Ok campers, I am still on vacation, and have been to another luthier conference last week. Came away with some really interesting ideas that I’m going to try out. In the week I had back in the shop between ‘events’ I did some re-sawing of some local curly maple I harvested from a neighborhood tree a few weeks back. It is as nice as I expected. Nice tight curls, and some contrasting, slightly spalted heartwood to boot. Sugar maple is quite hard, makes a very nice sounding ukulele, and then, isn’t this going to make a pretty uke too:
Also did some re-sawing of cashuarina which has made some really nice sounding instruments (though it is much more difficult to work with than maple). There is a whole lot of potential in here:
It will be a while until these pieces of wood turn into instruments, as one want to let them dry completely, but the future looks good ……