Wood seasoning

[John Arnold]

Any thoughts on whether that environment would be negative? And if I put it into such an environment, then any precautions that I should follow?

Here in TN, attics can get really hot in unshaded buildings. I have seen spruce tops get dark on the exposed edges, but that was in a dead stack (not stickered) and over a 30+ year period. For that reason, I would be hesitant about storing thin guitar wood in the attic, though thicker boards would be fine.

I store my wood in a shaded shop building with no temperature or humidity control for several years, then move it to my indoor climate-controlled shop space where I do the building. In many cases, the hardwoods are seasoned in board form, then moved to climate control after being resawn.

For space reasons, the wood indoors is dead stacked, but I pull it from the stack a week or more before starting assembly so it can fully acclimate.
You can determine if a thin piece of wood is acclimated by laying it flat, exposing the top side only. If it curls concave on top, it is losing moisture to the air. If it goes convex, it is gaining moisture. Flipping the wood will reverse the curvature. Repeat until it no longer curls, and at that point, it is in equilibrium with the air.

[seangil]

For those that are storing their wood outdoors, are you storing billets or wood that has been thinned to the starting size for building? All of my tops, backs, and sides are less than 0.2".

Would you store boards that have already been cut to that thin a dimension in a shed?

Sean

[Skarsaune]

Originally Posted by seangil

For those that are storing their wood outdoors, are you storing billets or wood that has been thinned to the starting size for building? All of my tops, backs, and sides are less than 0.2".

Would you store boards that have already been cut to that thin a dimension in a shed?

Sean

Stuff that is close to size goes in the controlled environment.
Boards, slabs, etc get to stay in the barn.

No I would not store the items you describe in a shed.

[redir]

I only keep boards an billets in the shed too but apparently from this thread some others even store thinned wood that way. As long as it's stacked and stickered and weighted down it should be fine, maybe even season better that way, just not in an attic.

I keep all my prepped wood in the shop typically for several years before I use it.

[seangil]

I found a old yet very interesting thread in the Martin Guitar forum with a couple names that I recognize as professional luthiers and some others who seem pretty experienced. It is about radius, but they also talk about how Martin (and maybe Gibson) used a method of intentionally storing wood in hot/dry places and heating it a bit before bracing. The idea was to get the wood to contract a bit. If people are interested, I can dig up the link and post it here.