Crazy wood prices

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mshilarious

mshilarious

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OK, I get all the rainforests have been cut down and exotic woods are expensive. But I'm just looking for a bog-stock piece of paint-grade crap for an electric guitar blank, and everything is $70 and up. I mean, why not just head down to the local lumberyard and stack up a few poplar boards? I don't get it. OK, I can dent poplar with my thumbnail, bad example. But red oak is starting to looking tempting, I don't care how much it weighs! I'll make a git out of my dining room table!

The paint-grade woods at the specialty mailorder suppliers seem just about as expensive as the figured stain-grade stuff :confused: I am missing something here?

I don't think there are any hardwood suppliers locally, and I don't have the power tools to deal with the rough stuff, I need something ready to saw or at least glue together . . .

I had a handful of maples at my old property, plenty of poplar and red oaks too. A couple of nice big white oaks. I had one huge chestnut oak I couldn't get my arms around. I measured it once, I forget but it was big. I shoulda harvested some of those and traded the mill for a few decent pieces :(
 
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the raising prices across the board, no pun intended. We're prepping a site next to our workshop to build a curing facility and have added tree removal to our list of "services". Seems it's more cost effective for us to get paid to obtain the wood ourselves and spend the time stripping it down and drying it out than purchasing stock.

Out of curiosity, what types of wood are you looking for and what dims?
 
mshilarious said:
OK, I get all the rainforests have been cut down and exotic woods are expensive. But I'm just looking for a bog-stock piece of paint-grade crap for an electric guitar blank, and everything is $70 and up. I mean, why not just head down to the local lumberyard and stack up a few poplar boards? I don't get it. OK, I can dent poplar with my thumbnail, bad example. But red oak is starting to looking tempting, I don't care how much it weighs! I'll make a git out of my dining room table!

The paint-grade woods at the specialty mailorder suppliers seem just about as expensive as the figured stain-grade stuff :confused: I am missing something here?

I don't think there are any hardwood suppliers locally, and I don't have the power tools to deal with the rough stuff, I need something ready to saw or at least glue together . . .

I had a handful of maples at my old property, plenty of poplar and red oaks too. A couple of nice big white oaks. I had one huge chestnut oak I couldn't get my arms around. I measured it once, I forget but it was big. I shoulda harvested some of those and traded the mill for a few decent pieces :(
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It si not that the rain forests have been cleared that makes tonewood expensive. It has more to do with the selection criteria and general scarcity of suitable stock. Luthiers and instrument makers select from maybe the top 10% of stock that is harvested and cut. Decent stuff is stored and seasoned naturally or very slow kiln dried. Even the non fancy stuff for solid colour need to be stable free from knots, shakes, dead wood, clean and true as well as being cut with little or no runout. This all depends on genus of course but even the cheaper timbers are snapped up en mass by the bigger brands and cabinet makers.

Look into what species are local to you and search out yards nearby. Also look at it this way, you are going to put many many hours or work into the finished instrument why compromise on the cost of the materials for the sake of 10 or 20 bucks?

What sort of body are you building? Although I don't get much stock from the States I do have a few contacts that may be able to help you.
 
Creamyapples1 said:
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the raising prices across the board, no pun intended. We're prepping a site next to our workshop to build a curing facility and have added tree removal to our list of "services". Seems it's more cost effective for us to get paid to obtain the wood ourselves and spend the time stripping it down and drying it out than purchasing stock.

Out of curiosity, what types of wood are you looking for and what dims?
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Never even an option really unless you have plenty of time both to find, cut and prepare the stock, you have the knowledge and experience of both timbers and the best methods used to dry them. The money to invest in the correct milling equipment, the experience to work them safely and profitably. Finally the time required to wait before you can use or shift the products of you work. Its a full time job. I know a lot of guys that do this, and I mean a LOT of guys.

Good luck if you go that route. But I wouldn't do more than cut and dry the odd log or billet.
 
If you're looking for ash, it is worth it to get the wood from a "luthier" supplier, as they will probably be selling the light weight stuff you just can't find in a hardwood lumber yard (it's the same tree as the "oh my God, I just picked up my guitar for 2 minutes and need a chiropractor" weight stuff, but it comes from a different part of the tree. Weird but true, there is a huge difference in weight!)

