Tonewood in the Making
Musical Forests Inc. Canadian based company that is the Holder of a Select
Cut harvesting permit, we do not clear cut.
Tonewood is no ordinary wood, there are certain steps that
have to be taken to insure its quality. If someone does not
know what they are doing, they can take a high grade tonewood tree
and turn it into low grade lumber, if it is not
processed correctly. We believe that we have implemented a
system that insures the quality tonewoods that Luthiers need
and expect.
Nowadays it seems almost every type of wood is considered
tonewood, we believe this not to be true. We believe that
there are steps which have to be taken to ensure its quality
so it will be suitable for the use in
instrument building.
Please note: Violin and
Fretted instrument tonewoods are processed and air dried in
a slightly different way, we have noted this and have
applied two different sections where the process changes for
each.
The 7 (seven) step process that insures this quality:
-
Tree selection
Time of Harvest
Location of Harvest
Hand Splitting
& Sawing
Air Drying
Jointing & Sizing
Grading & Seasoning
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1.
Tree selection
Evaluating & selecting
tonewood trees while they are still standing is a huge
advantage in getting the quality of trees needed for
tonewood, each tree is inspected before choosing it for
harvest. We start our search in the fall months for
suitable trees which have a good portion of the tree free of
branches.
Only certain trees are suitable for use has tonewoods. These
trees must be large enough, a minimum of 16" diameter trees
are chosen. Trees musts be straight growth, NO SPIRAL growth
is permitted in tonewood grade trees and the grain lines per inch must
be tight. A strip of bark and skin is removed from the tree
so the wood is exposed and the growth of the fiber can be
observed to make sure that the tree is straight growing.
We then bore the tree with a increment bore to
see the grain orientation. If the tree is suitable for
tonewood it is
marked with florescent tape and its location is taken with
GPS and logged in a log book.
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2.
Time of Harvest
The
best tonewood tr
ees are harvested from December to the end of January.
This is when the moisture content in a live tree is at its
lowest point. When trees are cut in these months they
produce lighter weight wood and it takes less time to
season. An added benefit is when the moisture goes to the
outside of the tree near the bark in the winter months it
also takes with it much of the minerals (red stain). So, if
your see soundboards that has a reddish discoloration in it, there
is a very good chance that it was cut in the wrong time of the
year.
Harvesting tonewood in the winter month produces,
lighter, clearer, better color and tonewood that has a better tap tone.
When there is a minimum of 2 feet of snow on the ground we
return to cut and extract the tree. The trees are cut and
hauled out of the bush in 100" lengths by snowmobile to a
staging area (base camp) for primary processing. All trees
are checked to make sure that there are no bird nests in
them before harvesting. The greatest care is given to our
environment, the only evidence of our presence where a
tonewood tree was harvested is a stump and the tree (3"
diameter) top is left for reseeding. There is absolutely no
damage done to the forest floor.
3.
Location of Harvest
In our experience,
the best tonewood trees are found in temperate and
cold boreal forests where the soil is thin, and on the
North face of mountains and hills where the trees have less
exposure to the sun.
If a tree survives and reaches a large enough
size to make tonewood in these conditions it is a very tough
tree, and deserves to be made into a musical instruments
rather than chopped into firewood. It is incredibly hard
work removing logs in an uncontrolled environment with no
heavy equipment to do the lifting.
Alpine trees tend to have thinner and more grain lines per inch.
4.
Hand Splitting & Sawing
The 100" logs are sawn into 18" - 24" lengths
called bolts depending on the diameter of the tree. These
bolts are then hand split into four pie shaped quarter
sections. Hand splitting the bolts into four quarter section
insures the straightness of the growth can be seen.
We always leave a live edge on all billets, wedges and tops
to be removed at a later time.
Violin Wood,
Spruce
& Maple: The tonewood bolts
are then hand split into four pie shaped quarter sections
with splitting wedges and a froe. The bark is removed with a
draw knife at this point. When bolts are hand split
virtually all the stress is removed from the wood. These
quarter sections can now be quarter sawn, radial sawn or
hand split into the applicable dimension. Some quarter
sections are larger and the tops or backs can be sawn into
rectangular shapes rather than wedges, this allows for extra
wood to be used in other parts of the instrument. At this point a thin slice
about 1/4" thick x 4" wide x 16" long from each quarter
section is hand split off with a froe and placed with the
tops from each quarter section, this small section will be
used for stress testing and tap tone testing during the
grading phase.
