Official Luthiers Forum!

Don A's post on another thread that he has 80 sets of wood to sticker got me wondering. How many of us now have enough wood to last us this life time and well into our next one?

I myself have so much wood that I'm embarrassed to let friends into my shop for fear of what they will think of me........and I'm only starting #3.

I've spent so much money that I could've probably bought a nice Proulx OOO, a Wells 13 fret 00, one of Lance's SJ's complete with an LS redwood top and a few of those cool high end Mayes ukes and still saved $.

The funny thing about that is if I would have gone that route my wife would have gone bonkers on my for spending so much. As it stands she's been quite supportive of me in my new hobby........Life's funny, isn't it?

Count your blessings...along with all that wood, Roy.

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Roy, I'm in the same boat. I played cheap guitars for 40 years. When I could finally afford a decent guitar, I didn't stop at just one as I had bad GAS (Guitar Acquisition Syndrome)! After buying too many, I got the bug to build a kit and didn't realize that it was a terminal infection. After starting kit 2, I decided I could probably do it from scratch, so off to buy more power tools, jigs, wood, etc.

I do have lots of wood and it has gradually expanded out of my shop all over the den. I'm attempting to let my wife have her den back. I wish I could build full time and deplete it more rapidly but that day job pays the bills. Regardless, my wife is also supportive (especially since the UPS doesn't show up every single day anymore)

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

I have more money socked away in wood than I do anything else, it's pretty sad actually and I have more coming from both the Zootster and Steve at Colonial and there's one set at Allied that I'm arguing with my wife about (the Cake Walnut, there is a guitar I want to build with that REALLY BADLY!!). I have more wood than I could use in a year....

-Paul-Sprockett38628.6493287037

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-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

You guys.....that ain't nothin!

I've always considered myself the "Poster Child" of Wood Addiction, but Steve Spodaryk makes my stash look like empty shelves. I estimate he has over 300 sets of wood hanging around. Easy.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

You guys are sick, sick, sick. Well I may have a few more sets than Don A, but the rest of you guys are really sick

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

I used to have a pretty good stash myself. But guess what? You guys bought them all. Bobc38628.6891550926

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

I bet you still got a pretty good stash Bob John How38628.7331134259

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

Well..............I'm not saying.

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

Hi, my name is Michael, and I'm a woodaholic.

I've accumulated enough spruce, cedar and redwood to build at least 100 guitars. I have back and side wood for probably only a dozen, though. Gotta do something about that.   

Hey, the way I look at it, it's real simple. Tonewood is a precious commodity, a renewable resource that is renewable only in the face of time measured in centuries. As demand increases, so does price. Thus, tonewood is an investment. My tonewood purchases will not depreciate in value; they will only appreciate. If I had a wad of cash that needed investing right now, I'd put a big chunk of it in tonewood.

Best,

Michael
Michael McBroom38628.93

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Live to Play, Play to Live

HI, MIKE! Is this a twelve fret program?

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Give me 50 cents worth of regular.
Check my oil too, if you don`t mind,,,

I agree with Michael, tonewood is an investment.

I have been building part time for a little over 30 years, still have some of the wood I bought them and still buy more wood all the time. The Brazilian Rosewood sets that I paid dearly for back then at $75 a set are now worth quite a bit more...very tight quartersawn grain...the $75.00 sets...I bought from Luthiers Merchantile just after they had bought out Bill Lewis's stock.

When I am building a guitar I go through my stash, flexing and evaluating the best top, sides and back set for the particular guitar. Being able to use a set that has aged for 10, 20, or 30 years can make a difference.

As far as the investment value of the wood, beyond the fact that some wood is becoming more and more impossible to find, when I price out a guitar and account for the cost of materials I use the current replacement value of the wood, not the cost of the wood at the time that I acquired it.

As far as whether I have more wood than I will use in my lifetime, it depends on how long I will live. No one knows if tomorrow is our last day on earth so I may keep on building for another 30 years in which I will run out of wood long before then or I may get hit by a bus tommorrow..

either way the best way is to continue to buy quality wood that is the best that can be afforded at the time AND store it as well as possible to keep the wood in good shape until it is either resold or built into an instrument.

Phew and here I thought I was bad having stocked up enough for my next 4 Archtops and 6 ot 7 flattops

Yup Roy you could have bought one or one each from the builders above and had great guitars but would have missed out on all the fun. A couple of years ago I purchased a couple sets of nice Brazilian and a set of Macassar Ebony and have had the seller come back asking if I wanted to sell them back at 3 times the price. Tonewood isn't a bad investment if you stock the right stuff!

If you get any grief on the home front introduce them to some of your buddies who instead of having a wood cellar have a wine cellar. A lot of these folks have more tied up in racks let alone wine than we collectively have in tonewood. The stuff they stock doesn't have the infinite life time tonewood does if stored properly.

Anthony Z38628.942650463

You only get enjoyment from a bottle of wine one time and it's gone. A guitar improves with age also and isn't used up.

Ron

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

I've only got about 20 B&S sets sitting at home mainly mahogany of course, oh and guess what, I've just arranged to buy some more(really nice ones) and a few English walnut as well! As far as tops go I've got about 90 all European except for half a dozen Cedar, but I'd like a few sets of redwood just for comparison. If I carry on building at the rate I do now I'll be 83 before I use all my tops. So I guess I'd better lay in a few more back&side sets.

