Swamp ash

jimistone

jimistone

long standing member
I have been looking into buying swamp ash body blanks and doing some strat and Tele bodies and realized something.... Vendors are charging insane prices for swamp ash blanks and people are actually paying these prices.
Swamp ash is plentiful around here and I put a pencil to it. I can yield enough 1 and 2 piece bodies out of an average sized red ash tree to be able to buy the tree...have a sawmill saw it....have it planed...haul it....and sell the one piece body blanks for $40 and the 2 piece body blanks for $25 and net a huge profit.
Does anyone know...
How long of a drying time does ash need?
Should the log be left to dry and then milled or should the log be milled into the correct thickness and the lumber be dried?

I would think there would be a market for body blanks at half the price of what I have seen available.

Any guitar builder input is welcome
 
Air dried, 2 years per inch of stock depending on air flow and ambient humidity. You will need to sticker it, end seal with wax and turn it every month. Kiln dried dependent on how you have the thing set up but about a quarter of the time. Beware of splits and checks if you dry too quick. Aim to get moisture content stable at a MINIMUM of 10% hopefully lower. Anything in the 12% region is sellable as seasoned timber but you will get less for it in the tonewood trade.

You can resaw into manageable sizes in the green but leave it in the largest sizes you can for stability while it dries. The thinner you cut green the greater the stresses are when drying.

If I was buying I'd want 2 inch boards and I'd stack them for five years before using. If I was in a hurry I'd hand them out to be kilned and expect them ready in 6 months to a year. There would be more waste that route though.

Call your local hardwood lumber yard for local environment advice and considerations. It varies from place to place and will also vary depending on what type of swamp ash you have. The figures I quote are an average for tone woods in an average climate.
 
I've never bought a body blank, but from what I've seen they can be pretty pricey. I always get rough lumber direct from a supplier. One place that we have locally will cut boards down to the eight foot minimum that they have on the rack, so if I see something I like that's a 12' piece, they'll cut four feet from it and sell me that. Their prices aren't bad either. Maple, mahog, ash, birch, and walnut are all $4-6 b/f. Exotics are a little more.

If you've got that much of it growing locally, You should check locally. Have you checked with local lumber companies?, Hardwood suppliers?

This one came up in a search...Attala Hardwoods in Kosciusko, MS - (662) 289-3823
 
JCH said:
I've never bought a body blank, but from what I've seen they can be pretty pricey. I always get rough lumber direct from a supplier. One place that we have locally will cut boards down to the eight foot minimum that they have on the rack, so if I see something I like that's a 12' piece, they'll cut four feet from it and sell me that. Their prices aren't bad either. Maple, mahog, ash, birch, and walnut are all $4-6 b/f. Exotics are a little more.

If you've got that much of it growing locally, You should check locally. Have you checked with local lumber companies?, Hardwood suppliers?

This one came up in a search...Attala Hardwoods in Kosciusko, MS - (662) 289-3823
Click to expand...

I think he's investigating lumbering the tree himself from fell to body blank. There is quite a lot of time involved which is what you pay for. Swamp ash can fetch a premium especially where it is not in local supply. I'm guessing he's already got the board foot price.
 
Man, that's more drying time than I expected. I have delt with mostly Oak and pine sawn dor building lumber and one year is plenty of drying time. You're talking 4 years drying time on 2" thick lumber... Am I understanding that correctly?
 
jimistone said:
Man, that's more drying time than I expected. I have delt with mostly Oak and pine sawn dor building lumber and one year is plenty of drying time. You're talking 4 years drying time on 2" thick lumber... Am I understanding that correctly?
Click to expand...

Most timbers are between one year and two years per board inch. You may get away closer to one year but I doubt it. A lot will depend on how much air flow and how dry it is in your region and how you cut the lumber. I was basing those times on 2 inch boards. You will probably get it to 12% in a year but that really is too high for tone wood. Tone wood is expensive because it is selected for quality AND seasoned carefully and thoroughly. For body blanks you may be able to cut down on time but personally I wouldn't. All the timber I buy spends a good year or two in my climate before I use it, often much more. That last few percent takes a while. YMMV but not by much.

What is your climate like? There must be kiln driers around near you?
 
muttley600 said:
Air dried, 2 years per inch of stock depending on air flow and ambient humidity. You will need to sticker it, end seal with wax and turn it every month. Kiln dried dependent on how you have the thing set up but about a quarter of the time. Beware of splits and checks if you dry too quick. Aim to get moisture content stable at a MINIMUM of 10% hopefully lower. Anything in the 12% region is sellable as seasoned timber but you will get less for it in the tonewood trade.

You can resaw into manageable sizes in the green but leave it in the largest sizes you can for stability while it dries. The thinner you cut green the greater the stresses are when drying.

If I was buying I'd want 2 inch boards and I'd stack them for five years before using. If I was in a hurry I'd hand them out to be kilned and expect them ready in 6 months to a year. There would be more waste that route though.

