?Hi Terry ? Well this is interesting. I'm not exactly new at this?having purchased & intalled?about 100 panels over time from just about every body. Used every ones panels & every type Spruce that I know of except ciresian. My last supplier was Rick Wheeler from Roseland keys. ? ?Great boards. Since my subtle(not) persuasion convinced him to make Sitka panels?in the first place, he was kind enough to?save all the tight grain?wood for me. But, then he ceased?production because the wood supply issues were always the plague. His broker, who was quite good, was always having difficulty finding reliable supplies of the kind of wood we desired. ???? The interesting thing in all this is only once have I ever seen wide?planks in a soundboard panel & that was From the Old Stein & Volk out fit in Idaho. Usually the planks in the soundboards used previously might average 3 to 5 inches if lucky & the consistency of grain would be squirrely or vary a great deal from plank to plank. In the Stein & Volk board?my request?for a perfect board. I needed to see if they could do it. My Spec was straight tight 20 grains an inch with 5 to 8 inch planks. I got almost all 8 inch planks. So gorgeous, Oh & perfectly Quartered....& they did. It was cut from the same cant..(ie. a square cut piece from the log). The color matching?was perfect & the medulary ray just popped.? Looked like a blessed violin top in that BB Mason ? I've been to North west specialty woods & laid eyes on the wood supply. Some of it very nice but,again 3 to 4 inch planks?seemed about the norm & the 200 board feet I ordered from them turned out to be all over the map. Yes, I had a few 6 inch panels but they were 10 grains an inch. I requested? 18 to 25.?To salvage most of that purchase required cutting the wider grain out of a plank so the that the overall grain count in the panel had good uniformity &?at $12.50 a bd ft it was expensive fire wood. I think Steinway gets all the good stuff. ?I've purchased wood from Macbeaths in Berkeley. It's the Bay area wood workers specialty store. Yes, I have bought wider material there but it was not music wood it was for boat building & the color and grain was again a crap shoot as it was not planned.? ?Most of the Wood in cants I purchased this time are 6 to 8 inches wide?& nice a pale. Already stickered & drying in the calif.?climate ? SO the advantage here is I have control over the color matching, grain count & some?say as to future supply. ??My experience?has been?finding this kind of wood supply is not common. If?it is I went to a lot of trouble to acquire it. ? It is great fun... as you well know! ? Dale Erwin ? Hi Dale - I'm not really sure how common wide widths are. The most?narrow boards I've ever bought have been about six inches wide and I've gotten quite a bit of Sitka Spruce that is up to ten inches wide. Most I've bought is in the eight to nine inch wide range. That's why I made all my laminated-rib-making cauls nine inches wide (it's close to the most common width I buy). ? Fun stuff. Have a good time stacking, etc. Nice looking stuff. ? Terry Farrell ----- Original Message ----- From: erwinspiano at aol.com To: pianotech at ptg.org Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 7:03 PM Subject: [pianotech] Final Spruce pics. ? Ok, Ok?? these are the last ones I'll send but I thought they were?of interest.??Did I say I've never laid eyes on this wide of stuff. Ok Never mind!? This reminds me of fishing. The ones that didn't get away ? ? Hey...Fenton come over & save me from the saw dust. I need some help stacking & cutting. ? Just tell Rhonda it's the guys night out. yeah..right ? Dale Get a free MP3 every day with the Spinner.com Toolbar. Get it Now. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090102/5afa7005/attachment.html>
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