It may not be worth the bother with Alder, Basswood, or anything like that, though. I get those woods either rough or 2S (two sides surfaced, which I avoid if I can, but sometimes that's all they have), and I think the last time I bought alder it was retailing for about $6 a board foot for 8/4 rough (I get it wholesale, but you won't so don't worry about that number). HOWEVER, I have access to all the tools I need to surface those materials myself, so for me that makes sense. If you don't have a joiner and either a really wide planer (probably minimum 16") or a thickness sander of some sort (either an oscilating belt sander - a Timesaver - or a drum sander), then you should probably still buy from the supplier. Exotic Woods, for instance, sells that stuff already joined and surfaced, which will save you a HUGE amount of hassle if you don't already have the machines to do that work.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
mshilarious said:
I don't think there are any hardwood suppliers locally, and I don't have the power tools to deal with the rough stuff, I need something ready to saw or at least glue together . . .
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Sorry, didn't see this first time through.


I'm afraid you really are stuck with the suppliers - that glue joint is one of the few in a bolt on neck guitar, but it is all that much bigger of a deal for it. Just bite the bullet and get the good stuff. Then again, a 3 piece alder body blank (glued and surfaced) from Exotic Woods is only $50.53, which will be a fine body, and if you are painting it the three piece doesn't matter at all. Considering the work they have done for you, and considering how badly surfaced 4S (four sides surfaced) usually is, that seems like a steel to me.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Light said:
I'm afraid you really are stuck with the suppliers - that glue joint is one of the few in a bolt on neck guitar, but it is all that much bigger of a deal for it. Just bite the bullet and get the good stuff. Then again, a 3 piece alder body blank (glued and surfaced) from Exotic Woods is only $50.53, which will be a fine body, and if you are painting it the three piece doesn't matter at all. Considering the work they have done for you, and considering how badly surfaced 4S (four sides surfaced) usually is, that seems like a steel to me.
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OK, that sounds reasonable. I looked at S-M, LMI, a couple other web places I forget . . . S-M wanted $80 and that was a "special price" :rolleyes: Some other place listed the 3 piece stuff cheap but out of stock, and recommended one piece stuff instead for twice as much :rolleyes: How can stuff built with smaller dimension lumber be harder to get :confused: It's a scam, I tells ya!

I'll check out Exotic Wood :)

The basic plan was to have a git for my (other) daughter, she has been interested in the uke project but I think she probably wants an electric, and I'm trying to keep the parts affordable for her . . . planning on buying a cut & slotted fingerboard, lopping off a fret or two and doing a short-scale guitar, so the body blank doesn't have to be completely huge although I guess they are probably all cut to roughly the same size . . .

My old boss was a hardcore woodworker, he has all the tools. I went to a hardwood supplier with him once and looked at all those racks of unsurfaced wood before (drool) but he lives 300 miles away and we haven't talked in about nine years :o
 
muttley600 said:
Never even an option really unless you have plenty of time both to find, cut and prepare the stock, you have the knowledge and experience of both timbers and the best methods used to dry them.
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I had talked with one barrel supplier about harvesting some of my trees and having them use the lumber (this was back in my grapegrowing days). If you're planting a vineyard the amount of time to cut & dry the lumber before you need barrels is just about right ;)
 
muttley600 said:
Never even an option really unless you have plenty of time both to find, cut and prepare the stock, you have the knowledge and experience of both timbers and the best methods used to dry them. The money to invest in the correct milling equipment, the experience to work them safely and profitably. Finally the time required to wait before you can use or shift the products of you work. Its a full time job. I know a lot of guys that do this, and I mean a LOT of guys.

Good luck if you go that route. But I wouldn't do more than cut and dry the odd log or billet.
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Oh yeah, I know what we're getting into. My Brother-in-Law has a sawmill down the road so we're just gathering, sending it to him and taking what we want as it comes out the other end and leaving the rest for him to do whatever he wants. Hoping to have the other building done by Fall. It'll work out though.
 
Ever consider consulting a lumber broker? We have black walnut trees out the wazoo here in NW Missouri that the state dept. of conservation periodically has harvested from the forests around here. I understand some of the luthiers are starting to seek out walnut as a renewable and available alternative to some other tonewoods....
 
YeshuasFan said:
Ever consider consulting a lumber broker? We have black walnut trees out the wazoo here in NW Missouri that the state dept. of conservation periodically has harvested from the forests around here. I understand some of the luthiers are starting to seek out walnut as a renewable and available alternative to some other tonewoods....
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I don't own the land anymore, unless the buyer defaults on their note :eek:
 
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