Call your local hardwood lumber yard for local environment advice and considerations. It varies from place to place and will also vary depending on what type of swamp ash you have. The figures I quote are an average for tone woods in an average climate.
Click to expand...

And that's all you have to do. Simple! :laughings:
 
muttley600 said:
Most timbers are between one year and two years per board inch. You may get away closer to one year but I doubt it. A lot will depend on how much air flow and how dry it is in your region and how you cut the lumber. I was basing those times on 2 inch boards. You will probably get it to 12% in a year but that really is too high for tone wood. Tone wood is expensive because it is selected for quality AND seasoned carefully and thoroughly. For body blanks you may be able to cut down on time but personally I wouldn't. All the timber I buy spends a good year or two in my climate before I use it, often much more. That last few percent takes a while. YMMV but not by much.

What is your climate like? There must be kiln driers around near you?
Click to expand...

100 degrees F and 80% humidity in the summer most of the time.

It's very humid in the summer and winter here
 
I talked to a hardwood mill/dealer and found out that most mill don't separate the light weight ash from the heavier ash. The yards that do separate it do so because they know that "guitar ash" is worth more and price it accordingly. He said you can't tell which ash is going to be lightweight until you harvest it. In other words the same species of ash tree could be light weight or heavy.

That kind of throws a wrench in buying a standing red ash tree....it might end up being really heavy wood.

Oh well it was just an idea.
 
jimistone said:
I talked to a hardwood mill/dealer and found out that most mill don't separate the light weight ash from the heavier ash. The yards that do separate it do so because they know that "guitar ash" is worth more and price it accordingly. He said you can't tell which ash is going to be lightweight until you harvest it. In other words the same species of ash tree could be light weight or heavy.

That kind of throws a wrench in buying a standing red ash tree....it might end up being really heavy wood.

Oh well it was just an idea.
Click to expand...

Swamp Ash is green ash or red ash.. either is just a term used by lumber merchants... It is true that a lot of ash gets mixed in when it is graded which is why I always go by the botanical name if I am ordering something specific. That happens a lot here with fruitwoods. I've cautioned people about it in the past here. English Sycamore gets sold off to the German and Swiss lumber trade and then sold back to us as maple. They are not even the same species.. Go figure.

Don't give up on it. If you have the space to sticker a small amount do it, but from trunk to funk is a lot more costly that many appreciate.
 
has anyone ever tried drying wood with vacuum? Wouldn't need to use as much heat and maybe the wood could outgas the moisture and still remain stable. Shorten the drying time.
 
There are seasoning methods that use vacuum technology in combination with other kiln methods. Primarily they reduce the atmospheric pressure to speed up capillary loss.

They are expensive and really only suited to big operations. There would be no benefit to the finished product other than time.
 
muttley600 said:
Swamp Ash is green ash or red ash.. either is just a term used by lumber merchants... It is true that a lot of ash gets mixed in when it is graded which is why I always go by the botanical name if I am ordering something specific. That happens a lot here with fruitwoods. I've cautioned people about it in the past here. English Sycamore gets sold off to the German and Swiss lumber trade and then sold back to us as maple. They are not even the same species.. Go figure.

Don't give up on it. If you have the space to sticker a small amount do it, but from trunk to funk is a lot more costly that many appreciate.
Click to expand...

Well, I have a friend in the timber business. He cruises tracts of timber to estimate the value to enable the timber co. To make an offer. So all day, everyday, he is looking at trees on land who's owner is interested in selling. He can find the trees for me. They're going to end up getting about $100 a tree from the timber co. I figure I can offer them $200 for a big red ash, pay him $50 finders fee, haul my saw and tractor to the sight and harvest the tree and load it on a trailer and bring it home for $100 in gasoline, have it milled into 2" thick lumber for around $65 and have it planned for around $50. So, for around $450 to $550 I will have some decent swamp ash stock. I figure a large red ash should yield 30 feet of good trunk to cut from and that ....conservatively should yield about 70 one piece body blanks and 100 2 piece blanks.

I would have round $3 to $5 a blank in them....depending on the yield and knotting and so fourth.
The turn around time is the thing though. 4 years is 4 times longer than I planned on.
 
Rule of thumb when lumbering is that you will have 30% waste/unusable. Don't forget to write that in.

If you have a friend in the trade then why not investigate kiln drying. For body blanks you'd be fine and you would get it to the required 6-8%
 
Rule of thumb when lumbering is that you will have 30% waste/unusable. Don't forget to write that in.

If you have a friend in the trade then why not investigate kiln drying. For body blanks you'd be fine and you would get it to the required 6-8%
 
muttley600 said:
Rule of thumb when lumbering is that you will have 30% waste/unusable. Don't forget to write that in.

If you have a friend in the trade then why not investigate kiln drying. For body blanks you'd be fine and you would get it to the required 6-8%
Click to expand...
I will discuss it with him. Even with 50% waste I would only have aprox. $10 in each blank.
 
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