Official Luthiers Forum!

I was thinking about buying some Pine and Maple from the local lumberyard to build my first electric guitar from scratch, but it occurs to me the wood sits in the yard getting rained on. How long should a person let it dry for before turning it into a guitar? And along those lines is it okay buy the boards, roughly dimension them (width/length) in the garage and then bring them inside to my shop to let them dry, laying them flat on spacers?

The old rule of thumb is for every 1" of thickness needs on year.

Thanks Barry, I just talked to the lumber supplier they keep their good wood inside and say its dry enough to use right away. Is kiln dried lumber actually stable enough to use immediately, or would I be best served letting it sit for a while still?

I always let wood sit in my humidity controlled workshop for as long as possible, which in most cases is several years. If you have to build with it ASAP at least let it sit for a couple of months. And resaw it fairly thin to allow quicker stabilization.

oily woods like cocobolo need to sit longer than others. After a while the oils crystalize and the wood becomes easier to glue- or so I'm told. I have noticed that a very old set of coco glued up with titebond just fine. Maybe it was just the wood but I tend to believe the old timer that gave that advice.

The most stable lumber is that which has been kiln dried and then further air dried 2-3 years. that is from green. The year per inch thick rule is pretty much a minimum and again from green. The lumber at your local yard is not green, it is most likely KD as air dried lumber isn't a commercial commodity anymore.

So the actual question is how long till I can build guitars with it? If it was dried, kiln or air, it just needs to acclimate to your shop environment. Easiest way to track this is by weight. weigh the piece of wood in question and note that. check every few days and note weight. If the wood is drying out it will lose weight from the water that it loses. on the other hand if it was too dry it will gain weight. As the piece reaches stasis the change in weight will slow down. when you get to a point where it hasn't changed in 2 weeks it is ready to go. That is the absolute soonest you should work it.

_________________
Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Brian! Thanks again.

Such a simple and elegant solution! Makes total sense. I'm assuming wood for solid body electric guitars is more forgiving than what you would use for an acoustic guitar, or neck wood?

You could just let it dry for a hundred years as part of an old barn

Yup, you should see my living room. My mother in law got a bunch of old barnwood shiplap that we used for the wall around our mantle.

Rick Kelly out of NYC was the first guy I ever saw use reclaimed lumber for guitar bodies. Stew Mac had a thing about Bill Kirchen's tele a few years ago that Rick Kelly made. So much mojo. Which is after all the most important ingredient in any guitar.

I don't feel so.... It still only needs to move or warp a few thousandths of an inch to affect intonation, playability etc. Stability rules! A guitar that needs constant adjustment the first few years until the wood seasons are not much fun. Not to mention the hardship that places on the finish.

_________________
Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

A friend loaned me his moisture checker. Wood around the house (rafters, my work bench, etc. ) measures 6%. The torrefied Spruce I have for the body measures the same. The Maple I bought for the neck measures 9%. I'm assuming this means that the spruce is good to go, but the maple should still dry a bit more? I've heard maple holds a lot of water. Will all wood left alone eventually equal the environment it finds itself in?

Getting a hold of the moisture checker also brings up another question I haven't thought much about. I assumed the "RH" luthiers talk about would be the same measurement as the moisture content of the wood. This is obviously not the case since all the wood I've measured has been from inside measuring at 6% to the fence posts outside which measure 12% or 14% (I can't remember exactly.) But luthiers talk about building at something like 45% RH. So, trying to get my head around this; the moisture checker is telling me the physical amount of water present in whatever piece of wood I'm checking, while RH is more about how much water is in the air, how that is affected by temperature and pressure, and with that info I can make assumptions about how those things will affect the water present in the wood I'm working. Is this right? For practical purposes wood will be stable to my environment when it measures the same as wood that has been in my house a long time, but if my house's RH was either very wet or very dry as soon as that finished guitar moved to a different climate bad things will/could happen. Am I on the right track?

I've heard over the years the Pacific Northwest is an ideal instrument environment as far as humidity goes. Is this an assumption that is safe to make?

Climate here in the pnw is pretty mild and guitar friendly, but indoor Heating in the winter can still dry things out and shops here still need to be regulated.

_________________
Pat