Wood You Look At That? -
Seriously, if it wasn't for the puns, I "wood"n't even post.
Anyways, I took a long lunch today (working from home for the day) and made a quick trip to my local hardwood lumber yard, aka - woodworking store. I'm fairly lucky to have a place like this close by. I drove there, made my purchases and drove home in an hour and a half total. Not bad. Stock is a little low right now, as is everything these days, but they had something I could work with. I snapped a couple pics of the store while I was there too, just to make you guys envious. Here's a shot of the "supplies" area, which has things like clamps, turning tools, sandpaper, finishing material, etc -
I noticed that they carry the Minwax wipe-on poly in both gloss and satin, as well as the Varithane Ultimate wipe-on poly in both gloss and satin, along with a lot of other finishing products, as you can see. To the left of this shot and out of frame is all of the hand tools they carry. Yes, they are a Festool dealer. No, I can't afford Festool.
I tend to prefer the back room, the indoor, climate controlled lumber yard -
It is split into two "spaces". Up front they have what I would call "offcuts" in various thicknesses, all marked with a "single item" price. So if it says "$48" on it, it's $48 for the piece of wood. I made sure to get this shot where you can see all the padauk to the right of the bubinga, just for Richter.
The racks behind this get progressively thicker, so your 3/4 and 4/4 stuff is up front here and then the stuff in the back row is 8/4 -
Then we go in the other "space" where everything is large boards, sold by the board foot -
Choices, choices, choices.
I walked out with a couple boards, an 8/4 slab of poplar that's a touch over 5 foot long and roughly 10" wide. I should be able to pull a couple bodies out of that. And then I grabbed a piece of morado (the store owner tells me "it's the same thing as Brazilian Rosewood" ) that was about 5" wide, 1" thick and about 48" long. I should be able to resaw it into a 1/2" thick piece and pull a couple fretboards out of it.
Wood Pile -
We finally have a wood pile shot -
So the plan is to make the body out of this chunk of poplar -
It's literally nothing special, it's a chunk of poplar. But I think it'll help hold down weight and make a fine body core. Yes ,that's the price I paid for this 8/4x10"x60" slab. It had basically no defects or checking, so I think it's gonna work just fine. Then we will resaw this piece of flame maple for the top -
I got this piece for free from my woodturning chapter. It's got a good amount of flame in it and some burl at the one end. I plan on strategically placing the burl-y bit behind the bridge for maximum visual effect.
Then we will (hopefully) make a neck blank out of these flame maple billets I also got for free -
The woodturning chapter was gonna turn them into segmented turning blanks. If you've never seen that, just Google "segmented turning". it basically involves cutting these up into tiny wedges and then gluing all the wedges together to form a "many sided hexagon" and then turning that on your lathe. I about freaked out on them! Luckily they let me have them.
And then we will make a fretboard out of this piece of morado -
Again, that's the price I paid. I posted those shots so you can see the prices, I think they are fair. They go by the current board foot pricing, no negotiations. They don't mark it up, you don't try to haggle, you pay the market value, which I think is fair.
So there we go, a wood pile! I do plan on getting some black dyed veneer sheets to lay between the body core and top and as well as doing a multi-lam neck with pin stripes. I may still look for on more piece of wood for the neck, I'm not sure. I kind of want another color in there, but I also kind of want to let the flame maple be the star. I need to ponder a bit.
Seriously, if it wasn't for the puns, I "wood"n't even post.
Anyways, I took a long lunch today (working from home for the day) and made a quick trip to my local hardwood lumber yard, aka - woodworking store. I'm fairly lucky to have a place like this close by. I drove there, made my purchases and drove home in an hour and a half total. Not bad. Stock is a little low right now, as is everything these days, but they had something I could work with. I snapped a couple pics of the store while I was there too, just to make you guys envious. Here's a shot of the "supplies" area, which has things like clamps, turning tools, sandpaper, finishing material, etc -
I noticed that they carry the Minwax wipe-on poly in both gloss and satin, as well as the Varithane Ultimate wipe-on poly in both gloss and satin, along with a lot of other finishing products, as you can see. To the left of this shot and out of frame is all of the hand tools they carry. Yes, they are a Festool dealer. No, I can't afford Festool.
I tend to prefer the back room, the indoor, climate controlled lumber yard -
It is split into two "spaces". Up front they have what I would call "offcuts" in various thicknesses, all marked with a "single item" price. So if it says "$48" on it, it's $48 for the piece of wood. I made sure to get this shot where you can see all the padauk to the right of the bubinga, just for Richter.
The racks behind this get progressively thicker, so your 3/4 and 4/4 stuff is up front here and then the stuff in the back row is 8/4 -
Then we go in the other "space" where everything is large boards, sold by the board foot -
Choices, choices, choices.
I walked out with a couple boards, an 8/4 slab of poplar that's a touch over 5 foot long and roughly 10" wide. I should be able to pull a couple bodies out of that. And then I grabbed a piece of morado (the store owner tells me "it's the same thing as Brazilian Rosewood" ) that was about 5" wide, 1" thick and about 48" long. I should be able to resaw it into a 1/2" thick piece and pull a couple fretboards out of it.
Wood Pile -
We finally have a wood pile shot -
So the plan is to make the body out of this chunk of poplar -
It's literally nothing special, it's a chunk of poplar. But I think it'll help hold down weight and make a fine body core. Yes ,that's the price I paid for this 8/4x10"x60" slab. It had basically no defects or checking, so I think it's gonna work just fine. Then we will resaw this piece of flame maple for the top -
I got this piece for free from my woodturning chapter. It's got a good amount of flame in it and some burl at the one end. I plan on strategically placing the burl-y bit behind the bridge for maximum visual effect.
Then we will (hopefully) make a neck blank out of these flame maple billets I also got for free -
The woodturning chapter was gonna turn them into segmented turning blanks. If you've never seen that, just Google "segmented turning". it basically involves cutting these up into tiny wedges and then gluing all the wedges together to form a "many sided hexagon" and then turning that on your lathe. I about freaked out on them! Luckily they let me have them.
And then we will make a fretboard out of this piece of morado -
Again, that's the price I paid. I posted those shots so you can see the prices, I think they are fair. They go by the current board foot pricing, no negotiations. They don't mark it up, you don't try to haggle, you pay the market value, which I think is fair.
So there we go, a wood pile! I do plan on getting some black dyed veneer sheets to lay between the body core and top and as well as doing a multi-lam neck with pin stripes. I may still look for on more piece of wood for the neck, I'm not sure. I kind of want another color in there, but I also kind of want to let the flame maple be the star. I need to ponder a bit.
