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Alright, friends, I'm at a breaking point with my wood collection and how it fits into storage at my house. Between the backs, sides, tops, necks, binding, purfling, brace stock, fretboards, bridges, molds, jigs, etc., etc., etc., there's just not room anymore. I work from a garage/house, like many of you. I have my wood stickered with 3/4" MDF in my master bedroom closet. How/where do you keep your wood? What I'm wondering, is if I can ditch the stickers and just stack the wood somewhere safe. The MDF weighs a ton and it would take up a lot less space without the stickers. The wood is well seasoned and I live in central CA. Humidity in my house does very from season to season, but the RH swings aren't huge and typically don't happen over night. Help is much appreciated!!!

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sweat the small stuff.

Heath, once it's accumulated, I keep all my wood in a Rubbermade bin tucked under the bed. No stickers, the sets are just stacked on each other. I haven't had any movement in the past few years.

If wood is well seasoned I no longer sticker it but just stack it up. The tops I store in cardboard boxes, like what they were shipped in, since it is then easier to pull down a group of tops to look for the one That will work best and the other wood is just stacked by type. It all resides in my climate controlled shop. Before use I will pick out the wood I want to use and leave it out for a week or so just to make sure there is no weird movement.

The stickers are really only needed when moisture is still being lost, so once it is at equilibrium you should be good to go.

Stacking is fine. Seal the endgrain on anything brittle like rosewood, just to be safe. Softwoods don't seem to need sealing even with sudden humidity drops.

In bins, unstickered, on a shelf, no rh control.

Many of the backs and tops are already glued, and it's still ok to stack them and not worry about RH. It's only when you start cross grain glueing that RH becomes important.

At first, I very carefully and dutifully stacked and stickered.... And then my stack grew and grew... And then I moved 3 times and now - I just stack it in piles.

Almost all my wood was well seasoned and dried long before it came to me.... And it's stored in a climate controlled area.... So my risk of big mold problems there was relatively small...

If you are trying to condense your pile - stack with much shorter stickers.... Say 1/8"..... Then - you can hoard twice as many top and back sets into the size stack you have previously socialized.

Now... When you decide to resaw green wood... Certainly stack and sticker to allow for ample airflow and circulation around the stack.....

+ 1 to what truckjohn said. My stickers are about the same thickness as a typical rough plate. At the top of the stack I place a heavier board to keep everything weighted down. Takes far less space and the air circulation seems to be fine.

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George :-)

Well, I'm glad to hear that many are stacking without stickers to no adverse effect. That being said, what is a good sticker material in 1/8" thick stock?

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sweat the small stuff.

I wouldn't bother stickering if I was using 1/8th inch sticks, but I have used 1/4 inch MCP and MDF sticks between tops. Make sure to keep the sticks lined up with each other.

Spruce soundboard cutoffs....

In general - I would use a light wood that doesn't bleed oils, tannins, or sap into other woods causing uglies and staining. Paint stir sticks work fine.... If you have a bunch of spruce cutoffs - that works fine.

I probably wouldnt use rosewood or oak - don't want stains....

Lately I've moved to stacking instead of stickering my seasoned wood in a Rubbermaid bin. Out of curiosity I put a couple Humidipaks in. They do a great job of stabilizing the humidity.


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