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Picked up my wood today from the cabinet shop that re-sawed and thicknessed it for me. The douglas fir looks great and has a nice ring to it (to my untrained ears anyway). The oak curled slightly but has a very nice grain pattern. Both came from reclaimed sources, the fir from a 100 year old town hall, the oak from a seventy year old corn crib.

Here are my questions. Do I just sticker it for a while ,and if so how long?

Do I bake it? Or does it's age make that unnecessary? If so just the fir tops or the oak B/S as well?

How do I flatten the oak? Or will it flatten on its own? 

Sorry if I'm asking too many questions for one post!  

Many thanks,    

J.R.

 

 

I have stored my wood for my future build on a wire shelf in my shop. The humidty is always about 50 %.I just have my sides stacked on top of each other and the same with the top and backs. All the wood i'm using for my guitar is on the shelfs. I have seen no warping or twisting. I do flip the woods around to be sure they get proper air flow and aid with the humidy and moiture content. they have been siting there for close to five months now so I think they well adjusted to the climate in my shop.

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Waddy

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Sorry! 

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Waddy

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Sound Clips of most of my guitars

If the wood does not flatten on its own, you can iron it flat with a clothes iron. Just turn the iron up pretty high and slowly iron it on a flat surface. Switch from one side of the wood to the other and when it gets hot enough it will relax and flatten out. Just like the reverse of bending a side. Just remember, it will not flatten out until it gets close to "bending heat", so don't try to force too quickly. I do this on a piece of 3/4" plywood on top of my table saw. When the wood flattens out, I slip it under the piece of plywood and the cast iron saw table cools it and sets the "flat".

Grant

Grant my wife does all my ironing.

All I get are nice long creases everywhere.

that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I sand my wood flat in the General.....   

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I have used an iron on occasion to help flatten a thin piece of wood that cupped. I place some damp paper towels on the wood and then iron. The steam helps with the flattening.

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Guitars, guitars and more guitars.

Personally I would not iron a set to flat. There is always the risk of case hardening the wood. If the curl is not bad, meaning that you can safely flex it back to flat by hand without it feeling like it is stressed, I would sticker it for at least a couple months more if possible.

If the cupping is more than will easily flex then lay the set on a concrete floor, cup side down and unweighted. It may take as little as over night or as much as 2-3 days but the wood will relax. As soon as it lies near flat sticker it. The point of stickering is to acclimate to your environment. The longer the better in particular during winter and spring when the weather is changing radically from damp to bone dry unless you have very good environmental control in your shop.

You cannot case harden already dried wood that is cut as thin as a guitar set. Case hardeng is a defect that can occur during drying, where you get cell damage in the interior of the plank due to the outside being dried too fast and shrinking while the interior is still at a higher moisture content (it is more complex than that, but that is the gist of it).

Case hardening does NOT actually "harden" the wood or make it more dificult to bend or work, but it DOES set up stresses in the plank that will cause a thin slice cut from the face to cup inward.

The term "case hardening" is probably a poor choice of terminology to apply to wood. It is a metal working term, and has an entirely different meaning there. Never fear the clothes iron on your wood other than possibly scorching a light colored wood

Grant

You are right that the term is a metallurgy term. but I have to disagree with you. You can change the hardness and induce brittleness in to cured wood. I have seen it happen too many times. Yes the wood we work with is dried to roughly 12-8% moisture content but you can reduce that to 5-2% with out visible scorching and doing so quickly will make the wood brittle.

I would bake the fir. If it has never been kiln dried it will most likely bleed
pitch ever though it has been drying for 100 years. I think you need at least
175 degrees for a couple of hours. Let us know how it turns out. I live in
land of old growth and have some that looks really tempting to use.

Good Luck,
Danny

Thanks for your help guys!

I'm about as anxious to get started as a kid with a new toy but don't wanna jump the gun.

Thanks again for the advice...

J.R.