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A vintage tool friend was a couple of tables down from me at an event last weekend. He said he had something to show me. He and his wife are moving 250 miles away and he said he wanted to give me some wood. Turns out it is 2 very nice Brazilian Rosewood boards. He had bought a pick-up truck load of wood from an old guy who was divesting - he paid $100. The load was full of thick quarter sawn cherry, some very nice mahogany boards, a bit if light colored wood that could be ash or maybe hickory, various other thicker pieces, and these two boards were at the bottom of the stack. He bought them 8 years ago, so they may be decades old.

He said I could have it as long as he got enough to build the early L-0 that he showed me plans for - 13" wide, 19" long. Looks like enough for 2 guitars in there.

The longer one will make 32" sides with 18" leftover for a couple of fretboards and bridges. It is 1-3/8" thick and has 4-1/2 good inches of width, so hoping to get 4 side pieces out of it. The shorter one is 28" long with 5-1/2" width, so a 3 piece back will make almost 16 inches, but his parlor size and my desire to build a similar size means there will be plenty of width. I am hoping to get 6 pieces out of the 1-3/4" thick piece.

So here they are. Please tell me what you think - Is the shorter, thicker one stump wood? Do you see any defects in there that might make bending difficult - 1st picture, center of the longer piece? The thicker piece has reasonably vertical grain, whereas the thinner piece not so much - and that is the one that will be bent onto sides.

Had no plans to build a rosewood guitar - have used maple, ash, osage orange, oak and mahogany in my amateur instruments. What are the chances of coming up with free BRW?

Ed

Looks like the real deal. That one board is even quarter sawn.

You ought to be able to get more than 4 sides out of that thick piece. I would take it to a specialist resaw company that is capable of narrow kerf resawing. Another set would more than pay for itself.

Yep, send that to David Borson. He has an excellent setup for resawing high value woods like this.

Dennis

Do you have a contact for David Borson? Also - do you see any problems there??

Thanks

Ed

borsonresaw.com

That knot or whatever it is in the long board does look like it could cause bending trouble. But hopefully it doesn't go too deep, so you can get some fully clear slices in addition to the iffy ones. If you can position it in the relatively flat area below the waist, that would reduce the chance of cracking.

The shorter rectangular board looks like you can get some great backs from it. I don't think it's stump wood, but I'm no expert at identifying it.

I'd go with 4 piece rather than 3 piece backs. Use some offcuts to widen out the lower bout, and carefully match the grain so they're mostly invisible.

Ed, it would be a crime to not get eight sides and eight back pieces out of those. Perfectly doable on a 14 inch saw with a resaw king. Awesome setup of course.

If that's the guy in California with the water cooled Laguna, you could do that, but he was charging like $30 a slice 10 years ago.

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Pat

Take that to Hibdon, it's right in your back yard. Don't mess around with shipping back and fourth. I could re-saw it myself but you're much better off taking it to the mill, watching it get re-sawed and put right back into your hands with no shipping fees/wondering. Since you are in MD Hibdon might be an hour or two away. Well worth the drive.

Isn't Hibdon in St. Louis?

I'm not offering to resaw those boards, too much stress, but with my Woodmaster CT which isn't exactly a thin kerf blade, I could get:

1-3/8" => 7 slices @ 0.145" ea
1-3/4" => 8 slices @ .1663" ea
Those numbers are assuming perfectly flat & straight boards.

From what I've heard about Borson, he could get more. Just my $0.02.

Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Kevin

Can you reliably get a 1/16" kerf down the whole length of a 30" board with no enlargement either direction at all? Good trick.

Ed

Call Colonial Hardwoods in Springfield VA. They used to cut wood for me many years ago. That stuff looks usable to me. Unless there are hidden defects you could get 8 sets at $1000 bucks a set. Winner! Nice score!

Be careful trying to get too much out of it.

For years I sold instrument wood to Luthiers so I have a lot of experience resawing

You are better off getting one less slice than having pieces too thin to work with.

A friend of mine had a "proffesional" resawyer cut some koa for him and in my opinion several of the slices were just too thin to use for backs. They were .100 so by the time you joined them and got past the saw marks you would be lucky to get .075 out of them-too thin!

What he says. Ask me how I know. The temptation is big, but there are no do-overs.

B

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My memory is so good, sometimes I remember things that never happened.

I don't blame you there, way too much stress for me as well.

I may have been thinking of Colonial, not Hibdon. I used to enjoy re-sawing wood, but not so much any more unless it's an incredible savings. I'd much rather spend the time building. I have the Woodmaster CT as well and it does a great job Next time around I'm going to try the re-saw king which is a bit thinner.

