Luthiers - what's a fair price for this wood?
 

Hello AGF hive mind,

I need some help determining what would be a fair price for some tone wood. It's old growth yellow cedar. I'll post some pictures below.

There are two split billets that shared one split (i.e. they are book matched, as it were). They are large - they are 18 inches at their widest points at the butts, and 14 inches wide at the other end. One billet is nearly rectangular, 5" thick at the thick side, and 4" thick at the other. The second billet is more wedge shaped, but is 3" thick at the narrow end. They are both 43.5" long.

Thanks in advance for any information! I'm ok with knowing what is reasonable for more regular billets, but this is not normal stuff for me.

https://i.lensdump.com/i/8YAE07.md.jpg
https://i.lensdump.com/i/8YAkBr.md.jpg
https://i.lensdump.com/i/8YA6YF.md.jpg

10-$12 USD, a board foot, in its current condition.

I s yellow cedar desirable for a guitar? Western Red cedar is, of course, but I thought yellow cedar was more like construction/furniture wood.

Thank you!

Does the price per board foot scale with the width of the billet, or is it relatively constant? I.e. would 9 or 12 inch-wide billets (etc) also have the same price per board foot?

Board foot is figured by length x width x thickness divided by 12 squared (144).

Yes.

Mind you if used for guitar tops greater than 9" is just a waste of wood. If I were to buy a piece of wood to resaw and if I need 8" halves I would have only 1" scrap on a 9" width while on a 12" width I would have 4" of scrap. Could always use it for brace wood but it is easy to find bracewood. Might be worth it to see if archtop people would be interested in them.

Typically you can sell at a premium (say 20% more) for thicknesses of 12/4 up to 16/4 like you have. I don’t know if you want to sell as a slab like you have or to resaw it. If you did resaw it, you could probably make a little more selling as tonewood or bracewood, but you would have to make a lot more sales. Yellow Cedar can be denser than Western Red and because of that several sawyers cut it into back and sides sets instead of tops.

Good luck.

Thank you, guys. All very helpful.

I don't have the capability to resaw yet. I'm working on building a dedicated resaw bandsaw that can handle cuts over 12 inches. I do have an Alaskan chainsaw mill but thus far I've been splitting rather than sawing so that there's less risk of runout.

I guess one benefit of a wider billet is more room to play with what you have once you resaw and see the grain - plus it's an older, larger tree so the inside grain might be tighter? Not sure.

Thanks again for your help guys. Much appreciated.

Another question - thus far I've been cutting billets to 26" lengths to be on the safe side, but selling it as if it was a standard 24" billet. Is this overkill? Should I just cut to 24"?

I have between 22" and 24".

It's not very uncommon. I have not used any yet but I have some in stock. Some classical guitar builders like it. It smells pretty incredible and it certainly looks unique too. Tonally? I don't know, yet.

As for dimensions, you could make some harp guitar sets out of that too.

I'm happy to report that I've purchased a bandsaw (a dedicated resaw actually - a beast of a Ryobi with a blade 2 inches wide!) and will soon be slicing this stuff up.

Interesting thought about harp guitar sets - that's got to be a pretty small market, though...

Yep. It's going to a classical builder - he wants billets for backs and sides.

Thanks everyone for your help with this. I love the resource and collective experience that this forum provides.

FWIW, "Alaskan yellow cedar" is also known as Nootka or Canadian cypress. It is very similar to Mediterranean cypress, and is very well suited to traditional flamenco sides and backs.

http://www.wood-database.com/alaskan-yellow-cedar/

http://www.wood-database.com/mediterranen-cypress/

i'm told it makes a very fine neck wood

The fellow purchasing this wood says the same - he's made several classical guitars with yellow cedar necks.