Cutting up a billet of ribbon sapele for resawing.....

[Kevin Sjostrand]

I've had this sweet Sapele in the shop since the first of the year. I finally today cut it up into chunks for resawing, and made my re-saw fences for the bandsaw. This billet is 1.75" thick. It was 62" long, 11.5" wide and perfectly quarter sawn. I chunked it out so I could get in addition to the B & S sets, 5 necks. At 1.75" thick I can do a double stack at the heel and get 3.5", almost enough for a dred, and plenty for an OM or other small body guitar.
I have a question I'd like some help with. At 1.75", I can cut the headstock out as one piece, but the most angle I can get is 10 degrees. This looks fine to me, but do you all see any reason that it has to be greater?? My necks generally come in around 15 degrees. Kinkade says in his book his headstock angle is 10 degrees so it must work. I'd love to use this and not have to do a scarf joint.
What do you all think? This is beautiful straight ribbon grain and will make beautiful necks. I've made 2 one piece sapele necks in the past and they turned out real nice, easy to work, albeit they were a tad bit heavier then the Honduras mahogany necks

Kevin

[B. Howard]

I think 10 degrees would work, I would double check the height of my tuner posts to be sure especially on the E's. I would most likely place my nut on the angled face of the veneer like martin rather than on the flat part of the shaft as this will get you back a bit of break angle.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

I've got my fences made, my 1/2" woodslicer blade installed and ready and I'll be resawing this Sapele tomorrow into hopefully 5 back and side sets. I could probably get 6 sets if this was not my first time, but I don't want to push my luck. I'll cut the sides first where I have a little more I can loose and see how consistent the cuts are.
With that said, wish me luck. I'll post pictures of the finished sets when I'm done.

Also, I decided to cut my neck stock up so I can do scarf joint headstocks, but I will be able to use two 1 3/4" blocks glued at the heel to get my height there. I cut one blank 24" long into two .0840 thick blanks and the cut came out really smooth, only needed to remove about .005" on the drum sander to clean up the saw marks. Nice blade!

Kevin

[darren]

good luck!

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Today was the day. This my was first attempt at resawing back and sides. As I said before, I got this beautiful billet of ribbon Sapele last January from a local store called The Wood Shed. I love that place. Anyway, this billet was 62" long, 11.5" wide, and 1.75" thick, beautifully squared, and almost perfectly quartersawn. I just could not pass it up. I know Sapele is not thought of as a necessarily special wood for guitars, but it is becoming more common, and it has the beauty of mahogany, with a little bit more density and weight. This wood is similar to the Santos Mahogany I have, and the guitar I made with it is great sounding. So I just know I'm going to like the outcome. I've made necks with Sapele and it is a dream to work with. This Sapele has medular rays all over the surface, a tribute to how nicely quartersawn it is.
So, I figured out how to cut this billet up, and the result was a 24" x 8.5" section for backs, a 34" x 5" section for sides, and enough 3" wide sections to make 5 scarf joint stacked heel necks. That is about $375 dollars worth of stuff, and I paid $141 for the billet. And since I like the wood, it makes it even better.
My first thoughts were to give myself plenty of thickness to margin on the side of error, and only get 4 guitar sets. But then I figured I had more room to allow for some inconsistent cuts with the sides since ultimately they will be thinner, so I calculated out how thick I could cut my slices to get 5 back and side sets, and I started with the sides. The blade I'm using is a Woodslicer, 1/2" x 3 tooth, 105" long. The blade is only .022" thick and cuts a .032" kerf. So I figured I could cut .145" thick slices and end up with 10. I was going to use two fences, and push the billet between them into the blade. I did my first two slices this way, and then got rid of the second fence. I could work pretty well, but what I had set up wasn't. I found that I could control what I was doing with the single fence.

The set up was tedious as I really tried to get it right. As I started cutting slices I realized the blade could be and needed have more tension. The consistency of each sliced improved as I went along and by the last cut on the side billet, I was around .142", with about a .005" variance top to bottom. I took the billet to the drum sander and cleaned up the cut face after each slice before cutting the next slice. This also helped me to see how much off the blade was cutting.
I thought I had the fence parallel to the blade, but it was still off. All the side slices are way thicker than needed so they will size down just fine. Success.
I fine tuned the tension on the blade, and reset the fence for 90 degrees to the blade, and for drift. My cuts were much better on the backs billet. I had less room for error here as my finished back thickness is usually around .115" and I figured I will need at least a .005" clean up of both sides of each slice and possibly a bit more. One of the slices is down to about .120" on one end; not sure what happened there, but most of them are right around .140" thick +- .005" and the cuts were very clean and won't take much clean up, so I am really happy how they turned out. I'm so glad I went for 5 sets instead of 4. I suppose someone who really had experience and knows what they are doing might get 6 sets of backs from a 1.75" billet, and the sides would be easy to get.

So I made a big mess, but I'm pretty happy with my first resawing experience. I would feel reasonably comfortable resawing some real expensive exotic woods, but since I can't afford them, I'll have to wait until someone donates some to me.
Here are a few pictures of how it went.

Kevin

[Kevin Sjostrand]

and the rest of the pics......

Kevin

[johnnparchem]

That is cool, thanks for posting. It looks like you ended up with clean plates. I have a split chunk of old growth redwood that I plan to resaw. It is help to see your set up.

[Ben-Had]

Kevin, were you set up to have the "thin" slice next to the fence or to the table edge (outside of the blade)?

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Next to the fence.

[ruby@magpage.com]

What blade did you use - those thicknesses look very good and very consistent. I have used a 3 tpi skip tooth but have not had the success that you have had.

Ed