Trash or Treasure

Ted Calver

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I've had a few pieces of silver maple burly chunks kicking me in the shins for the last few years. They were beautiful when I first got them but I procrastinated and didn't process them into the bowl blanks I wanted and they just sat around outside under a leaky tarp with bark on for a few years getting all wormy, cracked and fungus covered. I finally felt guilty and debarked them and brought them inside the conditioned garage which stopped the fungus but made the cracks worse. I figured they were goners and was about to put them in the truck for the land fill just to free up some space, but before trashing them thought I'd take a few slices on the band saw to see if there might still be some life left. Blue stain got to them so they are pretty dark and lifeless off the saw, but a few spritzes of mineral spirits brings out some color. I think there are potentially some really nice book matched panels in there. What do you think?
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#7 looks like a pair of seahorses back to back looking left and right! But I think they belong in the trash, I personally would hate to see you send them to the landfill so would send you the cost of shipping and I will dispose of them properly in my outside wood boiler (after I cut as many pen blanks as possible out of them!!!!!!!!!!!!):thumb: Those are gorgeous, put them to good use!:thumb:
 
I am not into natural edge things, but the people around here who are pay a fortune for slabs like those. Me... I would cut veneers and make 2 way or 4 way bookmatched table tops or door panels or whatever (but not with natural edges). They look very interesting.
 
Man oh man, that stuff looks nice. As much as I'd like to see what could be turned out of wood like that, I think your idea of making some bookmatched panels (solid body guitar tops?) or veneers would maximize the yield and number of pieces that could be made from that nasty, ugly wood. :thumb:
 
Man oh man, that stuff looks nice. As much as I'd like to see what could be turned out of wood like that, I think your idea of making some bookmatched panels (solid body guitar tops?) or veneers would maximize the yield and number of pieces that could be made from that nasty, ugly wood. :thumb:

I'm with Vaughn, but I thought a solid body guitar had to have good tone wood - resonate well. I thought a burl had too irregular a structure to meet that requirement. And any fungus in wood (spalting) destroyed the tone-wood quality. But if you need someone to scrap them for you, I volunteer to make panels.
 
I'm with Vaughn, but I thought a solid body guitar had to have good tone wood - resonate well. I thought a burl had too irregular a structure to meet that requirement. And any fungus in wood (spalting) destroyed the tone-wood quality. But if you need someone to scrap them for you, I volunteer to make panels.

What about other instruments, as I didn't think all of them were solid, but some could use veneers? (thinking some of the hammered dulcimers I have seen, had veneering on the outside to fancy them up)
 
I'm pretty sure its fairly common to veneer the top of a guitar. As long as the body itself is of a sufficiently dense, there should be no problem with tone, especially for an electric.

Now acoustic instruments, there you're going to get into trouble.
 
I have to agree with Vaughn and Brent. Solid body electric basses and guitars. The spalting shouldn't hurt anything in solid bodies since the tone is mostly dependent on the electronics of the guitar. Sustain could be an issue but most builders are going to use a something with those qualities for the back of the body and only use the burl for the top 1/2" or so. I have a 3/4" thick piece of spalted ash that I am hanging onto specifically to build a fretless bass from, nothing nearly as pretty as those pieces though.
 
...The spalting shouldn't hurt anything in solid bodies since the tone is mostly dependent on the electronics of the guitar...

Yeah, unless the maple is punky and has lost density, the spalting and burl shouldn't have an adverse effect on the tone. I've got a friend with a high-end custom bass and the top on the body is gorgeous spalted maple. He's even got matching spalted maple covers on the pickups. As Roy said, a lot of the tone is controlled by the electronics, but the density of the wood also plays a part. Quite a few guitars (like the Gibson Les Paul) often use a maple top on a mahogany body. Apparently the tone of solid maple is too bright, and solid mahogany is not bright enough. I believe modern Les Pauls have a top that's between 1/2" and 3/4" thick, depending on where you measure it. (The top is carved, so the thickness varies.) PRS guitars typically have a 3/4" maple top before carving.
 
.... I have a 3/4" thick piece of spalted ash that I am hanging onto specifically to build a fretless bass from, nothing nearly as pretty as those pieces though.

I am not an expert guitar or bass maker but I claim some expertise in veneering. If you laminate two thicker pieces together (like that spalted ash you reference and something else) I will almost guarantee they will split apart. Veneer works because it is thin enough to lose the ability to expand and contract with the weather... it has to follow the substrate. You can put almost any thin veneer on a substrate and it will follow the plywood, MDF, or whatever substrate. If you put a solid wood together with another they will either split apart or bow/cup. I put plywood and MDF as two layers on my workbench and they never stayed level - always bow or cup, until someday I expect it will separate. When I tour museums I see MANY pieces where the historical 1/8 inch or 3/16 inch veneer is separated from the substrate.
 
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