Tom Jr. - Posted - 06/04/2009:  05:24:27

About a quarter mile up the road a farmer is clearing out an old fencerow to put up fancy Kentucky four-board fence. There were some healthy sycamore, ash, and maple trees in there. The bottom five feet are slap full of generations of barbed wire and hog fence but from there on up is good stuff.
I have always had high hopes of stumbling across a maple tree with fancy grain pattern all through it. I broke out the long bar on my Stihl last night and cut a six foot board about three inches thick out of it. It looks a lot more like a bench board than a couple dozen guitars. Nothing! Just plain old grain. I'm still looking though. I have forty years or so left to find it. Old sawyers say about one tree in a thousand will have that figure and you can't tell until you cut into it.

Don''t squat with your spurs on.

phil dean - Posted - 06/04/2009:  06:22:49

Did you flat saw or Quartersaw. Most figured Maple is Quartersawn. Maybe you could try that.

masteresoguitars.com

Tom Jr. - Posted - 06/04/2009:  10:03:04

The next three inch block will be more or less quartersawn on the bottom side so I"ll see how it looks. If nothing else, I'll have some very nice looking bench material.

Don''t squat with your spurs on.

Tom Jr. - Posted - 06/04/2009:  12:58:38

OK I fibbed. What I have just realized after a little quiet time in the barn with a sander is that you can't see the "curly" until you sand it smooth. I do have some pretty looking wood that is still destined to be a bench because the next chunks coming off will be more quartersawn and possibly have more flavor.
That was pretty close to cutting up for firewood. I'm heading to Sally Gap Bluegrass festival in thirty minutes so I'll try to post some pictures when I get back. I think I'll take the board I have now and use it for a table down there. Nothing like resting some barbecued cabbage on a big unfinished slab of curly maple.

Don''t squat with your spurs on.

jaykellogg - Posted - 06/04/2009:  13:41:30

I have heard stump wood is more figured than further up. Can you dig up those stumps?

W. Jay Kellogg

Square Neck - Posted - 06/04/2009:  14:35:40

Jay,

The stumps are full of old metal fences, do you have a saw he can borrow??? LOL

Tom,

Some denatured alcohol or mineral spirits (wiped on with a clean rag) might help you highlight the grain with less or no sanding?

Good luck panning for that gold!!

<*)))>{

Slideman1939 - Posted - 06/04/2009:  17:45:55

Slideman's wooden miscellaneous---the tight knotted figured hardwood in the STUMP is prized by maker's of (smoking) pipes. The finding of unusual figure in hardwood is peculiar to certain parts of the country. For example Birdseye maple and quilted Maple are often found in Southern Indiana. When they ARE found they don't travel far, because the center of the veneer industry is just a little south and outside Louisville Ky. Example: heavily figured Cherry is found in Northeast and North Central Pa. The acid soil of Scranton and the coal belt produces a tall, straight, figured Cherry. The OTHER tall, straight figured Cherry is in North Carolina and is snapped up by the furniture manufacturing industry nearby. FACT-(this is too way out for me to have made up)--There ARE people in Southern Indiana that are timber "RUSTLERS". They steal hardwood late at night with muffled chainsaws. THINK--there are no serial numbers on trees. The "owner" is the seller who shows up at the veneer mill with possession of the logs. A fully grown 80 year old WALNUT is worth $9,000 to $11,000 and is judged by the amount of estimated 1/ 16th inch veneer that can be processed from that specific log--as determined by the buyer/ yield estimator. Many a farmer gets ripped off and there is no way to prove THAT log on THAT truck is YOUR property. There is a reason that "instrument grade" figured hardwood is so expensive--good stuff is scarce and demand exceeds supply. The best way is to have other people looking for (your specification) Maple. Contact multiple hardwood mills, with your name and address, and tell the sawyer you will pay top dollar to call YOU FIRST, before the "industry" gets hold of it and marks up the raw price.

Tom Jr. - Posted - 06/08/2009:  06:11:31

I am a land surveyor and run into property disputes over timber frequently. Timber stealing is either the #1 or #2 grand theft in Kentucky. And here I go cutting up the neighbor's tree. I do have permission though and he uprooted the thing for me. There is also a decent cherry tree further down the line with lots of large knots. The root ball has just about been shaken clean and I might get some pretty stuff out of that.
In cutting firewood, I have noticed that root wood seems to be significantly softer than the trunk. I'll see what it looks like after I run it through a planer. and how it ages. Root wood seems to be more rot resistant than the trunk wood and I only say that because you can't ever seem to get rid of stumps unless you cut the tree down in the right sign of the moon.
That is something I have never heard on instrument wood. Is there a right sign of the moon to cut wood for an instrument? Any old-timers out there.

Don''t squat with your spurs on.

Greg Booth - Posted - 06/08/2009:  07:30:49

You sound like you want to find it yourself, but feast your eyes on Paul Taran's inventory at curlymaple.com/luthier.shtml


Greg Booth
myspace.com/akslider

Edited by - Greg Booth on 06/08/2009 07:40:18

fbounds - Posted - 06/08/2009:  09:41:50

WOW! That is a gorgeous piece of maple. Would love to have a guitar made out of that.

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one."
--Mark Twain