How old does wood have to be

Skodadad

To make a body? My father in law cuts down trees as part of his job. He has a major wood store of huge logs that he splits for the wood burners on an estate he manages.

mgaw

I am no expert on these things but my understanding is that it is more the "conditioning"/"seasoning" of the wood that is important rather than age alone.......many guitar builders will kiln dry the wood to get the moisture content down to the desired level.....there should be plenty of info available on line......if not kiln dried it would be a case of the wood arriving at the same point over time.....any decent Tonewood supplier would probably advise you on how best acheive this.

Sounds interesting though...i know there are a couple of vids on youtube showing the process from tree selection to the final guitar build..Bourgeois guitar has a lot of info on their website about Tonewoods.

Skodadad

We were just talking about guitars and he mentioned the wood he had. He is adamant that some of the tree trunks he has are big enough to get bodies out of and if his back garden wood store is anything to go by I believe him. They have a room they store the wood in before using to dry it out (has a large wood burner in it) but by that stage they are split or chainsawed to manageable pieces. I'll go to the estate next time I'm down at in laws and take some photos. I showed him some photos from this section and he was very impressed.

octatonic

Seasoning wood for guitar building is beyond the skill of most folks and many luthiers, which is why luthier wood supply companies can charge so much for a piece of wood, which if it was construction grade would be worth pennies.

Every piece of wood will differ- for example a sawn rosewood acoustic guitar back might take 2 weeks in a dehumidified environment to get towhead is called the EMC or equilibrium moisture content. A thicker piece of ebony could take 4 times as long.

This is on top of keeping the wood for 6 months, at least, in the correct environment- remember a lot of these woods come from rain forests and can be found floating in rivers.

This is all at an absolute minimum.

I have soundboards here that have been in storage for 30 years, and a couple that are older than me, bought from a luthier supply company that bought them back from luthier's deceased estate.

What wood do you have access to?

Skodadad

I never thought to ask what the trees were I'll check when there. I know some are very old, they are Clifftop trees next to the sea and they are affecting stability of the cliff edge so are managed. I know there are lots to be cut down yet but the estate decide which ones probably after talks with the local council. Would this Luthier wood be used on things like Squier strats or reserved for prestigious guitars? If nothing else it may serve as practice for me.

octatonic

Squire strats are made with wood that has been dried and seasoned, but the wood is not on par with the best of the best.

This doesn't mean you can use construction grade wood to build instruments- well, you can do anything you like but you don't really want to be trying to route out a guitar shape with wet wood.

You don't want to try to join two halves of a guitar body with wet wood either.

I'm trying to dissuade you from having a go, but if you are looking for a cheap/easy way to get wood then look on eBay for body blanks- they can be had for a very reasonable price- there is an entire industry catering for hobbiest guitar builders.

Seasoning your own wood is a long old road with many pitfalls.

Roland

The old wives tale is that tree trunks should be sawn within 48 hours of felling to prevent splitting from uneven drying and release of tension within the trunk.  Once sawn it takes one year per inch of slab thickness to air dry in a covered aerated stack. Obviously there's a lot of variation around this depending on wood type, location etc.

Earlier this year my neighbour dropped an Atlantic cedar, and I had the trunk slab sawn. (The branches are generally not stable and have gone for firewood.). I have hopes that in two or three years I might be able to get a Telecaster body out of it.  However I'm never going to get an acoustic guitar back or front because it sat too long before sawing, and will have radial cracks.

Skodadad

I could have it sawn within ten minutes of being cut down but I'd rather just buy some than wait 3 years I think

WezV

I was also going to suggets a year per inch of thickness as a very rough guide

 

once you have it racked properly you can check moisture levels or just weigh it every month, once the weight has become relatively constant moce it to a controlled environment and  give it a few more months  - then you should be good to go