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Just thought I would share my day with everyone. A couple of weeks ago I had a couple of spruce trees fell to process into instrument woods. I like to wait until the end of the growing season to do this but before everything is buried in snow. I thought it was getting too late this year as we had about a foot snow in our yard last week but luckily it warmed up and the snow is all but gone. The ground is still frozen so the conditions are IDEAL to get this wood out. With frozen ground there is virtually zero erosion issues. I like that!!

Here is a couple of shots of the trees, already felled:





The tree above is Tree 1 from this area.



The tree above is Tree 2 from this area.

You can see standing water in these pictures. Typically you would stay away from an area like this because the trees typically grow too fast if they are near constant water but this water resulted from melting snow on frozen ground, the water has nowhere to go! The tree is in the winter dormant phase so grows very little. I have a process to assess the grain count before I choose a tree to harvest.

Here is picture of the logs waiting for the self loading logging truck to pick them up and deliver them to my property tomorrow.



And here is a picture of the road we hauled these trees down after we were finished. Gotta love frozen ground, come spring you won't even know we were here. Low impact selective logging RULES!!



Tomorrow these logs will be delivered to my property where they will then be scaled (volume measuement) so that the government can assess me the appropriate fees then I can start to process them. They look pretty good so there should be a few tops available from this wood for you all! Oh ya, some specs. These trees are over 4 feet across at the butt and about 120 feet long.

I will post more pictures when I get to the processing. This may be of interest to some of you.

Thanks

ShaneShane Neifer38700.0328472222

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Canada

Dang, Shane. You been a-workin'. Love shots like this. So that's your 150 lb bull mastif. Loks formidable enough to keep the grizzly's away. Nice wood. If it's anything like the top you gave me, count me in on a bunch.

I like these shots too. Very interesting.
So behind the bull mastif that's the infamous "Stump Wood"?

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1109 Military Rd.
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Shane,

Great pictures, thank you for sharing. Post more when you get them, I would love to see the whole process you go through to provide us all with great spruce tops!

Jeff

The small tree to the left is Western Red Cedar? I like your working companion...great dogs...

What is the elevation where the logs were taken? How do you go about finding appropriate trees? Timber cruise until you find a likely one then negotiate with the owner or is it from timber stands that your or your family own? Is it government land and that is why fees must be paid or do all such logs get assessed?

I think alot of people would be very interested in the process from the time you find a good tree to the time that it gets processed into tops. What do you do with all of the waste from processing? What are the uses other than tonewood?

Great photos.

Shane,

What species of spruce are the two trees? Are they Lutz hybrids by any chance? (I like Lutz a lot)

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

very cool pics shane. Please do keep the pictorial running!

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Shawn, what a bunch of GREAT questions! I will post more on these over the next little while but let me see if I can anawer a few of them.

I like to harvest above 800 feet and below 1400 feet. I believe these ones are at about 900 feet. I use a GPS to plot the location of all of the trees I harvest and that includes elevation so I do have elevation data for each tree (just not near me at the moment).

Finding trees is very time consuming and just involves a lot driving through forest roads and long walks in the bush, with my dog. By the way Shogun is 135 pound Bull Mastif, formidable looking but just a big teddy bear. Once I locate a tree that I think may be OK (things like large girth, few lower section branches, no twist) I then incriment bore the tree to check the grain count. If the count is OK, I GPS the location and apply for harvest. To date, all of my harvest has been on Governement (we the people!) land through a special harvest licence that only myself and Mario DaCosta (Sprucetonewood) have (that's right, contrary to all his hype he is not the only one where you can get this wood "direct from the harvester"). Once a tree has been approved by the forestry department, which involves a site inspection and a review of environmental issues and accurate plotting on forest maps, then I arrange to have the tree felled and either hauled to my property and then scaled (measured for volume) or sometimes I will scale in the bush and process on site. Once the volume has been determined and submitted to the forestry department they then send me a bill based on the rate that is included in my forest license.

Processing Tonewood creates a lot of waste. Only the outer portions of most trees are suitable for instrument wood. The fact that the wood needs to be well quartered creates even more waste. I use all of the 'wedges' to make bracewood. All of the sapwood (the outer 1 to 2 inch ring of the tree) makes firewod and on occasion, attached to the course lower bark, is used for crafts. I supply some of wood to a friend of mine who builds novelty boxes for wineries and fish processing companies. The rest is either scattered on the forest floor if I process on site, or is used to heat the house and shop if I process at home. I would say the recovery to tonewood, of a good tree, is about 25%. I process the knotty portions on the top of the tree into lumber for use in my upcoming shop and for other outbuildings on my 45 acre protery.

You are right, there is a small cedar to the left as well as a small hemlock and a small balsam. Sometimes these are removed to ensure safe falling.

Michael, these are indeed Lutz Spruce! They appear pretty good to me but I will let you know more about their quality in a few days when I start to process a bit of this wood. By the way, I do still have nice Lutz on hand, processed and dry. Lutz is really the only spruce that I process right now, although I may consider getting some Sitka over the next while and I do on occasion bring in other spruce billets such as engelmann) to process on request. But this Lutz is definately a unique and quality wood and I am happy to concentrate on it. Here is a short comment that William Cumpiano sent about some Lutz Spruce He bought from me earlier this year:

"High Mountain Tonewoods has sent me some of the best-looking and
best-sounding tops I've ever seen during my 35 years in guitarmaking.
Many thanks!


William Cumpiano"

I will update with more pictures of the process over the next few days. The logs are being transported to my property later today.

Thanks

Shane

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Canada

"Michael, these are indeed Lutz Spruce"

Hi Shane...

