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27 yrs, hundreds of thousands BDFT of large diameter Old growth sitka log, 1.3 million guitar tops, and this is a first.
Last Month, July, We logged a number of trees that were prospected for a salvage timber sale in 2016.
Had the FS to offer the sale last yr so we could shovel log this sale along with another, where we shovel logged 3 log bridge stringer piles of 40'-60' logs. That job wqs swinging 27 logs 1.5 miles, 60 ' per swing. Took a week. it cost us $3k to mode the 235LL Cat log loader 30 miles.
But then the FS wouldn't let us take the shovel off the road, citing there wasn't enough woody debris laying in the units to build road with. The track machine is always supposed to be on a mat of wood, and not touch the dirt. Well by those professionals that do this stuff everyday for the last 150-20 yrs, there was more then plenty. Anyway we logged it with our winch packing TimberJack, rubber tired skidder. Winch packing, as in the skidder stays on the road and we hang blocks in trees for lift to get the partial suspension required. First setting, 2 blowdowns. A big hum-dandy that yielded us 3 logs 25-33' long. 44" DBH stove pipe. if we didn't have large enough tree to pull 10,000 pound logs with, the log truck would provide.
Now the cruxed of the matter. We bucked and blocked one log and cut it into about 800 guitar tops. I'm not sure how many quadrants in the diameter, or if it was just in the length near the butt, but check this out.
The dark lines are not hard grain, it's pitch! Though the boards look wet, They are dried and sanded, and sticky. And smell like terpentine.

What can be done with this?
I remember in the 70's packing mules, setting up spike camps for elk hunting in Idaho. I'd stumble onto a big yellow pine blowdown with the roots exposed, dry hard and clean. Break off a root section and scrape with a knife for some awesome fire starting tinder.
Firewood?

Below the pic is a link to a drive folder with a few pictures of some that was described above.
They loaded in a weird order, and I can't figure out how to put them in a different order.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

We call it FatWood and it seems to happen when a tree dies or breaks off and the roots seem to keep pumping up the remaining trunk Post mortem capillary action?) until the whole thing is a crystalline super-saturated flammable mass. They even sell the stuff at outdoorsy stores. Bushcrafters LOVE the stuff. It's pretty cool to run across strange stuff through all of your years in the woods.

I don't know if there's anything that can be done with it, instrument-wise. I hope it isn't time and effort down the drain. Just don't sell a completed instrument to any band with a pyrotechnic rig!

Also, FS=Forest Service, BDFT=board feet, DBH=diameter breast height? Am I right?

Fatwood huh. There is some that are definitely some that are time and effort down the drain. Some have "fatwood" for about 1" of the fine grain edge, that hopefully will still work for OM size.
I'm hoping to learn that this greasy fatwood come just off the large end of the butt log, and the 2 logs up the tree are gonna be "The Stuff"! The texture, color and straightness are all superb.
Yes, the acronyms are as you stated.

Brent we feel for you. You are doing good work. Let's hope the upper trunks are better.

Dave

Bummer, good luck with the rest of it!

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Congratulations!

You have discovered a rare batch of Artisinal Outdoor Bushcrafting Luthier FatTonewood which has gotta be worth big bucks to the right market!

It might be interesting to see how easily the pitch could be removed (alcohol?) and what the result would be.

What happens if you torrefy it?

Thats a good question. My guess is that the pitch would get hard like amber/glass. I can’t imagine a finish would adhere to it very well.. Maybe someone knows more about this. Brent Jr, suggested that. Getting billets cooked and then resawing. Big expense sending a pallet to the eastern midwest US from Alaska, paying for the service and then back to Alaska. That would be Great if it I knew it would work and is sellable for a ROI.

One could probably “cut” the pitch with a solvent. I don’t know about alcohol., But that would only be the surface.
One time 20 yrs ago, I had some beautiful chocolate colored red cedar that had a lot of oil streaks. Made it look like it has]d wet streaks. I read that acetone was used to clean and remove cedar oil. So i purchased a few gallons of acetone and a tall tub that I could submerge 20 booksets. Weighted the board in the bath for a couple weeks.. That didn’t work. It Made the boards look more wet and made them feel greasy too.

Brent,

Just as a thought…

I’ve done a few ‘home torrefied’ experiments lately, wrapping the wood in tin foil and just using the dinner oven. I did 280 Canadian for 20 minutes and found the results basically indistinguishable from whatever the paid for torrefier did, in terms of density loss, stiffness loss, smell, feel, and opacity.

I’m guessing that you’ve got a lot of it, so maybe wrap some up and stick it in the oven next to the salmon sometime…:)

You could try steaming the wood to remove the pitch:
" Wood turpentine is obtained by the steam distillation of dead, shredded bits of pine wood, while gum turpentine results from the distillation of the exudate of the living pine tree obtained by tapping"
and
"Turpentine trees (a type of pine tree) are tapped to produce turpentine. As an aside, the wood of the tree (not surprisingly) is highly flammable and good for starting fires. Down South where these trees grow, the locals refer to it as “fat wood”. I presume “fat” in that context means some good."
Sawing or planing the wood a little closer to finished thickness might allow the steam to penetrate deeper and remove more of the pitch. Steaming with the "universal solvent" might be the most cost effective way to go if it works.

Boatbuilders often cobble together a large steam box out of wood:
https://www.finewoodworking.com/2007/12 ... a-steambox

Is it totally dried? I tried looking at the photos but it says 'preview not available.'

Often they have to kiln the stuff to set the pitch... If you don't, it stays gooey for a zillion years.

The thing is, it adds weight without adding strength. It can also mess with a solvent base finish. Pine tar isn't a good "resin" for varnishey sort of finishes.

Once upon a time, I knew a tonewood cutter fellow who ended up with some stuff like that. Ever the entrepreneur, he ended up selling it as experimental back and sides wood.

Truckjohn wrote:

"Once upon a time, I knew a tonewood cutter fellow who ended up with some stuff like that. Ever the entrepreneur, he ended up selling it as experimental back and sides wood."

If glue would stick to it you could use it as a substrate for laminated construction.

It is air dried to 6-8% MC in our enhanced airdrying kiln room. Which is just an industrial dehumidifier and a bunch of 20" window fans moving air through the stacks of stickered boards.