I have a friend that lives on a farm on top of mountain West Virginia - it is Big Bend mountain, and the tunnel that John Henry died drilling explosives holes in is directly below him. He had some Ash trees die of the Ash Borer and he took them down. I had him save me a length of log, and when I visited in June we split a nice length out for me. The log was about 22" across.
I have a friend who is a pro woodworker and timber framer, and I visited his shop today. In less than 50 minutes I left with a stack of guitar wood - he really knows how to handle large pieces. His big bandsaw only has a 2-1/2" tall fence, but the slices are dead even.
The pieces are 8-1/2" at the wide end, the grain in all 10 pieces is quite vertical, and the neck piece looks great.
I am thinking of a 1930's L-0, ash all around including the top and neck, natural finish, Ivoroid binding, Abalone and green strips for the purfling, end grain Ivoroid, Abalone, and green in the rosette, and a Rosewood fingerboard and bridge to echo the brown tone of the ash.
A couple more pictures here with some text
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ruby1638/ ... 458169080/
Ed
Fresh wood
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ruby@magpage.com
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Kevin Sjostrand
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Re: Fresh wood
Oh that is sweet Ed.
There were a half dozen HUGE eucalyptus trees taken down this summer near our office where a new Costco is being built. For years I've thought how cool it would be to be able to get wood for guitars from them when they came down. These trunks were like 3 to 4 ft across. Anyway, no such luck and then how do you even deal with such huge pieces of wood. It was gone before I new it and probably mostly went for firewood. They were at least 70 years old as they lined an old highway.
There were a half dozen HUGE eucalyptus trees taken down this summer near our office where a new Costco is being built. For years I've thought how cool it would be to be able to get wood for guitars from them when they came down. These trunks were like 3 to 4 ft across. Anyway, no such luck and then how do you even deal with such huge pieces of wood. It was gone before I new it and probably mostly went for firewood. They were at least 70 years old as they lined an old highway.