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Hello,

I’m revamping my storage area to make room for Christmas.

I need to collapse three shelves of B&S sets and tops into one. I was storing like this with stickers between each panel:



If I take out all the stickers (I don’t know what to call them other than that), I think I can collapse it all down to one 6 foot shelving unit. The B&S sets end up like this:



Any concerns with that? The plates aren’t fully supported, only supported the width of the side. Or should I perhaps store vertically on their edge like books?

I only have dried wood from luthier suppliers or the stuff I’ve resawed on my own, which is dried lumber from my local supplier.

I want to try to maximize space as much as possible.

Ideas are welcome.

It’s all climate controlled so that’s not an issue.



Brad


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Brad—

When I toured the Martin factory, and when I have seen video of wood storage at other factories, I didn’t see any stickering of fully dried parts. So, I don’t sticker my stuff. I control RH pretty well. I haven’t seen any issues.

I stack backs separate from sides. I mark every set pretty well, so I don’t think I will lose track of what goes with what. Stacking backs with backs and sides with sides keeps me from having a bunch of wobbly towers of wood.

I could be doing it wrong, but like I said, nothing bad has happened yet.

No issue AFAIC. I feel that stickering is only needed when the wood is wet. I would remove anything that you’re about to build with and put it in climate control with all sides air for a good bit before using it.

My steps are...

1) grab from stash 2 weeks before needed at least and place in RH room

2) after three days at least, joint (unnecessary but it makes me feel good)

3) put back in RH for at least a week, but usually it ends up much longer

Back at the old shop, wood was stored in ready mode as sets on big shelves that could hold sides with the length pointing at you, for indefinite lengths of time. Back jointed and thicknesses, sides thicknessed.

As soon as a guitar was ordered, a b/s set would be allotted and numbered. The sides would go one way, and the back would go immediately to RH. By the time the numbered frame made it to body assembly, the back had been in RH long enough to have been braced so as soon as the frame showed up it could be assembled.

Lols.

Somebody didn’t read the whole post where it was clearly stated that RH wasn’t an issue, and the same somebody doesn’t know how to delete...

No worries, still super helpful.


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IME there's no need for stickers with dry wood. I just pile them directly on top of eachother (separate stacks for tops, backs, and sides). Sudden humidity drops can cause splits in brittle woods like rosewood when stacked this way, but a coat of shellac or thin CA on the endgrain will prevent that. Not needed on softwoods or split-resistant hardwoods like mahogany and walnut, even with the crazy climate here and forced air heating. And with humidity control, even the brittle woods won't need sealing.

Piggybacking on what Dennis mentioned about sealing the ends: most of my back/side sets come from the supplier with ends sealed. I don’t disturb the seal until I am ready to use that set.

I have stand alone cabinets in my shop (sort of like wardrobes for a garage), and the tops of those cabinets are perfect for storing these stacks. I have separate stacks for backs, sides, tops, fingerboards, bridgeplates, headplates, brace stock, and mahogany (shaped variously for necks or inside parts). This keeps the wood safe and out of the way, yet easily accessed with a short footstool, and somewhat organized. When I am done working on various parts of a guitar for the day (I build one at a time), I can put the parts up there, too. Again, safe and out of the way.

I only keep enough wood around for about a dozen guitars, so this is not a huge amount of wood.

I have wood stored for years and if it comes in dry I don't bother stickering or sealing ends but I do control my RH and maintain 40% to 55%

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blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
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Concerning pre-dried wood.

I had wondered this when i first started hunting and gathering as well brad.
At first I had everything so meticulously stacked and stickered....it was starting to become a chore.
Those from this forum and others who have years of experience explained that if all is dry, all is good.
From there i rearranged and saved a lot space!

Wet wood should be stickered and weighted of course.
Only other suggestion i remember outside of that is to sticker wood pulled from your (dry) pile for a couple weeks before you start building with it.
Hope that gives you some confidence as I was concerned about warping, mold, etc... and loosing some beautiful wood to improper care.
Everything has been fine for a number of years now with wood stored in about 40 - 65% RH range.

gregor

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Wake up and smell the rosewood!

I've been stacking back and sides sets of many types of woods like in your second photo for years with no problems at all. The only small difference I see is that I don't push the sides all the way to the back of the shelf. I keep them more or less centered on the back plates.

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Here is where I landed. At least for the B&S and tops, I was able to collapse it down from 3 shelves to 1. Now to clean up all the neck wood, blocks, brace stock, etc...

It also gave me a good excuse to clean up the inventory spreadsheet a bit. Out of 30 B&S sets I only had one head-scratcher on where the heck it came from!



Appreciate all the input!

Brad


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lol, I probably should go through my stash and label everything. I'm not sure exactly how many back/side sets I have, but most of the matchings are only stored in my memory

I do keep an inventory folder on my computer though, with files like HonduranRW_AHix_2016Feb_122d.jpg for a set of Honduran rosewood I bought from Aaron Hix in February 2016 for $122. Or if I don't have a photo of the set and am too lazy to take one, just create an empty file and give it a name in the same format. But then it's back to only having my own memory to remember which physical set it refers to. I should probably give each set a number, written on the physical wood and in the filename so they can be matched up.

I also create a folder on the computer for each guitar I'm going to build, and move the files for the used woods into it. This is a quick way to keep track of what is still in the wood pile versus what has been used up, and how much money was spent on materials for each guitar. I also have a folder called "sold" for any sets I resold instead of using. I should probably tack the sale price onto the filenames when I move them in there to keep track of how much money I gain/lose overall...

I try to stack mine stickered, as a set, even when dry. Similar to your 2nd picture in the OP. Doesn't seem to matter much after they are dry it just helps me locate a specific piece of wood in the stack without going through everything and I know it will be a matched set. One thing I do is to throw a billet in every so often to weight down the stack.
Sealing the ends only seems to be important if the wood is real wet and/or dense to help retard the drying process. Once dry doesn't need to be there unless you want to leave it.
That seems to work for me.

As for inventory, as soon as the wood comes in I mark what it is, where I got it, the price I paid right on the wood itself and take a few pics of it. I have probably enough for 50 guitars which is a lot for me at 3-4 guitars per year. Pretty easy to manage. I'd probably want some sort of inventory software if it started getting bigger then that. But if I get hit by a bus my wife can at least try and sell off the inventory to you guys here on the OLF

Well, let's try to avoid that. I don't need any more wood right now.

I could use a few tops, but I’m not in a hurry.


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Periodically you need to update the value of your stock and mark that on the wood. If the bus arrives late (hopefully) you might want the wife to get closer to market value for it when the vultures descend. Considering how much the price of wood has jumped in the last few years this might be a good ploy the next time you see a set you really have to have.