How Wood is Processed - Luthier Tips du Jour Mailbag
In this episode, luthier and instructor Robbie O’Brien provides insight into how wood is processed.
Video Transcription
[on-screen text reads: Luthier Tips du Jour Mailbag]
Mailbag question: Can you explain how lumber is processed?
Robert O'Brien: Today's Tips du Jour Mailbag question comes to us from Texas. "Robert, I have never seen you talk about how lumber is processed. Can you explain a little bit about that?" Howard in Texas.
Howard, that is a very good question. A lot of people think that food comes from supermarkets. Well, we all know better. Eggs come from chickens. Milk come from cows, and there's a lot of farmers out there doing a lot of work to make sure that our supermarket shelves are stocked.
It's the same thing with lumber. I call LMI. Lumber shows up on my doorstep. However, there's a lot of people doing a lot of work behind the scenes before it even gets to LMI. Recently, I was in Canada on the East Coast, and I visited somebody who does exactly that, processes lumber. I had my camera with me. Let me show you how it's done.
Dale Smearer introduction
I'm Robert from O'Brien Guitars. I'm here with Heidi Litke and Dale Smearer of...
Dale Smearer: DJ Smearer Inc.
Robert: Smearer Inc. And a lot of people ... The reason why I'm here ... I'm in New Brunswick, Canada. The reason why I'm here is because a lot of people think that, if you want to back and side wood or some type of instrument wood, neck wood, whatever, you make a phone call, and it shows up in the mail. Well, that's not exactly the way it works. Right, Dale? Somebody has to go out into the forest, cut it down, bring it in. Walk us through the process. How's this work?
Dale: I'm more into the specialty woods, like the birdseye maple, curly maple, curly birch. And our lead time should be three to four months. We keep stock. Right now, we have about 15,000 next year in stock because of standard size, but we do it every time we have a ... And no matter what you make, someone's going to ask for something just a little different. And we like a three to four-month lead time, especially if they're ordering. We have companies buying a couple of thousand, 3,000, parts a year.
I should shut that machine off.
Robert: That's all right. Let it roll. That's what we're hearing here is a vacuum press, and that's where you do your ...
Dale: Drying.
Robert: Your drying. And you'll walk us through that here in a minute?
Dale: Yeah, that'll go through.
Anyway, again, the three to four-month lead time gives us a chance to get ... Right now, we're doing a staircase of a birdseye in Prince Edward Island in a log home, and they want live edge. But the lengths they want ... And they want four inches thick. Of course, we have everything right up to three-inch, but we have no four-inch. We're doing that in January. I'm going to the island to show the carpenter how to help them assemble it.
Robert: And you've showed me some of the pieces around here, and we'll get some of that here on camera in a minute. But beautiful stuff. If you're looking for specialty stuff, this is the place. Curled. Birdseye. You call it what?
Dale: Torrefied wood.
Robert: Torrefied. And what's the ... Instead of flame or curl, you were calling it ...
Dale: Blister.
Robert: Blister.
Dale: Just to differentiate it from western curl. It's not curl. And basically, the blister is in the sugar maple. The same as the hard curly, the birdseye maple, and the blister. It's all out of the rock maple. It's just three different diseases. The same tree but just three different units you can find.
How can you tell what type of wood a rock maple will provide
Robert: Now, before we turn the camera on, Dale was telling us about how you know, by looking at a tree, if it has the so-called birdseye or flame or curl or quilt or whatever in there. And how is that?
Dale: The birdseye maple itself ... Just 21 years I'm at this. And you can go ... If you're looking at a solid hardwood ridge, you'll never find a birdseye. The trees ... They grow too well. A birdseye is going to have 20, 25, 30 growth rings per inch.
It takes an old deciduous forest, and basically it's a 200-year cycle. If you cut your wood, the first thing come up is popples. And that takes 20, 30 years. When that starts to ... When the bottom rots off, then the spruce start coming up. 60, 70 years later, the little hardwoods start coming up. The spruce has a canopy over the hardwoods.
What happens there? The birdseye will always make a forked top because it is a stress tree to start with.
Robert: If you see a tree in the forest has a forked top-
Dale: It doesn't guarantee it's a birdseye, but your chances-
Robert: Your chances are greater.
Dale: 99 out of 100 is going to have a forked top.
Robert: Wow. How interesting.