ColinColin S38629.5037152778

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Heh. I've got an even 35 back/side sets, maybe 40 tops (those 10 sets of WRC from Jason pushed things over the top a little), 6 electric guitar tops, and a bunch of mahogany boards outside for bodies and necks. Oh, and a good 50 fingerboards and bridge blanks and the like (and a bazillion EIR headplates..fun when you get them for 50 cents each, like). I'm severely limiting my buying now, for a few reasons: 1) most of my cash is invested in wood (and I'm quite content with that) and 2) I have no space to put more stuff.

I mean, in this selection, I've got an even dozen back/side species (and I might add that none of them are Honduran Mahogany or EIR any more. Should probably get some of that at some point..) in various figures, five species of topwood, and a lot of them fairly unique, and things I'll build with one day, but not quite yet. I've also got some more wood with BobC (who's supplied a good third of the back/sides), and I'm constantly resisting temptation to really get much more, but, yeah. I've decided I'm limiting myself (exceptional deals/special sets excluded, of course) to about 4-6 back/side sets per year, finances permitting. I don't have any Brazillian sets (have a couple of old boards, probably process them into bridges and fingerboards) but I also don't necessarily feel the need to get any. Plenty of other, equally beautiful woods out there for less insane prices :-)

Considering that I estimate I'll build 3 guitars per year, max, for the next few, that means I'm already set for a decade (and a bit), and given another decade or so, probably set for life in terms of wood. I don't spend cash on big tools (don't have the space), the guitars I build are being sold at cost (so I don't really lose any cash), but my ultimate goal is to, essentially, be able to build from a stash of woods that I've personally had lying around for as many years as possible.

Da@# I feel impish compaired to you guys. I have only 5 sets in house right now. I have never keep more than 6. My deal with my wife was that for the first 2 years 50% profit went to the family fund and 50% I could use on the shop tools and supplies. well the first two years there was not much profit. Now I am just barly in the black and just starting to build up some sets. Tooling is still my main focus.

You always need one more set of wood

OK, let's see you beat this one.

I have 400 sets of Sitka Spruce on hand (down from 500 last year).

Now there is an explaination. I partnered with another guy and we split and order with the intention of selling it on eBay.

Problem is, it takes too much time to photo and describe each piece. In addition, shortly after I got the wood, there seemed to be a glut of Sitka on eBay which has driven the price down considerabley.

So now I have it all neatly stacked in my cellar and drying out for the past two years. I seem to sell at a rate of 4-5 sets per month so the way I figure it, by the time it is all gone, I will be old enough to to sell the house and move into an old folks home.

BTW - anyone need some Sitka? (HA HA)

I also have enough b/s sets to build the next 15 guitars including a good bit of Brazilian I picked up - oh yes -that includes all those sets I have bought from Bob Cefalu - Bob is the greatest and I hate visiting his web site because my OCD kicks in and I order more wood. The real problem is the day job - keeps getting in the way of my building.

Now - the real problem is the wife. She says if I buy any more wood, any more tools, or hang one more guitar on a wall, I can use that Sitka to build a new home to live in when she throws me out.

I make joke - been married 32 years and she has become well aware of the OCD habits of this wannabe Luthier.

I don't have much wood compared to some of you all I see. Between 3 and 8 sets each of koa, EIR, mahogany, coco, maple, macassar, oh yeah and the brazillian set and the curly bubinga ones. About 15 sets of sitka and 10 Euro spruce tops. I also have some mandolin wood and a pretty big stack of mahogany planks, easily 100 necks. I spent too much on the shop itself and tools(many of which are now just gatering dust) when I first started building , I'm now going to start stocking up on wood.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

My thinking years ago was this: The wood isn't getting any better, and certainly not cheaper--while the tools were improving in quality all the time, and at least remaining fairly stable in price. So, I concluded, stock up on tonewood while the good stuff is available, then buy the tools later as funds become available.
This all worked fairly well.
Until guys like BobC, Jason, Steve, etc. show up and then it seems there never will be a shortage of good wood. The dilemma I face now is that there is being offered better looking wood--in some instances--than was available 10, 15, even 20 years ago. (Some of the rosewoods excepted.) And I'm pretty wood-poor.

Oh well....

At least my wife is in favor of tool-buying!

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

I probably have 50-70 b&s sets and the same on tops.
Lots of red cedar and lots of EI rosewood from the group buy last year. Some REALLY nice redwood tops from Hank Mauel from a year or 2 ago. Still more in board form to be cut up. 2 real big boards of claro walnut 4 feet wide and 8 feet long. I could go on and on about wood... I love wood....

GaryGCote38629.6111458333

I'm not as bad as most of you, 4 sets for archtops, 25 acoustic tops, and a lot of Mahogany. I was just putting my furniture making wood in a storage unit, and I found a piece of Bubinga about 6' long, well quartered, 10/4, and at least 10" wide. Forgot I bought that.

[QUOTE=EricKeller] I found a piece of Bubinga about 6' long, well quartered, 10/4, and at least 10" wide. Forgot I bought that.[/QUOTE]

Eric!--my new best friend!!!

Seriously, that's much better than finding a twenty dollar bill in your winter coat pocket--and that's really good!

A good friend of mine once looked in my "personal wood closet" and then looked at my wife and said...."just be glad it isn't cocaine". I have since taken over two closets!!