Official Luthiers Forum!

What are your thoughts on the best wood for tone? Air dried or kiln? I build Native American Flutes and find air dried to be alot better for tone.What do you think? Mark

Air dried will always be more stable. I honestly can’t say that with every wood air dried or kiln dried will have an adverse affect on tone or not. Though I suspect air dried would be more consitant.

I'd say the issue is not so much about stability (kiln dried wood can be more stable, since it has been forced to a lower moisture content than can be had by air drying and will no longer take up as much moisture as air dried wood--this is why we may bake guitar woods), as it is about structural damage from kilning. The rapid drying in the kiln (which is minimized by the right kiln schedule) can rupture cells, and cause nearly invisible internal checking.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

I've seen bad air dried wood and bad kiln dried wood. It's not the method, it's how well you do it that counts.

The whole subject of the influence of materials on guitar tone is a vexed one, but not nearly so much so as that of wind instrument tone. If you find you get better tone (whatever that is) with air dried wood on your flutes than with kiln dried, then you've answered the question.

Nothin' purtier than a piece of air dried black walnut. Nice pinks and mauve that you don't see in kiln dried walnut.

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You guys are barking at the wrong culprit for reducing American black walnut colors. It's not the kilning, but the deliberate addition of steam in the process!!!!! This evens out the colors and brings the sapwood color more in line with the heartwood. Remember............... commercial conversion of walnut is not for guitar makers, but cabinet and furniture makers where evenness rules.... I've had plenty of walnut kiln dried without the steaming and it retains all it's goodness. Steaming isn't restricted to black walnut, but is done to European pear and American cherry for the same reasons.

Air dried hardwoods are not more stable than kiln dried and in many cases are much less stable!! As been said each has it's merits and faults, but in kiln dried stock the faults are in poor kiln operation.

Look for non commercial walnut usually from small Woodmizer mills that use solar or other small kiln operations. Stay away from lumber yard stock if you want the natural goodness.

I am finding more and more i have to use a combanation if both.
unfortunatly the time and space involved with kiln drying is just to costly so as much as would like i can not air dry fully.

take ebony fingerboards for an example.
These arrive from india as if they had been cut the same morning.
i put these in the kiln and dry very slowly at low temprature.
once they come out of the kiln they are layed in stick and further air dried for as long as i can possabley get away with

i do find they lose there color a bit with kilning and look a little washed out but the time involved with air drying is just not an option at present.
in the future i would like to offer both kiln and air dried fingerboards but they would have to be priced acordingly which may mean that people prefer to buy the kiln dried stuff due to price.

there is no doubt that different woods react differently to different drying methods but this is usualy superficial and and settles down after a period of further stabalisation in a 45 rh enviroment.

I allways recomend that people store there wood in there workshop as long as poss before using it but a good suppliers wood should be suitable for emidiate use whether it has been kiln dried or air dried.
This is not allways for the supplier to achive as they have to keep the stock moving through there business as quickly as poss.
this can result in corners being cut and wood arriving slightly wet to the end user.

where possable i buy my wood allready air dried but in most cases its been kiln dried or its wet.

As has been mentioned the most important ting is that the wood has been dried well.
unfortunatly most lumber yard walnut and cherry has had its life boiled away in high temprature kins and this in my opinion can make the wood unstable and no good for guitars.

All this said you can trust most of the sponsers here and the well known suppliers to supply you with quality dry wood and this is the most important factor at the end of the day,
If you recive a peice of that feels wet then you can allways store it away for future use so its not the end of the world (unless you find out its wet once the guitar is finished ).

joel.

I remember that in the early seventys Gibson had a fire that distroyed all there air dried seasoned wood,and forced them to build with kilndried stock.Most guitars players i have talked with say that the air dried guitars before the fire are the best sounding guitars made by them.It seems like the older ones are alot better than than the ones built right after the fire.It wasn't intil the mid eightys they started sounding good again.I built a guitar neck out of air dried curly maple from some old bed rails i found at the salvation army from the twentys.That guitar is way better sounding than the ones i have built from newerwood.Just wandering if other builders have found the same thing. Mark

Toneally surely the difference is with the experiance of the luthier as to the wood? Bit I can understand the difference in properties of the wood for various methods

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Formerly JJH

I learn more from my mistakes than my successes

http://www.hibdonhardwood.com/interestkiln.htm

Here is the link to Hibdon Hardwoods kiln drying information site. I have heard before that very well controlled kiln drying is not harmful, but that most mills simply do not have the time to do it that way. If you pick up a kiln dried board in almost any yard or store, it will not have the same care given as for a board that is planned for musical instruments.

I am not sure about the tonal effect of kiln vs air dried. What I do know is that in my personal experience I find that most air dried material bends like butter and holds it's shape with little or no spring back. Can't say that about the Kiln dried I have used.

Greg N

Larry has sent me awesome sets !
I trust his judgement on this topic!

He has more experience than most with this !

Mike
Just my opinion!!

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Mike Collins

Larry Davis has a very good insight about kiln drying walnut with steam injection. In fact, I have watched this process--or, I should say, I have watched the kiln doors opened after a drying and steam injection session. Clouds of steam wafted out. In the case of the lumber company whose operation I watched, they were highly motivated to use steam to bleed coloration from the heartwood into the sapwood. The economic fact is that most of their customers want it that way. I should also say that all of their wood is air dried for a year before going into the kiln--specifically to reduce some of the drying stresses. I have used their material many times, and like it. I have also used walnut from smaller operations with no steam injection, and I like it, too. I do like the color variation in this wood. Finally, I will also say that most of the walnut I have had gets seasoned in my shop or storage areas for years after air or kiln drying before I get around to using it. Occasionally, I get to acquire walnut from razed buildings (it is so common in my area that is was formerly used for building timbers.) Some of this wood was cut 150+ years ago! I like this old wood, too. The bottom line is that beauty is where we find it...or where we create it. That's just my opinion.

Kiln drying is a process and when you use a process ,if not done well you can impart property inferences. There are many ways to kiln dry wood. I do like the solar kilns as they are eco friendly but in the wrong hands can be useless. RD kilning is very quick compared to solar and oven. Wood can be case hardened and that is detrimental for a luthier for sure.
Even air drying must be done properly. The secret seems to be in the air flow around the wood. If you can't control that you do have a problem. I have been around kilns for many years , and we used baffles and blocked layers to control the air flown. The process would take about 4 weeks from loading to finish.
Air drying , you need to sticker the wood , and one thing I learned is that the stickers need to be at least 3/4 in , with 1 inch being better. To get convection currents to flow you need at least 3/4 inch so they can form naturally. Still drying is one of the most important parts of prepping wood .
have fun and keep the stings on the outside
john hall

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it