Dale: And so, you're looking at a 200-year cycle. It's nothing no one is ever going to replant. And it takes the right ground also. Rocky ground. You get the Northern Michigan, the UP Peninsula with all the iron mines. Northern New Brunswick here has all the mining. Brunswick mines, which is closed down, but Caribou mines. Brunswick mines.
The rock formation that we're on. The Canadian Shield here. It stresses because there's not a lot of topsoil in some places. That tree is on the high ground. The lack of water. A canopy. And that's what stresses it.
Robert: A tree that has grown or had a life cycle under stress.
Dale: Yes.
Robert: That's going to get you your flame, your curl, your quilts?
Dale: Yeah, and the curly grows more freely than the soft curl. But the birdseye, the hard curl, and the blister ... That's all under high stress.
Robert: And all of your wood, all your trees, come from here in this New Brunswick region?
Dale: New Brunswick. In the past, Maine and right up to Gatineau, Quebec as far as North Sydney, Nova Scotia.
Robert: Right.
Dale: I've traveled the miles.
Robert: And a truck pulls in, they unload, and you go to work.
Dale: Yeah. I go, and I scale that. Every log that comes in here I go scale. And we used to pull in ourselves. I used to run 100,000 kilometers on a tractor trailer a year, but now trying to run the mill and run the other business here and in Bathurst. It's just too much time, and it's more efficient to get someone else to ... I'll go scale it. Get someone else to haul.
Robert: Absolutely. And are we going to be able to see this process?
Dale: Yes.
Robert: We're going to cut it and do all that kind of stuff?
Dale: Yep.
Robert: Fantastic. Folks, you're in for a real treat here.
Making solid guitar body blanks
Folks, what we're going to see here is ... We've got a log here on the lift. What kind of log do we have here, Dale?
Dale: That's a popple. And we're going to make bodies for solid bodies.
Robert: This is going to be solid-body blanks. I used to run one of these sawmills 25 years ago for a friend of mine back in Atlanta when I lived in Atlanta. I cut thousands and thousands of board feet with the LT40 Wood-Mizer. It's got hydraulic lifts on it and diesel motor, and I mean it does everything but makes your coffee. We're going to see a little slicing of some wood here. This is how the process starts.
You got hydraulic levelers on there. You can level the log. Really cool. You can spin the log. Do all kinds of stuff. See it leveling on that end?
Now, it's starting the blade, raising to load the blade, make a slice. There we go.
[Dale walks the Wood-Mizer down the length of the log, cutting along the way. First cut just takes a small section of the top off, then a second cut that is deeper for the body blank]
Sometimes you have to flip your log over to release that tension. That's going to roll it up on the square side.
On the flat side. There we go. Level it again with your hydraulic levelers come in with it. Boy, that brings back memories.
There's the edging over there.
Larger logs can rotate and get your quarters on.
Look at that. Now, take it and put it in the edger. Clean up that edge. Look at that.
This is how it starts, folks. We went from a log to dimensioned lumber. Put it through the edger over here. What's our next step, Dale?
Drying the wood with a vacuum press
Dale: Next step's the dryer.
Robert: Let's go see the dryer. There you go. All right. We're standing in front of the dryer, which is vacuum press with heat. Tell us about this, Dale.
Dale: This vacuum press ... Over the years, I've been drying wood different places, but they kept closing up. And I had initially looked at this in 2006. The first time I had looked at this. This is a vacumpress, and this is out of Vermont.
Jim Parker is the guy I bought it from. We were drying some in Williamsburg, Massachusetts before this, which is same technology, a bigger dryer, but my wait time was 12 to 14 weeks to get the wood back.
With this, every seven days here, I have product.
Robert: New load, right?
Dale: We come off the mill. And for the customers that we service, if they got an order that they need quicker, our turnaround time is certainly a lot better with this unit here. We've been running this two and a half years non-stop.
Robert: What's the difference between this and the old-fashioned kilns?
Dale: Conventional dryer ... You pile up your lumber approximately four bundles high. They put a piece of concrete on top, which looks impressive, but concrete's 125 pound per cubic foot, which is only 62 and a half pound per square foot at six inches thick because that's the slab. You've got 62 and a half-pound weight on top. On the bottom bundle, you've got about 450 pound per square foot.
When you run a vacuum press, you've got 1,250 pound per square foot. On top of this, there's 70 ton. A loaded B-train weighs 64 ton.
Robert: Wow.
Dale: There's a loaded B-train sitting on top of this right now.
Robert: Does it make it go quicker? The process is quicker?
