple of chunks.

 

So perhaps paraffin would work better on thicker pieces? Everything I personally cut and dried was thinner.