How can you distinguish Lutz from Sitka and/or Engelmann on the hoof?
Are the needles dramatically different?

And if someone handed you a piece of wood that indeed was cut from a
Lutz, would you be able to positively ID it as Lutz?

Excuse my ignorance...
I wouldn't know a Lutz if it landed on my foot....   

[QUOTE=spruce]
Excuse my ignorance...
I wouldn't know a Lutz if it landed on my foot....    [/QUOTE]

Come on Bruce, "excuse my ignorance"???

How do we know it's Lutz? Mostly by geography. There are 'typical' aspects of different spruces that make it identifiable once cut, but the problem is that most wood is atyipical. So the range between is too great to make the determination. My view, typically, is that Lutz has a softer appearance than sitka but is not as white as engelmann but tougher. How's that! I have not seen enough european or adi spruce to make comments about them at all. As I have said many times, in my opinion good spruce is good spruce no matter where it comes from.

For clarification, Lutz is a hybrid between white and sitka spruce. The forestry scientists state that in the area where live and harvest, there are no pure stands of spruce, they are all Lutz.

Hope this helps!

Shane

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Canada

Hey Shane
how does the Stihl work like? I have a similar one and really love the way she goes
Gg

She cuts good! They make one model bigger but this one does the job and I couldn't do this work without it. Hey Luigi, what is the diametre of the spruce that is processed into tonewood over there? The engelmann I have seen over here is about 1 metre at the largest, but the sap wood is usable as it dries the same colour as the rest of the wood. On sitka and sitka hybrids (Lutz) you have to remove the sapwood as it is much lighter in colour than the main trunk but the trees are also larger, 2 metres or more in some cases, although most of the trees that I harvest are 1 metre to 1.5 metres.

Shane

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Canada

Fascinating Shane, definitely keep posting pictures and harvesting info.   

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

Stihl is the way to go, we've got a few 066's and use them all the time.

Looks like some nice wood. I never knew Engelmann sapwood dries out. Learn something new every day

Good lookin dog too A good dog is every woodhunters best friend

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Yes, this is an awesome thread. Thank you for taking the time to post and type all this. Amazing, really.

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

Jason,

I didn't know that about engelmann either until recently when I got a couple of billets to cut for a customer (an OLF'er) and the billets came with the bark just scaped off. The colour was consistent throughout the sawn face off the saw. I never see that on the spruce I harvest.

Shane

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Canada

Very interesting. May have to try some.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Shane,

I have read that Lutz is a hybrid of three spruces -- sitka, white, and Engelmann. Seems at least plausible to me, since all three species are found in your area, from what I understand.

As to its appearance, the Lutz I have is paler than most of the sitka I've seen, but still might have a few light pinkish streaks. It does not have the ivory white color of Engelmann, though. I also have a few topsets that almost have a flame quality to them -- not bearclaw, but more of a light sort of flame or curl. I've built a few guitars so far with Lutz tops, one of which had one of the flame tops. It is a remarkable sounding instrument.   The other guitars have also come out sounding excellent. To my ear, Lutz has a sound that is very close to the best Euro spruce -- at a fraction of the cost.

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

Michael, I agree with your description of this wood, entirely! I have had people call it european spruce on more than one occasion. I am also finding more classical makers are getting a hold of me lately about this wood. As for the mix in the hybridization. I talked to a local forestry biologist/botanist about this wood in my harvest area and he stated that the spruce here is a Sitka/White hybrid below 3500 feet and will include Engelmann above that elevation. The Sitka hybrid, whether with white or with white/engelmann, is referred to as Lutz.

Many of the tops I have have that curl, actually most do. I think it is quite common for the trees around here but not all of them have it. But they do display significant medullary rays and just shimmer!

Thanks for your insight to this wood.

The logs didn't get delivered today but are promised for tomorrow. The loggers in the bush are rushing to get wood out before the snow that is supposed to come tonight arrives. My wood is sitting in an easily accessible spot so was put on hold. Hopefully more pics tomorrow night.

Thanks

Shane

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Canada

Shane
That trunk has amazing dimensions, how long did it take to cut it? We do not have logs so large here and cannot have such a regular grain with european red spruce. There's only little sapwood and the younger part of the tree is considered the best one.

As for the Stihl she's great, light, powerful, very easy to handle and has a quite noiseless engine also but... I cannot forget the sound of my first big, heavy, naughty, yellow McCulloch... still the best to keep bears off the field
Gg

This is a nice one anyway... 112 cm (44")

Luigi

I am kicking myself!! When we fell those trees I forgot to bring my camera. But I picked the faller up at 1:00, we were at the location at about 1:30 and I had him back home at about 3:15. So about 1.5 hours on-site. That includes picking the area to fall them and setting up. We used that same Stihl 066.

Thanks for the information about your tree sizes. These two are really about as small as I want to harvest. I like them this size and larger.

Shane

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Canada

Shane and Luigi

When you cut these trees down, is there a program to plant some more ?

How long does it take for a tree to grow to a suitable size ?

HOw old do you estimate the trees were that you cut?

[QUOTE=RussellR] Shane and Luigi

When you cut these trees down, is there a program to plant some more ?

How long does it take for a tree to grow to a suitable size ?

[/QUOTE]

I do not cut much by myself, I rather choose and buy from harvesters as they carry them downhill; think most of the harvesters do not care about cloning and replanting trees but a large number of young trees grow anywhere among largest ones. When you cut a large tree in 2-3 years the ground is covered with little dark green spots that will soon turn into their tree shape.

The average diameter at which a red spruce can be processed into guitar tops is 85-90 cm or more, that means 300-350 years for a high altitude tree.