Dale: It's quicker. We're doing a five-quarter lumber right off the saw in seven days, where a conventional dryer ... You air dry for two weeks, and it takes two-weeks-plus to dry. You're one month away, where we can do it in seven days.
Robert: Is there any waste? Do you have splitting of the ends and things like that as it dries?
Dale: We were doing our wood in different places, and what was happening ... We were having a 20% waste factor.
With this drying unit, we got away ... We don't need any anchor seal anymore, and that was costing us $2,300 a tub. We don't need no strapping because we're not putting it on a truck and taking it off.
We were leaving our wood four feet long or eight feet long when we only needed the 36-inch neck. The longest neck. Right now, we leave two inches overrun on a 30-
Robert: That's it? Two inches?
Dale: Two inches is all we need for overrun. We've got it down where we can get approximately 300 necks into the unit.
Of the 4 by 30 size ... And for us, it's a big ... It's paid for itself in less than two years.
Robert: Right. It comes off the mill, comes in here, and what'd you say? Seven days?
Dale: Seven days-
Robert: Seven days [inaudible 00:10:47]-
Dale: ... [inaudible 00:10:47] off the five-quarter lumber straight off the-
Robert: 300 necks?
Dale: Yep.
Robert: Perfect. Very nice. Now, this is not the same thing as cooking the wood, right?
Dale: No, this is a dryer like a conventional dryer, but this is quicker.
Processing the dried wood
Robert: This is what it looks like after it comes out of the vacuum press.
Dale: And this is down to 6% to 8% moisture content.
Robert: And so, from here, what do you do with it?
Dale: Then we process ... If we're going to keep it as a white neck without torrefying it or cooking it, we process it right here.
Robert: Right. Your planers and joiners-
Dale: Yes.
Robert: ... and things like that?
Dale: Yes. The first thing we do is we cut it the length because, if there's any deviation in the twisting or that, which is very little, but we cut it the length first. We make an edge on it on the joiner. We cut it the exact width on the table saw. Then we go back to the joiner, and we make a flat face. And then we go to the-
Robert: Planer?
Dale: ... planer and make a parallel [inaudible 00:11:38]-
Robert: [inaudible 00:11:38]. Surface on four sides, basically.
Dale: Yes. And we do the same with every piece.
Robert: And from there, it's ready to ship out to whoever [inaudible 00:11:45] sell-
Dale: And from there, if we're staying with white material, we're ready to ship. Grade it and ship.
Robert: Now, and that final product then would be this?
Dale: Yes, and this is a higher curl-
Robert: We've wet it just a little bit. There's a beautiful curl in there. A nice flame-
Dale: Rock maple curl.
Robert: Very beautiful. It comes out out of the dryer, dimensioned, and off to LMI to sell?
Dale: Yes.
The torrefaction process
Robert: Good. All right. And if you're going to torrefy it ...
Dale: If we're going to torrefy it ...
Robert: If we have another piece here ...
Dale: This is a piece that's torrefied.
Robert: And Dale calls this cooked wood. What's the technical term? Torrefied?
Dale: Well, it's torrefied is what we use.
Robert: And you'll notice it's a nice brown chocolatey-type color on this. And you're going to run us through that process too, right?
Dale: The wood has to be kiln dried before it goes into the cooker. It's approximately a 60-hour process to change the wood. When we do this, we run from 6% to 8% moisture content down to about five.
The wood loses its elasticity, but tonally it's better because it's denser. That's one of the ... That's just through-the-grapevine feedback from the companies. This helps us with issues such as a small amount of stain because then we don't have no issues with staining or-
Robert: Blueing and type-
Dale: Yes.
Robert: That kind of stuff.
Dale: And the other thing that it does is ... Aesthetically, people like the look of it, the color because when it's ... This is rough, but when we plane this off, it becomes a fawn color. The color of a deer.
Robert: Right. Right. But don't try and bend it, right?
Dale: But don't try and bend it. There's people that have made guitars, and one guy made a violin, but they've been making violins for ... They're third-generation violin builders.
Robert: Right.
Dale: It's possible, but it loses its elasticity.
Robert: It's drier, denser, and apparently better tonally.
Dale: Yes.
Robert: It's a big buzzword right now in the industry. Everybody's saying torrefied wood. Tops. Backsides. Necks.
Guitar blank sets
What we have here, then, is guitar sets. This is maple. Highly figured. Let me just put a little moisture on it here, and you can see the birdseye and the curl and the flame and all kinds of stuff in this lumber. It's just beautiful stuff. And what's happened is this has come out of the kiln. It's been dimensioned with the machinery here. The planers. The joiners. And this guitar set then is ready to go out.