Fretted Instrument Wood, Spruce &
Cedar: The bark is removed with a draw knife at this
point and the two wings are then hand split from each quarter. By splitting off
these wings, you are left with a billet that is 100%
on quarter. This rectangular shaped billet is where guitar
tops are sawn from. When you hand split
straight growth bolts you virtually remove all the
stress from the wood.
These hand split wings taken from the
quarters make very nice bracewood billets. Guitar billets are
sawn into 2 piece pairs called book matched sets (a top).
The back side of the first slice and the top side second
slice is the book match set, and so on. Depending on the
thickness of the billets there is usually anywhere from 2 to
20 tops in a billet. It is important to saw the halves of
each set the same thickness, the thickness will depend on
the instrument tops that best suit the width of the billet that
is being sawn. Tops range in thickness from 3/16" for flat
tops and up to 1-1/2" for arch tops.
“Have you ever seen or
worked a top that when turned against the light will appear
to have one half a different color than the other half"??
This is caused by the top not being sawn 100% on quarter.
5.
Air Drying
This is the slowest part of the process. We do not kiln dry any of our
tonewoods, kiln drying harms the resonating quality and weakens wood, we
have done tests that indicates this.
We leave the
billets and wedges outside until late spring; wood will dry outside in cold
weather if you live in a lower humidity climate like we do.
Violin Wood,
Spruce & Maple: We
sticker each individual top, back, ribs & necks in piles of approximately
30
per pile.
The tonewood is then put into our dry room, which contains an air exchanger that removes the stall
humid air and replaces it with fresh dryer
air.
There is no heat or forced air used in this process. The
tops will stay in the dry room for about 1 year and will go
down to 6 – 7% moisture content.
Fretted Instrument
Wood, Spruce, Cedar & Maple:
Each
individual top, back, sides & necks is stickered in piles of approximately 50
per pile. The tonewood is then put into our dry room, which contains an air exchanger that removes the stall
humid air and replaces it with fresh dryer
air.
There is no heat or forced air used in this process. The
tonewood will stay in the dry room for about 3 months and will go
down to 6 – 7% moisture content.
Please Note: Do not let anyone
tell you "Kiln Dried" tonewood is better than or as good as
air dried tonewood. Believe us, we have tried it and
have seen many doing it. If you want to take a perfectly
good top or billet with a good tap tone and turn it into a
top with the tap tone of a Brick, go ahead and try it. Kiln
drying tonewood is done for one reason and one reason only,
"To Speed Up the Process", so it can be shoved out the door
quicker. I can pick up a piece of spruce or cedar and tell
by it's weight and the way it feels if it has been kiln dried, it
feels different, like the life has been sucked out of it.
Kiln drying works for lumber and flooring, but if
sound counts in what you are trying to build, forget it.
6.
Jointing & Sizing
After the tonewood
has been air dried for the appropriate amount of time it is
removed from the dry room for Jointing, Sizing & Grading.
The live edge is now
jointed, this live edge gives us a perfectly straight line
with the way the grain runs in the tree to follow. We prefer
to joint the live edge of each individual piece or set, this
eliminates all runout.
The tonewood is then sized with pre-cut templates made of
clear poly glass. Templates for violins, violas, classical, steel strings guitar,
mandolins and arch top guitars are used.
7. Grading & Seasoning
After sizing the
tonewood is now ready for Grading.
We base our
grading on three criteria;
-
Stiffness
(stress tested)
Tone
(tap tone tested)
Cosmetics
(inspected for color
and grain orientation)
Each piece is
closely inspected for color, figure, grain orientation and runout.
Violin Wood,
Spruce & Maple:
The thin slice 1/4" thick x 4" wide x 16" long
that was split from each quarter section during the hand
splitting phase is now stress tested for its parallel grain
and across grain stiffness.
Then each piece is tap tone tested. After all of the
information is collected from this inspection and testing,
it is only then determined which grade each top will fall into.
After grading the tonewood it is then taken and stored in our stock room where
it will acclimatize (season) for up to 5 years.
Fretted Instrument
Wood, Spruce, Cedar & Maple:
Each top & back is
then held above powerful halogen lights to check for the
smallest pitch pocket or any other imperfection
that might be hidden below the surface.
Each piece of
tonewood is stress tested for
its parallel grain and across grain stiffness. Then each
piece of tonewood is tap tone tested.
After all of the information is collected from this
inspection and testing, it is only then determined which
grade each set or piece will fall into.
After grading the tonewood it is then taken and stored in our stock room where
it will acclimatize (season) for up to 10 years.
