Hi, I have recently bought a 12" diameter circle of Ash (full slice through a trunk) that I am thinking of using as a guitar body. I have not worked with this "cut" of wood before and would be interested to know what others think regarding if the wood will cope with the tension of six strings or better to stick with 3 or 4 strings? Thanks, David L.

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  • Thankfully the rain stopped long enough for a final shaping and sanding session. I noticed on one of the cut outs that there were a few small pores that were too deep to sand out. Also the knot in the wood blank was slightly soft to touch and I wanted to keep it as a feature so I tried some Birchwood Casey gun stock sealer and filler for the first time.
    I am really pleased with how easy it was to apply. Two coats so far (see attached), though I may add one more coat before I fine sand and then start with the Tru oil.
  • It has been a long few months, but I finally found a little time to move the project forward. I am making a six string out of it with a Warman pickup that is full humbucker size (but made of a blade minihumbucker, plus a single coil pickup). To try and give a wide tonal range the mini humbucker will be wired for series/single coil/parallel.
    Also I am adding two four pole bass pickups - one at the neck covering the EADG strings and the other at the bridge end covering the DGBe strings. My hope is that by wiring all the magnetic pickups in series using dpdt switches the neck bass pup will add more bass to the mix and the bridge bass pup will add more treble.
    I will also add piezo discs below the bridge for an acoustic sound and use two volumes with diodes to mix magnetic and piezo. It will have two switching jacks so separate amps can be used or just one (the unplugged signal goes to the other Jack).

    Sorry Ning is unable to cope with iPad photos so apologies for attachments.
    Attachment 1 is the pickup slots routed out freehand with a dremel trio (also used for the neck pocket). This is not the humbucker I will use
    Attachment 2 is the first stage sanding to round off the edges and angle where my strumming had will rest.

    Didn't manage to finish the final sanding due to rain, but hope to finish ready for truoil the next clear day I get.
    • Problem uploading -attachment 1

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      • Attachment 2

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        • David,

          Dat's purty! Pleezpleezpleeeeeeez do a gunstock or Tru-Oil finish!!!
          • Tru Oil is ready to go after a little more shaping :0)
  • That's a great piece of wood.

    It's so nice, I don't think I would have the confidence to attack it without the fear of destroying it.

    Finishing it would also give me the 'heebie jeebies'.

    It's going to make a great axe though.. You can see it begging to be carved out of those whorls and swirls..

  • If it is 'wet' and needs to slow-dry...(moisture tester might come in handy here)

    from some of my wood-worker magazines on drying 'chunks of wood'...End grain dries faster than face grain.  to minimize the chance of checking from uneven drying slap some paint on the circumference before you put it away.  you will be sanding/cutting that for your git body anyway.  wrap it in a single sheet of newspaper and stick it in your bedroom closet for a year, the newspaper will diffuse the moisture coming off it more slowly so you lessen the chance of getting a dry surface shrinking and wet core still engorged and find it split in the middle.

    if it is already dry, ignore the ramblings of this old coot, lol

    • JL I have learnt to respect the "ramblings" of others because it usually includes a lot of good information :0)
      I emailed the person who sold me the item and he told me his timber was air dried to between 14 and 16% moisture content.The wood circle arrived with the whole circumference coated with a wax type product. Reading around a few wood working sites the general view seems to be to aim for moisture contents between 9 to 13% for a mildly heated room and between 6 to 10% for a well heated room.
      I have a moisture meter on order and think I will wait until I get readings below 10 until I try to start cutting and routing. Like Ron noticed there is an electric guitar body shape outlined by the edges of the coloured markings begging to be cut.
      Best wishes,
      David L.
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