Official Luthiers Forum!

My brother owns some property in Western PA and is planning to harvest some Walnut and possibly Cherry trees. I was hoping to pass along some info to him regarding harvesting for tonewood.

Just to get the thread rolling, here are some of the initial questions he had.

1) Best season to cut the tree
2) Log length
3) Minimum width useful for tonewood
4) When to cut logs into segments
5) When to cut the segments into billets.
6) Etc.

I am hoping that the experts who chime in on this include the usual suspects...Shawn, Mario, Larry, Zootman, etc.

TIA

_________________
JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

"1) Best season to cut the tree "

Now is OK...
Winter is traditional...

"2) Log length"

Depends on what you want to build....

"3) Minimum width useful for tonewood

See 2...

"4) When to cut logs into segments"

ASAP....

"5) When to cut the segments into billets."

See 4....



spruce39021.5175810185

Seeing you are in PA , the best advice for this is to contact a local sawmill. Most trees that grow near houses may not be wanted by mill as there are probably nails and other things in the tree that may damage the saw.
Ok now for the real fun. A tree must be "Read" look at the bark and see if it has a spriral to it. That makes it useless for luthiery. If that is straight you will want to fell the tree and limb it. It may be best to use 6 foot lengths as a minimum for milling at a saw mill. You can also get band mills to come to the property around here.
    Also is you plan on luthiery projects you would like to see about a 24 inch trunk minimum. YOu need old growth for good grade.
    I hope this helped JJ. Have your bro call the local mills as you will also see that moving such a large chunk of wood is difficult without the proper tools. Should you think there are some grade for guitars you can split billets , this is the easiest way and best way to get quartered wood as splitting will follow the grain.
john hall