Official Luthiers Forum!

for the past year or so i've spent lots of time helping out fellow luthier and good friend, Boaz Elkayam, setting up his new shop, helping him with the resawing of some of his (too many) BRW logs, helping him jig up (he's actually that close to trying a silicine blanket ) and all sorts of other stuff...
any way, to make a long story short, i now have a big med.cypress log.
i'm not too sure how to go about cutting it up.
split it? just cut it into quarters?
if splitting is the way to go, how should i go about it?

thanks,
Udi.

I don't know anything about the splitting properties of Med. Cypress. If it will split cleanly, then that is the way to go if you want to minimize runout.
Cut the log into the lengths you will need (plus a few inches in case you get some end checking) & try splitting it. If it doesn't split cleanly, & starts to tear, then you can save some wood by chainsawing along the split line to finish the cut.
You can save a lot of good material by making your axe cuts in line with any knots. Later you will trim away the knots as you true up the billett.
The size of the log will determine whether you cut it in quarters or break it down into smaller pieces.
The smaller the pieces, the less loss you will have from checking.
Don't forget to use a sealant on the end grain to minimize the checking. & keep the billets out of that tropical sun.
Good luck.

Udi, I hope you enjoy wood processing. It really gets in the way of building. Ask anyone who's done it. Grin.

Handling the wood is important, quartering makes it more valuable as instrument wood. Some woods though are flatsawn to reveal best figure, go figure.

Daniel is right on all counts. The thinner you can get it the faster it will dry. One inch thickness per year.

Good luck. Sounds like fun with your bud....

_________________
http://www.dickeyguitars.com

what gets on the way of building,for me, is the academic studies, not the wood proccesing.
actually after about 3 months, during which the only wood i touched was that from which my pencils are made of, i am eager to let this wood proccesing get in my way

thanks Dan and Bruce!

vachtern
Wow what a priveledge to be able to spend time with Boaz Elkayam!!!
He is a premiere builder in my mind and his builds are an inspiration to me... never mind getting him to try a heat blanket, get him to get a computer and an OLF membership, what a great honour it would be to be able to count him as a member here! And a great stroke of fortune for us to be able to pick his brain,,,
Cheers
Charlie

hahaha...Charlie, i think you'll be disappointed with the results of pickin' on Boaz' brains.
not to say he is secretive or anything like that,nope...
i think it was Torres, who's quoted for saying something like "the only thing that counts is the distance between my thumb and index finger" , and Boaz, is truely that type of builder.
very intuitive...
he can teach you all about the "workmanship" but very little about the "craftmanship", if you know what i mean.

from my long hours of talking to him, what i gathered is that the clarita is pretty far off the "pure" kasha design(though surely more kasha than Torres), and that he arrived at the "clarita" design using intuiton and experience but not the kind of deep scientific understanding that somebody like Mr.Carruth posseses.
even when i asked him about the kasha design, he suggested i e mail Gila Eban, as he feels she grasps the ideas behind the design far better than he does.

luthier Rene Baarslag once said about a course he had given at Charles Fox' school: "the student can see me building a guitar, but 70% of what i'm doing, they can't really see" (not word for word).
it's very appropriate for Boaz' type of work too.

i'll be meeting him again on friday, if there's anything word showing, i'll take pics, and if theres anything specific you'd like to ask, PM me.

o.k.
i have officially hijacked my own thread!