What a beautiful set of wood. And we have neck blanks. We have solid-body blanks. This has been torrefied, right?
Dale: Yes, and this is blister.
Robert: They call it blister. I know it as flamed or quilted.
Dale: On the West Coast, they call it quilt. This comes the hard curly. The birdseye. And this what I call blister. Just to differentiate it so no one gets it mixed up that it's West Coast wood.
Robert: Wow. Folks, we got a-
Dale: This is our East Coast-
Robert: Let's bring that into the camera. Holy cow. Isn't that beautiful? Beautiful stuff. And why are you torrefying this instead of leaving it white? Is that just what the client wants?
Dale: The white doesn't really show the whole pile. The torrefication. And we call it the wow factor. Everybody will look at it, but as soon as we rub water on it, everybody goes, "Wow." That's always the-
Robert: And the torrefication process then amplifies the figure-
Dale: Yes.
Robert: ... in the wood?
Dale: Yes. Amplifies the figure in the wood. It's the same as the birdseye. It's very easy for it to pop.
Robert: Wow.
Dale: And then we just want ... Excuse me one second.
Robert: Is it more stable after you cook it? After you fortify it?
Dale: Yes. Definitely more stable. And then we can go all the way here with a master master, which not too many people going to show you a half a dozen pieces that look like that.
Robert: Wow. That's gorgeous wood. Very dense. Very stable. Very dry. Check our moisture content.
5.3. That's dry. That's dry, folks. Great for building. And this would go out as guitar neck, then?
Dale: Yes. That goes to the custom shop.
Robert: Man, I'm just going to stand here and look through the pile. That's just beautiful stuff.
Dale: This is cooked at a higher temperature. This is a soft maple or red maple curl. And this is cooked at a higher temperature.
Robert: And so, the temperature makes a difference?
Dale: 15 degrees difference on the temperature. You go from this to this.
Robert: Look at that. 15-degree difference. Same time, though, right?
Dale: Same time.
Robert: Just 15-degree difference. Look, you have a ...
Dale: Tilt the other way.
Robert: You have a chocolate and then a lighter fawn color is what you call it.
Dale: Yes.
Robert: Fawn color as a, let's say, is a dark bean roast.
Dale: Dark bean roast. There you go.
Robert: Look at that. And just 15-degree difference.
Dale: 15-degree difference.
Robert: That's amazing. Here's the warehouse. All stuff getting ready to go out for guitar necks, back, side, solid bodies.
Make a few guitars there, folks. Look at this set here. What do we got, Dale?
Dale: This is what we call a big red curly birch, meaning that practically the log was all hard. This is quarter sawn. This come off of a nine-foot 21-inch curly birch. It's been quarter sawn and split. And this is where you get that herringbone-type pattern.
Robert: Right. That's going to be gorgeous.
Dale: And it's one of the only ones that we cook where you get two tones on the color. You notice? I call it a bumblebee.
Robert: Right. Right. Boy, beautiful stuff. And that's cooked at the lighter temperature because it's a little lighter, right?
Dale: Yes.
Robert: Here's some maple finger boards, folks. 2,100 pieces.
Dale says I could be just like a bear. I could live off the garbage in here. And sure enough.
Dale: We make pen blanks out of the best of the best because you need that tight figured eye to-
Robert: Sure. Boy, look at the birdseye and the flame in there. Here's just a little piece of scrap I pulled off of the scrap bin over there.
Dale: That's all it is.
Robert: Going to the burn pile. Look at that. There's a guitar cutting board, folks.
Dale: That's a Gibson body, and that's a Music Man neck. And our longest neck is 36 inches. Basically, all I did was shove the neck down into the body, but we made one of these for the Galamberry golf course.
Speaker 5: Awesome.
Dale: We put a bottle of tequila, the lime, the salt shaker, and we drilled four holes here to put shot glasses.
Speaker 5: That's perfect.
Dale: We made 30 cents-
Robert: There's an idea to do with your leftover scraps, guys.
Speaker 5: Look at that.
Robert: You can make cutting boards and even guitar-shaped cutting boards.
Howard in Texas, thank you very much for your question. And I think now you and many other people can realize the amount of work and effort it goes into processing the lumber that we use in Lutherie.
And happy building.
[on-screen text reads: More Luthier Tips and online courses available at www.obrienguitars.com. Private and small group guitar building and finishing instruction available.]