I have a dedicated resaw now and I LOVE cutting my own wood. Once you have the right saw for the job it's pure pleasure. But anyway... Brad has very good advice. I usually go for 1/8th inch sanded. I do however have a lot of Imbuia floor boards that are 3/4in thick and I get 4 out of those if I'm lucky and they come in at about .1 finished. You really need to have your joining skills down and make sure they come together flush. Best to have a little wiggle room though, for sure.

"Unless there are hidden defects you could get 8 sets at $1000 bucks a set."

Don't you mean 4 sets?

If I were cutting it I would shoot for 6 pieces from the long piece for sides. The shorter thicker piece should yield 8 pieces. I would take one of those 8 pieces and cut it on the diagonal to give two pieces 2 inches wide on one end and 3 1/2 inches wide on the other and make a three piece back similar to what Martin did on the D35. That would give you 3 complete sets big enough to make larger bodied guitars. If you sliced one of the back pieces off before cutting the backs to length you could off set the diagonal pieces to give even greater widths in the center section.
There are a fair number of Brazilian rosewood parlor guitars, and not as much demand for them.

Yes, the blade has a kerf of 0.051 and I can get a consistent 0.0625 as long as the board is perfectly flat and doesn't have any hidden stresses that cause it to come off the fence. I also have a 36" saw with a 5HP motor that helps.

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

[/quoteYes, the blade has a kerf of 0.051 and I can get a consistent 0.0625 as long as the board is perfectly flat and doesn't have any hidden stresses that cause it to come off the fence. I also have a 36" saw with a 5HP motor that helps.[/quote]

The flat face is key, it always seems such a shame to joint the face and lose possibly a slice or two but it is unavoidable. Presizing to as close as possible to finished dimensions may reduce the loss from jointing.
My results mirror what Kevin has indicated.

B

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My memory is so good, sometimes I remember things that never happened.

That does not look like stump wood to me.

I'm with Brad when I cut my own wood and opt for 1 less slice to insure what I do cut is useable. I have seen wood that Borson has cut and he backs up his advertising with results from what I saw. Everything was flat, parallel and held to a repetitive dimension. You do have to buy him a new saw blade and he will square the wood up before cutting, but you would need to do that also. For maximum yield he's the man.
The longer piece that runs from rift to flat sawn looks like there may be some checking. Not only on the end but by the way it has separated on the top. Not sure how that may affect your yield

Thanks everyone

I have a local luthery shop that produces a lot of instruments and gives classes, and has one guy in the shop who specializes in resawing. I will post again when I have results. Fingers crossed.

I NEVER thought I would be ale to build with BRW - he said not counting any chickens

Ed

As they say, refrain from enumerating your embryonic poultry until the process of incubation has fully materialized.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Spent the day with a luthier friend who has nice equipment. He generously spent enough time to do this wood justice.

1) The shorter piece was ready for the saw at just over 1-5/8", and we got 10 pieces out of it at .125. We got 2 really good sets, 2 pretty darn good sets, and one that might not be usable due to cracks (biggies). They are 28" long and could work for sides in a smaller guitar. They are 6-1/4" wide

2) The longer piece for sides was ready at a little less than 1-5/16" and we got 7 pieces at .095. This longer piece had enough cracks in it that we only got 2 sets of sides that are really good, and one set that will be a problem, with the last piece being pretty raunchy. They are 29-1/2" long by 5" wide

3) And there was enough left over for perhaps 5 fretboards and a load of bridges and head plates

4) This is the early Gibson L-0 mold for a guitar that I like to build. Only need a small addition to the lower bout which will be easy to get out of the scrap near the top

5) The cardboard pattern is the profiled side for that guitar size/shape

All in all a fun day with pleasant smells all around and great surprises as we opened the wood. Had no intention of using any kind of rosewood and here I got some BRW from a friend

thanks for looking

Ed

Ed, that's going to make some real pretty guitars, enjoy!

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

You hit the jackpot there! Glad the resawing went well. You can always do BRW back with Indian rosewood sides, if you don't want to build ukuleles with the extra backs. Don Parker posted a couple months ago about an ebay vendor called Exotic Wood Zone, who sells really nice stuff including side sets without backs http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=51408
I haven't bought anything from them myself, but the temptation is hard to resist

That is a nice hour glass figure and good color. You should be able to cut some wings to match the lower bouts. Should make nice guitars

There you go!

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Pat