In the cold winter months we heat our shop with wood so each spring we have to replenish our depleted firewood inventory. I guess one could call this the proverbial "wood shed". Although, in a guitar sense, I don't ever recall anyone ever using it to practice their guitar playing skills in.

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Sometimes we get pleasant surprises while stacking the wood to dry. Here are a few pieces of curly maple we culled from the pile. Its easy to visually identify the curly figure on the split faces on the wood.
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Here I am pointing to the outer bark side of the log. You can often times identify figured wood, as it stands in the woods, by the wavy appearance of the bark on the tree's trunk.
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I ran about a dozen pieces through my large band saw, which yielded a nice stack of short boards. These are too small to build a guitar from but they may serve a useful purpose a couple years down the road for some inlay projects?
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https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/nO...0=w633-h843-no

things that make you go hmmmm
 

So, I just go to my trusty wood pile out back, and whoa, what is that, Curly Maple just waiting to go to my wood shop.

You kill me!

Awesome sauce! :guitar:

Yep, its just that simple. Kind of like that Toyota commercial just without all of those fiance gimmicks :)

What nobody is mentioning is the wonderful aroma that some of that wood made when you threw it in the fire pit. I'm sorry that the grill frustrated you, though. You have the perfect fuel for a smoker.

Well we eventually got the sausages cooked with some of the off cut scraps of the curly maple but the veggies were embarrassingly a bit too al dente.

Had a chance to play the Tottie at the McJam last week. Tim nailed it with this design. There were a lot of us that came back to this Tottie he had in his living room. Amazing full sound for such a compact guitar. If you don’t have a parlor style grab this one, if he takes it to a future show someone will fall in love with it like we all did.

https://i.imgur.com/BGHmXQ6.jpg

Tim, I will try not to covet that beautiful stack 'o curly maple.
Looks like several career's worth of rosette and inlay material.
Great find!

Steve

Hehe - yeah I was looking through his burn bucket over the weekend. I need one teensy little piece for an end wedge! I came up dry lol!

FWIW the BBQ smelled wonderful. Tim, did you used to volunteer over at the VFD? Ex firemen are the best at burning things! :D

Thanks for the feedback Steve. I’m glad you like it because it’s kind of at the opposite end of the spectrum from your SSD. It’s odd how some preferred the tone of the short scale (24.75”) 12 fret while you and others liked the long scale (25.625”) 14 fret. Even though they are built from the same woods, they certainly have vastly different voices.

It was the long-scale for me, and amazing how radically different the two Totties sounded, all from a two-fret/scale difference. Despite having a tiny-little McKnight Skeeter in my possession, holding the even-smaller Tottie was like cradling a delicate bird. I was almost afraid at first to play it. But the long-scale was oh-so sweet! :up:

Neil,
Please PM or email me the dimensions (length, width and thickness) and your mailing address and I will send you a piece of curly maple.

Funny that you noticed my honed burning skills and I was a fireman for nearly 20 years before I retired from the local Salt Rock Volunteer Fire Department.

Thanks Tim, but I found some at the local Woodcraft. I now have a new toy story that is dangerously close to home!

PS: My Snark arrived safe and sound. You guys are the best!

We’ve been a little busy lately harvesting wood:
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5 feet 6 inches across its base. Wish it was BRW or The Tree...
http://pic100.picturetrail.com/VOL89.../414265880.jpg

Cut it into sound holes. Mary could be painting those for a long time! :)

Shucks, if Mary painted all that wood I’d never see her again for the next decade or two.