Shop Tour

Here's a brief tour. Ours is a small shop so you won't need much time. If any of what follows prompts a question or comment, contact us. Or better yet come visit and we'll get to the bottom of the issue.

Perhaps the best place to start is with this partly rotted koa log. Koa, like Bigleaf maple, grows fast, gets large, and then dies before getting real old. An old koa tree is 200-300 years old--compared to 2,000 years for an old Western Red Cedar tree. Left alone, koa and maple trees rot from the core, fall over, and gracefully and gradually return to the earth. This koa log had an off-center heart and yielded a lot of good wood from the bottom and right quarters.

Notable Woods does not do logging or operate a sawmill. We buy from various sawmills, and either buy lumber or buy logs which are then rough-milled to our specification. Here a vendor is splitting a 40" koa log lengthwise so that it can be cut on a sawmill. It takes a good eye and plenty of strength to accurately rip logs with a 52" chainsaw. A wandering cut can easily waste hundreds or thousands of dollars of high-grade wood.

The sawmill owner shows his skill in maximizing the yield of quarter-sawn wood. This type of sawing takes more time and yields less wood than sawing through and through. Not all sawyers are willing or able to accomodate the special, somewhat pesky needs of instrument wood buyers.

As logs become lumber, each new cut opens up a little surprise, a view of some beautiful color or grain pattern never seen before by any human. Of course, sometimes the surprise is a rot pocket, bark inclusion, or buried knot.

The rough lumber is stickered and allowed to gradually air dry down to 20% or less mositure content. While it is common practice to resaw green woods with a moisture content of 80% or more, there is an increased chance of twisting, warping, cracking, and cell collapse. We prefer to wait it out, usually a year or more, before resawing.

All resawing is done on a Hitachi resaw with a 3" wide stellite-tipped blade. To ensure precise cuts, the saw is highly modified: it has a bigger motor, increased blade speed, reinforced table, 8" tall roller fence, and pneumatic hold-down unit. While there are many industrial-grade resaws on the market costing $10,000-30,000, they generally have wide kerf bands, often removing .100" or more per cut. The advantage our saw has is its .045" kerf blade. Take a 2" thick blank, set your gauge to cut .180" thick plates: run it thru the big saws, and you'll get 7 plates. With this "little" saw and some extra time on the sawyer's part you will get 9 plates. Those two extra plates represent a lot of high-grade wood that doesn't go up the dust collector shute.

The wood must be jointed flat and planed in order to get a precise cut. We sharpen our own bands, and with a properly set-up band and flat wood we generally hold thickness to a tolerance of +/- .010". That means we can cut back plates at .170" thickness, and they will clean up on the sander at around .150". This pneumatic unit applies 30-50 lbs. of pressure to the board, and holds it flat against the roller fence while sawing.

Once sawn, the wood is stickered and stacked on pallets. The plates are then air dried for six months or more. Yes, those are bicycle inner tubes--recycled from a local bike shop. Three or four taut inner tubes will apply a couple hundred pounds of pressure to the pallet, and will compensate for any movement or shrinkage in the wood.

In the summer when the relative humidity in Washington is 25-50%, Mother Nature dries the thin wood plates quickly, naturally, and without using any energy. However, during the other 9 months of the year the drying process slows down. If we need to "rush" dry some wood in the winter (4-6 months stickered, rather than up to 9 months), we use our climate-controlled room, in which the relative humidty is maintained at 50-60%.

Here are a few perfectly-quartered Sitka spruce archtop blanks.

Stacks of resawn walnut and koa plates waiting for grading.

Koa guitar and 'ukulele sets ready to go. We normally have 1000 instrument sets on hand, which makes us a small supplier. If you need one thousand sets of something, we may be able to refer you to someone. If you are looking for 1-50 sets, whether something standard or a special cut, that's our specialty. Give us a try.

Every web site needs a disclaimer. Here's Bruce's disclaimer: I am not a luthier. As time allows I dabble in instrument making. While I still have plenty to learn about lutherie, I do understand the importance of properly selecting, cutting and drying instrument-quality wood.